Schumer tells Dems to seek common ground

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned fellow Democrats on Thursday they “must put aside our differences” as the party struggles to coalesce around President Joe Biden’s huge but now scaled-back spending bill.

Schumer’s letter to colleagues comes as progressive leaders in Congress speak out about what they call a “false choice” over what to keep or cut as Democrats labor to trim what began as a nearly $3.5 trillion proposal to about $2 trillion.

“As with any bill of such historic proportions, not every member will get everything he or she wants,” Schumer wrote. He implored his colleagues to “find the common ground.”

With the calendar slipping toward a new deadline, the Democrats are facing mounting pressure to reach a deal or risk the collapse of Biden’s signature domestic policy undertaking.

The debate that has been raging behind the scenes is now spilling into public as Biden and his allies in Congress hit another impasse, working to chisel the legislation to a still sizable sum — all to be paid for with taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has warned that “difficult decisions” must be made to reach consensus.

Progressive leaders issued their own letter, arguing the package should not simply be narrowed as centrist lawmakers prefer, but instead kept as Biden’s bigger vision but for fewer than 10 years — “shorter, transformative investments” that could be started quickly and then revisited.

Republicans are dead set against the package. So Biden and his party are left to deliberate among themselves, with all eyes still on two key holdouts, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, whose votes are crucial in the evenly divided Senate. Unless they come on board, there is no clear path to a deal, risking its collapse.

Despite the rising ranks of progressives in the House, Pelosi has appeared to side with some of the more centrist lawmakers, who are among those most at risk of losing their seats in next year’s midterm elections.