WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that congressional Democrats aim to seal a deal this week on Joe Biden’s economic agenda, as feuding liberals and moderates meet with the president at the White House.
“The pace has picked up,” Schumer said after a closed-door lunch with other Senate Democrats. “The desire to get this done is universal.”
He said congressional leaders are pushing for a “framework” by the end of the week on a package of tax increases and programs to fight climate change and expand federal support for education, childcare and health care. That would clear the way to advance that plan as well as the Senate-passed $550 billion public works bill awaiting action in the House.
Nine House Democrats, including Progressive Caucus chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, met with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for about two hours beginning shortly after 2 p.m. in Washington.
Then at 4:30 p.m., Biden, Harris and Yellen were to meet with eight centrist Democrats, including Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Mark Warner of Virginia.
The goal is for the factions to settle on a list of policies to include in the legislation that can appeal to the broadest swath of the party — including two key moderate holdouts, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, and progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders.
After the first meeting, Jayapal said that Biden had discussed a climate and social-spending bill in the range of $1.9 trillion to $2.2 trillion. Progressives gave him a list of five major priorities for the bill, she said, without elaborating.
Biden has been talking individually with Manchin and Sinema, who are pressing him to significantly pare down the social-spending legislation. He met separately Tuesday with both senators, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. Manchin and Sanders met Monday evening at the Capitol after an op-ed Sanders published Oct. 15 in the Charleston Gazette drew a fiery rebuke from the West Virginia senator.
“He just said he’s working very hard with them and he feels like he’s going to try to get us to resolution,” Jayapal said. “And went through some of the things he knows are important to us in terms of what he’s fighting for in the bill.”
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said it was “decision time” for Democrats.
“There was a strong feeling from everyone in that room that this is the week to come together,” he said Tuesday as he left the Democratic luncheon.
Negotiations have dragged on for weeks, threatening both pieces of Biden’s economic agenda — the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure plan and the climate and social-spending bill.
Democratic operatives say that the longer the talks continue, the more opportunity Republicans and allied interest groups will gain to organize opposition to the legislation. Many Democrats believe both bills are crucial for the party’s prospects in the 2022 midterm elections, let alone the success of Biden’s presidency.
Warner said Monday that he thinks a deal is closer, “but boy, it’s taking a while.”
With an eye on the Nov. 2 Virginia governor’s election, Warner has advocated for Congress to clear the infrastructure bill for Biden to sign as negotiations continue on the social-spending bill. But House progressives say they won’t support the infrastructure legislation unless a deal is sealed with Manchin and Sinema on the larger bill, which would carry many of their priorities into law.
While administration officials have said they’d like to see the negotiations soon conclude, Psaki said Tuesday Biden has no “new deadline” to wrap up talks.
“I will just point you to the fact that today he is spending virtually nearly every minute of his day meeting with members of Congress, and I think that’s a reflection of how urgent he feels moving things forward, coming to an agreed-upon path forward, and moving towards delivering to the American people is,” she said in a briefing.
Congressional Democrats have narrowed some of their differences on a top-line price tag for the tax and spending package, but that progress belies deep disagreements on specific policy and funding provisions, particularly climate programs, a proposed Medicare expansion, paid family and medical leave and the child tax credit.
Manchin, who represents a coal-producing state and personally earns income from shares of a coal brokerage he founded, opposes a clean electricity program in the legislation. He’s also called for income restrictions and work requirements for the child tax credit, one of Biden’s top priorities.
An additional complicating factor is that Sinema, an Arizona Democrat whose support is critical for Democrats to advance the bill, hasn’t publicly outlined her main demands for the legislation. Many House Democrats have complained that they don’t know what she wants or what she’ll support.
Congressional leaders have set an Oct. 31 deadline for votes on the two bills, but Manchin said Monday that “I don’t know how that would happen.”
After meeting with Manchin on Monday, Sanders said the American people want Congress to act.
“There is a general feeling that negotiations have been going on month after month after month and that it is time that we brought this thing to a head as soon as we possibly can,” he said. “I would hope that we would see some real action this week.”
