Paid leave may feature in $3.5 trillion spending bill

WASHINGTON — House Democrats took their first steps toward authorizing 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for most Americans, even as one of the party’s own lawmakers raised criticisms.

The vote in front of the tax-focused House Ways and Means Committee marked a critical early milestone in the work to craft a bill encapsulating Joe Biden’s economic policy priorities.

The panel approved a paid family leave plan that could enable most workers to collect at least two-thirds of their earnings if they are absent for reasons including childbirth or illness, with additional sums set aside for lower-income families. The new federal entitlement aims to put an end to the patchwork system currently in place nationwide, opening the door for millions of workers to begin receiving aid that their states or employers do not pay today.

The provisions comprise a central component of a still-forming $3.5 trillion economic package that Democrats hope can deliver sweeping overhauls to federal health care, education, immigration and tax laws.

The vote came on a busy day of marathon legislative sessions across the House as Democrats raced to try to finalize their taxand-spending measure before the end of September. But it was not without its flare-ups, as moderate and liberal-leaning Democratic lawmakers continued to squabble over the size of their economic package and the speed at which they hope to pass it.

In a sign of lingering, intraparty tensions, Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., cast a symbolic vote Thursday against the paid-leave program. Even though she said she supports Democrats’ broader spending efforts, she faulted the party for failing to explain how much the committee’s efforts would cost — and how lawmakers plan to pay for them.

A leader of one of Democrats’ moderate-leaning caucuses, Murphy

further laid into Democrats for racing ahead to try to adopt as much as $3.5 trillion in spending before the end of September, a deadline she describe as “artificial.” And the congresswoman teased potential concerns about its policy scope, saying that she did not think “we can afford to do everything.”

Murphy’s objections did not threaten the committee’s immediate work on paid leave and other issues. But her concerns still could foreshadow additional trouble to come. Conservative

Democrats including Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have sounded concerns with the package and its price tag, raising the possibility that Democrats may have to scale back their ambitions to proceed.