Biden presses fellow Democrats to resolve their party’s disagreements on $3.5T package
WASHINGTON — With a personal push, President Joe Biden pressed fellow Democrats to hasten work on his big “build back better” agenda Wednesday, telling them to come up with a final framework and their best topline budget figure as the party labors to bridge its divisions in Congress ahead of crucial voting deadlines.
Biden and Democratic House and Senate lawmakers met for hours of back-to-back-to-back private White House sessions stretching into the evening, convened at a pivotal juncture for Biden’s $3.5 trillion package as lawmakers struggle to draft details of the ambitious effort. With Republicans solidly opposed, Democratic leaders are counting on the president to galvanize consensus between progressives and centrists in their party.
Biden first conferred with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, then held separate sessions with moderate and progressive senators and representatives. The president listened intently, lawmakers said, but also indicated strongly he wanted progress soon, by next week.
“We’re in good shape,” Pelosi told reporters back at the Capitol after returning.
The White House called the meetings “productive and candid” and said follow-up work would be immediately underway. Earlier in the day, press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House realized that with time growing short “there needs to be deeper engagement by the president.”
The intense focus on Biden’s big-money domestic proposal showcases how much is at stake politically for the president and his party in Congress. The administration has suffered setbacks elsewhere, notably with the Afghanistan withdrawal and prolonged COVID-19 crisis, and Democrats are running short of time, anxious to make good on campaign promises.
Congress is racing toward Monday’s deadline for a House vote on the first part of Biden’s plan — a $1 trillion public works measure — which now also serves as a deadline for producing a compromise framework for the broader package.
At one point, Biden told the lawmakers there were plenty of conference rooms at the White House they could use to hunker down this weekend as some suggested they roll up their sleeves and stay to get final details done.
Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a key centrist who has balked at the $3.5 trillion price tag, said the president told him to come up with a number he could live with.
“He just basically said, ‘Find it,’ ” Manchin said. “‘Just work on it, give me a number.’ ”
“The president is really fired up,” said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, after the evening’s final session.
Meanwhile, the House and Senate remained at a standstill over a separate package to keep the government funded past the Sept. 30 fiscal yearend and to suspend the federal debt limit to avert a shutdown and a devastating U.S. default on payments. Senate Republicans are refusing the House-passed bill.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said at a press conference Tuesday that failing to extend the debt limit was “just not something we can contemplate or we should contemplate.”
As for Biden’s big plans, the president and the Democratic lawmakers appeared to have not fully resolved their differences ahead of Monday’s test vote on the smaller public works bill for roads, broadband and public water projects.
Centrist Democrats want swift passage of the slimmer public works bill and have raised concerns about the price tag of Biden’s broader vision, but progressive Democrats are withholding their votes for the $1 trillion measure they view as inadequate unless it’s linked to the bigger package.