Note to Biden: Love the Senate Less

Two senators should not be pushing a president around on a signature package — legacy legislation called Build Back Better — as time ticks by.

It does not play well. It feels weak when President Joe Biden jokes at a CNN town hall that all senators are presidents.

No, there’s only one, Joe; you’re it. Know your power, the way House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-calif., does.

The rub is that Biden loves the Senate too much. He reveres the place he spent 35 years of his life and treats the two troublemakers as if they are equals.

Presidents should win arguments with senators in their party caucus. Presidents should inspire some fear in boots or heels. Presidents need to win stalemates, especially if outliers are only 2 out of 50 senators.

So much depends upon this moment now, as Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona hack away at Build Back Better, a big vision of social infrastructure.

From the Oval, here’s another president on the phone: “If you want to bring this presidency down, then go ahead!”

That’s former President Bill Clinton shouting at Sen. Bob Kerrey, a Nebraska Democrat, perhaps the only vote against a deficit reduction bill. That was an early make-or-break bill, pardon the pun.

Yet in meetings, Biden patiently let Manchin and Sinema rewrite lines of his major new deal for the American people. With any luck, it will still have free pre-k, child tax credits and home health care for seniors. Whatever it is, it will be half of what it was. Medicare may also expand if Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders has his way. (Sanders sputters at the defiance shown to his good friend Joe.)

Manchin and Sinema have done more than whittle down the edges. Manchin, a staunch defender of coal, strip-mined the strongest climate crisis component. Biden’s strategy was to cut carbon emissions and dramatically increase solar and wind power.

Now, not so much. At least Manchin went to Delaware over the weekend to talk with Biden. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer went too, taking dictation. (Sorry.) Schumer says a “desperately needed” final deal is within reach.

Sinema, for her part in the drama, played aloof to colleagues, leadership and the press. The freshman had the moxie to tell the president not to raise a penny of taxes on the wealthy and not to increase the corporate rate from 21% to 28%. That’s strange because in the House, she voted against Trump tax cuts in 2017.

A fix may be made if taxing billionaires is the compromise. It’s the principle of the thing. Presidential power and elections should be respected. Lyndon Johnson was master of the art, passing big bills on voting and civil rights.

When did this start to ebb? Senate Republican Leader Mitch Mcconnell blocked former President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland.

Obama unwisely let the joust pass. He failed to exert presidential power against a Republican offensive.

Obama’s reluctance to confront congressional Republicans was a pattern that may have hurt Biden later, on a sheer power scale. As Obama’s vice president, Biden took cues from the top and did not deal forcefully with Congress.

With his young presidency on the line, Clinton did get Kerrey’s vote in a 50-50 victory for history. (The vice president breaks ties.)

As author George Stephanopoulos noted, it wasn’t only for Clinton, but for all Democrats under that dome. Kerrey couldn’t betray them, or he’d be “finished.”

Former President Donald Trump abused presidential power, to be sure, in word and deed from the get-go. That’s not what I mean.

Pelosi consults her caucus yet wields the final word with the House Democrats. A very mixed bunch, they fear crossing their leader.

With the country convulsed in crisis, negotiations are taking too long. For the common good, Biden should act less like a Roman patrician senator.

Oh, the Senate is grand, with columns, verandas, chandeliers, marble busts, Italianate frescoes and murals. Southern cuisine is served. The summer lemonade is to die for.

You could easily spend 35 years there, as Biden did, a cross between a country club and “plantation,” as it’s nicknamed.

Note to Biden: you’re not in that club anymore.