Top Dem sees tough pathway for social, climate plans

WASHINGTON » Hours after clinching an initial budget victory, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer conceded Wednesday that Democrats face a tough pathway to delivering a package surging $3.5 trillion into family, health and environment programs to President Joe Biden’s desk.

Schumer, D-N.Y., made the remarks after the Senate approved a budget resolution outlining Democrat’s 10-year plan for transforming the government into an engine focused on helping lower- and middle income people and slowing the planet’s ominously warming temperatures.

The real test will be when Democrats write and vote on subsequent legislation actually enacting the party’s priorities into specific spending and tax policies. To succeed, Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., will have to satisfy competing demands from party moderates worried about a fat price tag and progressives demanding an all-out drive for their priorities, all with virtually no margin for error in the narrowly divided Congress.

“We still have a long road to travel,” Schumer told reporters, turning to a football analogy. “It’s as if we caught a nice long pass at midfield, but we still have 50 yards to go before we score a touchdown.”

Actually, some might compare it more to being halfway up Mount Everest with the steeper climb ahead. That’s because it’s easier for leaders to coax votes from lawmakers for a budget blueprint than it is when they’re writing actual changes in spending and tax laws that will deeply impact voters, interest groups and campaign contributors.

Underscoring the political broadsides that lay ahead, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said in a statement that he has “serious concerns about the grave consequences” of spending an additional $3.5 trillion that he said could fuel inflation and threaten the economy. The views of Manchin, one of the Senate’s most conservative Democrats, clash with progressives’ hopes for that amount or more.

Much of the cost of Democrats’ proposal would be borne by wealthy people and large corporations, another area where some centrist Democrats may be wary.

The Senate on Tuesday approved the other big chunk of Biden’s objectives, a compromise $1 trillion bundle of transportation, water, broadband and other infrastructure projects. That measure, which passed 69-30 with 19 Republicans backing it, still needs House approval.

The Senate approved the budget resolution at about 4 a.m. EDT Wednesday over uniform Republican opposition, 50-49. It seems sure to get final congressional approval from the House later this month.

That fiscal blueprint’s passage is pivotal because that will protect a follow-up bill enacting specific Democratic policies into law from a GOP filibuster in the 50-50 Senate, which would otherwise kill that legislation. Democrats have just a three-vote cushion in the House as well.

Pointedly, he did not specify that the bill would provide the full amounts for Biden’s priorities that the president wants. To fit Democrats’ goals into their budget plans, some Biden policies may need to be made less ambitious or phased in or out over time.

A chief force behind Democrats’ drive has been Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. He said the measure would help children, families, the elderly and working people — and more.

“We still have a long road to travel. It’s as if we caught a nice long pass at midfield, but we still have 50 yards to go before we score a touchdown.” — Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader