House Dems near truce, approach infrastructure win for Biden

Another progressive, Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., said of the apparent deal with moderates: “We drafted it with them. I think everyone seems to be moving in the right direction”

Progressives have long demanded that the two massive bills be voted on together to pressure moderates to support the larger, more expansive social measure.

Democrats’ day fell apart when after hours of talks, a half-dozen moderates insisted they would vote against the sprawling package of health, education, family and climate change initiatives unless the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office first provided its cost estimate for the measure.

Democratic leaders have said that would take days or more. With Friday’s delay and lawmakers’ plans to leave town for a week’s break, those budget estimates could well be ready by the time a vote is held.

When the infrastructure measure cleared the Senate, its GOP supporters even included Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The package would provide huge sums for highway, mass transit, broadband, airport, drinking and waste water, power grids and other projects.

But it became a pawn in the long struggle for power between progressives and moderates. Earlier Friday, Jayapal said the White House and Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation had provided all the fiscal information lawmakers needed for the broad bill.

“If our six colleagues still want to wait for a CBO score, we would agree to give them that time — after which point we can vote on both bills together,” she wrote. That strongly suggested that some progressives were ready to vote against the infrastructure bill.

But that changed after the two Democratic factions reached their agreement.

House passage of the social and environment package would send it to the Senate, where it faces certain changes and more Democratic drama. That’s chiefly because of demands by Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to contain the measure’s costs and curb or drop some of its initiatives.

Moderates have forced leaders to slash the roughly 2,100-page measure to around half its original $3.5 trillion size. Republicans oppose it as too expensive and damaging to the economy.

The package would provide large numbers of Americans with assistance to pay for health care, raising children and caring for elderly people at home. The package would provide $555 billion in tax breaks encouraging cleaner energy and electric vehicles. Democrats added provisions in recent days restoring a new paid family leave program and work permits for millions of immigrants.

Much of the package’s cost would be covered with higher taxes on wealthier Americans and large corporations.

Moderate opposition and strict Senate rules about what can be included in the massive bill suggest that the family leave program and the immigration provisions may be dropped in that chamber.