Panel OKs Dems’ $3.5T Bill, Crunch Time for Biden Agenda – NBC 6 South…

Democrats pushed a $3.5 trillion, 10-year bill strengthening social safety net and climate programs by the House Budget Committee on Saturday, but one Democrat opposed the measure in an illustration of the challenges party leaders confront in getting the near unanimity they’ll need to push the sprawling package by Congress.

The Democratic-dominated panel, meeting virtually, approved the measure on a near party-line vote, 20-17. The passage marked a necessary but minor checking of a procedural box for Democrats by edging it a step closer to argue by the complete House. Under budget rules, the committee wasn’t already allowed to considerably amend the 2,465-page measure, the product of 13 other House committees.

The more important work has been happening in an opaque procession of mostly unannounced phone calls, meetings and other bargaining sessions among party leaders and rank-and-file lawmakers. President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have led a behind-the-scenes hunt for compromises to resolve internal divisions and, they hope, allow approval of the huge bill soon.

Pelosi told fellow Democrats in a letter Saturday that they “must” pass the social and ecosystem bill this week, along with a separate infrastructure bill and a third measure preventing a government shutdown on Friday. She underscored the pile of crucial work Congress’ Democratic majority faces in coming days and seemed an effort to build urgency to resolve long-standing disputes quickly.

“The next few days will be a time of intensity,” she wrote.

Moderate Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., joined all 16 Republicans on the Budget committee in opposing the legislation. His objections included one that troubles many Democrats: a reluctance to back a bill with provisions that would later be dropped by the Senate.

Many Democrats don’t want to become politically unprotected by backing language that might be controversial back home, only to see it not become law. That preference for voting only on a social and ecosystem bill that’s already a House-Senate compromise could complicate Pelosi’s effort for a House vote this week.

Peters was among three Democrats who earlier this month voted against a plan favored by most in his party to lower pharmaceutical costs by letting Medicare negotiate for the prescription drugs it buys.

Party leaders have tried for weeks to resolve differences among Democrats over the package’s final price tag, which seems sure to spread. There are also disputes over which initiatives should be reshaped, among them expanded Medicare, tax breaks for children and health care, a push toward cleaner energy and higher levies on the high and corporations.

Democrats’ wafer-thin majorities in the House and Senate average compromise is mandatory. Before the measure the Budget panel approved Saturday already reaches the House floor, it is expected to be changed to mirror at any rate House-Senate accords have been reached, and additional revisions are likely.

The overall bill embodies the crux of Biden’s top domestic goals. Budget panel chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., cited “decades of disinvestment” on needs like health care, education, child care and the ecosystem as the rationale for the legislation.

“The futures of millions of Americans and their families are at stake. We can no longer provide the costs of neglect and inaction. The time to act is now,” Yarmuth said.

Republicans say the proposal is unneeded, unaffordable amid accumulated federal debt exceeding $28 trillion and reflects Democrats’ excursion to insert government into people’s lives. Its tax contributes will cost jobs and include credits for buying electric vehicles, purchases often made by people with comfortable incomes, they said.

“This bill is a disaster for working-class families,” said Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, the committee’s top Republican. “It’s a big giveaway to the wealthy, it’s a laundry list of agenda items pulled right out of the Bernie Sanders socialist playbook.”

The uncommon weekend session occurred as top Democrats amp up efforts to end increasingly bitter disputes between the party’s centrist and progressive wings that threaten to undermine Biden’s agenda.

Biden conceded Friday that talks among Democrats were at a “stalemate,” though Pelosi and Schumer have been more positive in an apparent effort to build momentum and soothe differences. A collapse of the measure at his own party’s hands would be a wounding preview to the coming election year, in which House and Senate control are at stake.

To nail down moderates’ sustain for an earlier budget blueprint, Pelosi promised to begin House consideration by Monday of another pillar of Biden’s domestic plans: a $1 trillion collection of roadway and other infrastructure projects. Pelosi reaffirmed this week that the infrastructure argue would begin Monday.

But many moderates who consider the infrastructure bill their top goal also want to cut the $3.5 trillion social and ecosystem package and trim or reshape some of its programs. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have been among the most visible centrists demanding a smaller price tag.

In response, progressives — their top priority is the $3.5 trillion measure — are threatening to vote against the infrastructure bill if it comes up for a vote first. Their opposition seems likely to be enough to scuttle it, and Pelosi hasn’t definitively said when a vote on final passage of the infrastructure measure will occur.

With each portion of the party threatening to upend the other’s most cherished goal — a political disaster in the making for Democrats — top Democrats are using the moment to accelerate talks on the enormous social and climate legislation. Compromise is a requirement, because the party can lose no votes in the Senate and a maximum of three in the House to succeed in the narrowly divided Congress.

Biden met with over 20 congressional Democrats this week, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said such meetings would continue next week.