Democrats pitch spending plan

Campaign across U.S. seeks to win over constituents, others

LAWSON, Colo. — Calculating that voters might be more receptive if they understand the tangible benefits of the $3.5 trillion spending plan moving through Congress, Democrats have embarked on a nationwide sales pitch for the expansive budget plan and a related $1 trillion bipartisan public works measure to win over their constituents and others around the nation.

Standing alongside Clear Creek, a popular white-water rafting destination in the gateway to the Rocky Mountains west of Denver, Sen. Michael Bennet delivered his pitch for $60 billion in new spending to protect the state’s forests and watersheds against recurring fires and their widespread impact.

“It sounds like a lot of money,” Bennet, D-Colo., said as a group of officials and business leaders nodded in agreement. “But it is what we spend in five years fighting forest fires.”

While $60 billion is indeed a big price tag, $3.5 trillion is much bigger. That is the total cost of the budget blueprint that Democrats muscled through the Senate and House last month, and hope to transform into a bill that President Joe Biden can sign in the coming weeks as they fight off Republican attacks on the size and scope of the measure — and some sticker shock on their own side as well.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who is overseeing the development of the economic package as chair of the Budget Committee, spent three days traveling across the Midwest, explaining the policy ambitions of the Democratic majority before hundreds of people in Republican-leaning districts.

The Democratic National Committee just concluded a multistate “Build Back Better” bus tour. Participants extolled the virtues of Democratic governance, trying to show voters in places like Arizona, the Carolinas, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and Wisconsin the real-life ramifications of the bills yet to pass and measures already approved, such as the $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief legislation enacted this year over unanimous Republican opposition. Other Democrats are making similar appeals and pushing the legislation on their social media accounts.

“At the end of the day, these are real-world things that will have a huge impact on how people will live their lives in a way that we have not seen in policy from the federal government in a very long time,” said Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee and a regular on the bus tour.

But Democrats are not going to have an open field to make their case. Congressional Republicans are solidly lined up against the budget proposal, which Democrats plan to push through unilaterally using a maneuver known as reconciliation. Together with conservative advocacy groups, they are already on the attack, using the plan as fundraising fodder and airing ads in the states and districts of vulnerable Democrats in Congress, urging them to oppose a measure that will require complete Democratic unity to pass the evenly split Senate.

For instance, Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., who is up for reelection, noted in a fundraising appeal that Sanders made a stop in Indiana to push a “reckless liberal wish list budget” and warned that the cost would “hurt American families.”

Republicans say the partisan nature of the bill, which is to be considered under special rules that exempt it from a filibuster, as well as the huge amount of spending and the inclusion of special interest provisions will turn off swing voters in the suburbs who propelled Biden to victory and helped Democrats hold the House and win the Senate in 2020.

Democrats are determined to persuade voters to see it quite differently.

If Democrats can demonstrate the concrete benefits of the budget plan to farmers and other blue-collar Americans, Bennet said, it could help them make inroads with conservatives.