BIDEN RALLIES SUPPORT FOR DEMS’ SPENDING PLAN

Some lawmakers optimistic, but not yet willing to commit

President Joe Biden on Wednesday tried to solidify a fragile coalition of Democrats to make progress on his massive infrastructure proposal that would both rebuild the nation’s roads and enact a broad array of social programs, such as new Medicare benefits, child care assistance and immigration reform.

Biden visited Capitol Hill a day after a group of Democrats

said their social program bill, which Democrats plan to enact on a strict partyline vote, would total $3.5 trillion.

Added to the approximately $600 billion earmarked for “hard infrastructure” that Biden hopes to enact on a bipartisan basis, the whole package would amount to $4.1 trillion in new spending over a decade.

“We’re going to get this done,” Biden said as he arrived for the Senate Democrats’ lunch in the Capitol.

Democrats have to walk a tightrope as they try to push the bills ahead in the coming weeks. Biden’s challenge, with slim margin for error, will be preserving support from progressives, who originally wanted $6 trillion in new spending, and centrists, who wanted a smaller price tag and an assurance that it is entirely paid for.

Biden also needs the support of at least 10 Senate Republicans on the bipartisan infrastructure plan in order to pass it.

The $3.5 trillion proposal exists only as a framework, with details to be negotiated in the weeks to come. The outline is ambitious and, if enacted, would mark one of the most substantial expansions of government-funded social policy since the New Deal.

During a lunch visit lasting just under an hour, the president answered lawmakers’ questions and emphasized the potentially historic level of economic benefits for working families, according to senators who attended. Biden referred to the proposal as the “biggest middleclass tax cut in history,” they said.

Many Democrats emerged emboldened and cheering for a plan crafted by leadership with strong input from the White House.

But several Democrats said they wouldn’t commit support until they saw policy details and wanted to ensure that their states’ interests are represented.

Sen. Chris Murphy, DConn., for instance, wants railways in the Northeast to be fortified. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a key centrist, sent a warning signal that he doesn’t like what he views as a move away from fossil fuels.

In the Senate, Democrats will need to keep every member of their caucus on board to pass a bill, giving each one significant leverage.

Manchin told Democratic leaders he is concerned about “maintaining the energy independence that the United States of America has and with that you cannot be moving toward the elimination of fossil.”

To address the climate crisis, the plan would impose a clean energy standard, provide tax incentives for clean energy and vehicles, impose a methane fee on oil and gas producers, create a civilian climate corps and impose climate-smart agricultural, wildfire prevention and forestry policies.

The framework also calls for a massive expansion of Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing coverage, and would expand home- and community-based health programs, extend a temporary boost to tax credits under the Affordable Care Act and provide health insurance coverage in states that have not expanded the Medicaid program.