Presented by Pharma.

Hey, good morning, Playbookers. I'm Ragu Minnavalin. It's Thursday. And here's your lead of the day,

build back never. This is your Politico Playbook daily briefing.

Politico's Burgess Everett has a story up today on the latest in the infrastructure bill,

and well, you can probably figure out how it's going.

Here's a quote.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed in December that the chamber will vote on a revised version of the House past Build Back Better Act,

and we will keep voting on it until we get something done.

That's not the strategy at the moment.

Instead, the Senate is now in a long cooling off period.

Democrats are turning to fixing the Postal Service, sexual misconduct reform,

spending bills, the Supreme Court vacancy, the Violence Against Women Act,

and possibly changing the Electoral Count Act and sanctioning Russia.

No pressure.

Dealing with those items could take a couple of months or longer, pushing the Senate closer and

closer to the midterms.

Most Democrats concede they could not revive a tax and spending bill before April,

and the final deadline is September 30th, when Democrats' existing powers to push the

defunct bill past a

filibuster expire. But Congress did pass what was called a budget bipartisan breakthrough.

Politico's Jennifer Schultes reports that lawmakers Wednesday reached overarching budget agreements

to, quote, boost military and non-defense funding, paving the way for a comprehensive deal

...