TIME FOR SOME GAME THEORY — Sen. Joe Manchin holds immense sway over Biden's agenda, and he hasn't been shy about it. The West Virginia senator, widely regarded as the swing vote in the Democrats' 50-seat Senate majority, played hardball on the president's $1.9 trillion Covid relief package. Now the Democrats' most right-leaning senator is looking for changes in Biden's plan to pay for infrastructure. He said this week that "this whole thing here has to change." "The bill, basically, is not going to end up that way," Manchin told West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kercheval. "If I don't vote to get on it, it's not going anywhere. So we're going to have some leverage here." Maybe Manchin does have enough leverage to make Biden bend on the corporate tax rate. Or maybe Biden's concessions will come in a different form. Think back to what Republicans called the "Cornhusker Kickback." Senate Dems needed every one of their 60 votes to pass the Affordable Care Act without a Republican filibuster. Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson was the last to commit. Then-Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman didn't like the bill's required expansion of Medicaid, saying it would destroy the state's budget. So Nelson talked with then-Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, who adjusted the bill language so that Nebraska's share would be covered by the federal government forever, while other states were forced to pay for part of the expansion costs. So how should Manchin maximize his advantage in 2021? Nightly's Myah Ward asked actual game theorists to assess his situation — and Biden's. Here are their lightly edited responses. "Assume U.S. politicians want to maximize their chance for reelection. Then they support policies that their voters favor and oppose policies that their voters dislike — or find ways to compensate their voters for such policies. "Biden's voters are nationally drawn, while Manchin's are local, and Biden has little expectation of winning the Electoral College in West Virginia. Hence, the policies that satisfy Biden's coalition and that satisfy Manchin's probably barely overlap. "For Manchin to support Biden's infrastructure package it must provide sufficient benefits for Manchin's constituents to offset the parts his voters see as undesirable (e.g., social programs, high-speed rail). "As both Manchin and Biden are up for reelection in 2024, neither has much time to overcome lost voter support. Biden must concede enough to Manchin to get his support while not giving so much as to alienate his own backers. Whether the elements in the bill that Biden's backers must have overlap with the bill that Manchin's voters can accept probably depends on unrelated concessions that Biden can make to benefit Manchin's voters." — Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, professor of politics at New York University "Sen. Manchin has already started stating his demands very publicly, most notably disagreeing with the corporate tax rate increase from 21 percent to 28 percent and signaling that 25 percent would be ideal. "This does not mean, however, that President Biden needs to meet all of Sen. Manchin's demands as the timing of the legislative process works to the president's advantage. Once the legislation is up for a vote, Sen. Manchin's threats to effectively veto a bill that does not completely please him may be irrelevant. He will need to choose between voting yes and being blamed for the bill's failure. "It is hard to believe that when forced to decide, Sen. Manchin will vote no on an otherwise popular bill due to a 3-percentage points difference in corporate tax rate if other provisions of the bill are popular among his constituency. Hence, Joe Biden's best bet is not to scale down the size of the bill by lowering the bill's corporate tax rate to meet Manchin's demands, but instead include provisions that visibly benefit Manchin's state of West Virginia." — Wioletta Dziuda, professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy "The secret of this situation is that either Manchin or McConnell (not to mention Blunt and other GOP Senators in terms of crossing the aisle) can help carry the bill over the line in the Senate. Biden's best approach, if feasible, is to find something that lets all of them claim some victory. Something that clearly benefits only one of these pivotal actors may drag Biden into a different bargaining dynamic and slow/kill the process. The secret is to make the counterparties worry about whether the others will agree to it and leave the obstructor with nothing." — John W. Patty, professor of political science and quantitative theory and metrics at Emory University
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