Dems hit road to sell spending bills
Republicans solidly lined up against $3.5T proposal
LAWSON, Colo. — Standing alongside Clear Creek, a popular white-water rafting destination in this 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.
Calculating that voters might be more receptive if they understand the tangible benefits of the emerging measure, Democrats have embarked on an elaborate 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.
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 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.
“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, an Indiana Republican 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.
In Bennet’s case, he is emphasizing the local benefits of the hulking bill. In particular, it calls for the Senate agriculture committee to allocate $135 billion for an array of federal
efforts, including “forestry programs to help reduce carbon emissions and prevent wildfires.”
While Colorado has so far been spared a wildfire crisis this summer, last year was a disaster, with extensive losses both in destroyed homes and overall economic damage.
This year, disruptive mudslides from the scars of the multiple fires and runoff in burned areas has turned segments of the Colorado River and other waterways black.
Bennet, who is up for reelection next year, said the $60 billion currently spent on firefighting covered only direct costs and did not include other aspects, such as the lost tourism and the effects of air pollution. He said understaffed and chronically underfunded
agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service needed an infusion of money to take steps to lower the threat of fires, rather than just battle them as they occur.
Local officials said that they recognized the magnitude of the spending bill but that the needs were huge, particularly considering the losses experienced with fires, closed parks and disruptions like the mudslides that closed the state’s main east-west highway, for parts of the summer.
“The scale of the problem has become enormous,” said Randall Wheelock, chair of the Clear Creek County Board of Commissioners, who said “billions and billions of dollars” of real estate was at risk from fires and climate change, along with the health of the state’s waterways and economy.