It is a major step in the party’s push to meet the president’s goal of bolstering an economy ravaged by the coronavirus and setting it on course for growth. It includes a Medicare expansion of vision, hearing and dental benefits for older Americans, a goal of progressives.
Senate Democrats said late on Tuesday they had reached a budget agreement that envisions spending an enormous $3.5tn over the coming decade, paving the way for their drive to pour federal resources into climate change, healthcare and family service programs sought by Joe Biden.
Major step in party’s push to pour resources into climate change, healthcare and family service programs sought by president
While some of the more liberal Democrats on Wednesday said they had hoped for a bigger plan, they had yet to reject the $3.5tn deal.
At the least they will need the support of all 50 of their senators – plus Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking Senate vote – to pass the $3.5tn package over Republican opposition in the 100-seat Senate, using a maneuver called reconciliation that can facilitate financing-related bills by getting a...
Biden later met with a bipartisan group of mayors and governors at the White House to discuss the $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure framework.
Biden represented Delaware in the US Senate for more than 35 years and served as Barack Obama’s vice-president for the Democrat’s two terms in the White House, before becoming president himself by beating Donald Trump in the 2020 election.
In response to reporters’ questions shouted to him as he left the meeting on Capitol Hill, Biden said: “Great to be home. Great to be back with my colleagues. I think we’re going to get a lot done.”
It also found that nearly two-thirds of the country supports increasing taxes on “the highest-earning Americans” to pay for the improvements.
An Ipsos poll conducted this month for Reuters found that most Americans want the kind of infrastructure improvements that are included in the Biden plan.
He just kept on telling us to think about his neighbors in Scranton,” Murphy said, referring to Biden’s Pennsylvania home town. “Think about whether what we’re doing is going to pass muster with the folks that he grew up with
Republicans voiced immediate objections to the plan’s massive size, as did at least one key moderate Democrat whose support would be critical to passage.
Pelosi added: “This budget agreement is a victory for the American people, making historic, once-in-a-generation progress for families across the nation.”
Meanwhile the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, sent out a letter to fellow House Democrats saying the plan indicates that an agreement on a final bill “will contain many of House Democrats’ top priorities, including transformative action on the investments needed to confront the climate crisis”
Biden posed with Schumer as they made matching gestures of air-punching resolution, as Biden said: “We’re going to get this done.”
Joe Biden made the short but significant journey from the White House to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a key meeting to bolster Senate Democrats’ $3.5tn “human infrastructure” plan
President joins Senate Democrats for lunch a day after Schumer announces agreement on spending proposal
“There is an acknowledgment on our side that we didn’t foresee this advance, we weren’t comprehensively prepared,” said one official with access to the president.