■ Joe Biden met with Senate Democrats in search of support for his domestic agenda.
President pursuing OK for big-ticket programs
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden made a quick foray to the Capitol on Wednesday hunting support for his multitrillion-dollar agenda of infrastructure, health care and other programs that would require near-unanimous backing from Democrats.
His visit came a day after Senate Democratic leaders capped weeks of bargaining by agreeing to spend a mammoth $3.5 trillion over the coming decade on initiatives focusing on climate change, education, a Medicare expansion and more.
That is on top of a separate $1 trillion bipartisan compromise on roads, water systems and other infrastructure projects that senators from both parties are negotiating, with Biden’s support.
The president spent just under an hour at a closed-door lunch with Democratic senators in the building where he served for 36 years as a Delaware senator and where his party controls the House and Senate, though just barely. Participants said Biden paced the room with a microphone taking questions and received several standing ovations.
“It is great to be home,” Biden told reporters after his first working meeting at the Capitol with lawmakers since becoming president. “It is great to be with my colleagues, and I think we are going to get a lot done.”
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said the president urged them to consider whether their plan would help people in Biden’s blue-collar hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. “His point was that we need to be thinking about folks who have given up on democracy,” Murphy said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, top Republican on the Budget Committee, belittled the emerging plan as a wasteful liberal wish list that would fuel inflation and boost taxes.
“Count me in for real infrastructure.
Count me out for a tax-and-spend plan from hell,” he said in a statement.
In a harbinger of potential problems, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin signaled he would oppose plans to curb fossil fuels, a lifeblood for his state’s economy.