Democrats are on the verge of a make-or-break moment that will determine the fate of Joe Biden’s ambitious economic agenda, as they rush to bridge the internal divisions threatening to derail passage of the sweeping $3.5tn social policy package and a smaller infrastructure bill.
Failure would be disastrous for the president and his party’s political prospects in the midterm elections next year, but success was far from certain with less than 48 hours left before a consequential vote in the House on Thursday.
With the fate of his legacy-defining domestic agenda hanging in the balance, Biden canceled a scheduled trip to Illinois to continue negotiations in Washington on Wednesday and dug in for another day of frenetic talks between the White House and Capitol Hill.
Democratic leaders publicly projected confidence as they toiled behind the scenes to craft a compromise proposal that satisfies the many demands and competing interests that have forestalled progress, notably the dogged opposition of two moderate Democratic senators. With Republicans unified in their opposition, they will need the vote of every Democrat in the Senate and nearly every Democrat in the House.
“In the next day or so we hope to come to a place where we can all move forward on that,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told reporters on Tuesday at the Capitol. “We will pass both bills.”
But her certainty seemed presumptuous after a series of Oval Office meetings with the key Democratic holdouts, Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, yielded “progress” but no deal.
Democrats broadly share Biden’s vision for his $3.5tn “Build Back Better” agenda, also known as the reconciliation bill, which includes a once-in-a-generation expansion of the nation’s social safety net and an overhaul of the tax code. But disputes remain over the particulars of the legislation, from its overall size to its tax-raising proposals as well as several key policy measures that would combat climate change and expand healthcare and childcare. Both Manchin and Sinema have objected to the price tag, but offered few specifics on their sticking points.
Meanwhile, an impasse between moderates and progressives threatened to block a House vote scheduled for Thursday on the smaller infrastructure bill, a defeat that would upend the delicate negotiations and potentially sink the entire effort.
At the center of the tumult is also a deal Pelosi made with moderates and progressives, to tie the infrastructure bill, which passed the Senate earlier this year with bipartisan support and would fund roads, broadband and other infrastructure projects, to the far larger policy proposal.
Pelosi had promised to hold a vote on both measure at the same time. But she has now told her caucus that the House should proceed with passage of the infrastructure bill while the Senate attempts to reach a consensus on the spending plan.
“The change in circumstance regarding the reconciliation bill has necessitated a change in our Build Back Better legislation but not in our values,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democrats on Tuesday.
Progressives were furious about the change of strategy, with some calling it a “betrayal”. Several members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus doubled down on their threat to oppose the infrastructure bill on Thursday without ironclad agreements from House leadership and Senate Democrats that the broader package will pass.
“Progressives will vote for both bills, but a majority of our members will only vote for the infrastructure bill after the president’s visionary Build Back Better Act passes,” Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the caucus chairwoman, said in statement after surveying her 96 members on Tuesday.
Pelosi on Wednesday signaled that the House would move forward with a vote on the infrastructure bill on Thursday, though she made clear that she had the power to unilaterally delay the vote if necessary. To bring progressives along, she said Biden and Senate Democrats would need to agree to “legislative language” on the larger reconciliation bill – a tall order that Manchin said would not be possible before Thursday’s vote.
Moderates, who pushed for the infrastructure vote this week, are confident they can pass the $1tn measure with Republican support if progressives follow through on their threat to vote it down. But Republican leaders are pressuring their members to oppose the measure and force Democrats to come up with the votes on their own. It remains unclear how many House Republicans will back the infrastructure plan, which passed the Senate with 19 Republican votes.
If Democrats can pull it off, the legislation has the potential to be transformative for millions of American families. It would extend the child tax credit, establish universal pre-K, create a federally paid family and medical leave system, in addition to an array of programs to combat climate change and transition the country toward renewable energy. The plan would be paid for by trillions of dollars in tax increases on the wealthiest Americans and corporations.
Biden has said that the total cost of the bill is actually “zero” since it will be offset by an increase in tax revenue over several years.
Republicans have decried the scale of Biden’s spending and tax plan, saying that it would stifle economic growth and worsen the nation’s debt.
“This spending is on a scale not seen before in our country,” said the Republican senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, hoisting a copy of the 2,465-page draft legislation. “This bill represents Bernie Sanders’ socialist dream.”
With Biden’s economic agenda hanging in the balance, Democrats are also scrambling to avert a government shutdown and avoid a financial crisis with the national debt, after Republican senators blocked a measure that would have funded the federal agencies and raised the country’s borrowing limit.
Speaking on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, warned lawmakers that the consequences of failing to raise or suspend the debt limit would be “catastrophic”. Without congressional action, she said the treasury department will struggle to pay its bills on 18 October.
Hours later, Senate Republicans rejected a second attempt by Democrats to raise the debt ceiling, this time using a procedural maneuver to avoid a filibuster. By Wednesday, Democrats were preparing to push through a bill to avoid a shutdown but remained in a perilous stand off with Republicans over how to proceed on the debt limit.
Adding to Pelosi’s troubles, however, a group of moderate House Democrats threatened to vote against a bill that would extend the debt limit through mid-December, amid fears they would be attacked by Republicans as fiscally irresponsible during next year’s midterm elections.
“I have no patience for people not voting for this,” Pelosi said on Wednesday, her frustration evident. She noted that House Democrats voted last week to lift the debt ceiling. “If they’re concerned how it might be in an ad, it’s already in an ad.”
Even if the House passes the measure, it has no clear path forward in the Senate, where a Republican filibuster awaits.
Can Democrats salvage Biden’s agenda, keep the federal government open and avert fiscal calamity?
“You know me, I’m a born optimist,” Biden said on Monday, as he rolled up his sleeve to receive a Covid-19 booster shot. “We’re gonna get it done.”
