Biden’s domestic policy plan churns in Congress

WASHINGTON » It’s big. It’s messy. And it’s very politically complicated. That’s President Joe Biden’s sweeping domestic policy package as Democratic leaders in Congress try to muscle it into law.

Fallout was brutal Friday after Biden’s announcement of a $1.75 trillion framework, chiseled back from an initial $3.5 trillion plan, still failed to produce ironclad support from two key holdout senators — West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizonan Kyrsten Sinema. On Capitol Hill, Congress adjourned the night before with fingers pointed, tempers hot and so much at stake for the president and his party.

Yet a formal nod of endorsement of Biden’s plan from the party’s Congressional Progressive Caucus late Thursday moved the president one step closer to the support needed for passage in the House. Determined to wrap it up, the House will try next week to pass Biden’s big bill, along with a companion $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package.

“It’s only 90% done,” said Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. “So you got to get through the complicated — the last 10%, as you know, is always the most difficult.”

The fast-moving — then slow-crawling — state-of-play in Congress puts the president and his party at significant political risk.

Biden’s slipping approval rating and the party’s own hold on Congress are at stake with the 2022 midterm election campaigns soon underway. Democrats are struggling in governor’s races next week in Virginia and New Jersey, where safe victories might have been expected.

“It’s sort of stunning to me that we’re in this place,” an exasperated Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., told reporters late Thursday as the House adjourned.

Biden arrived that morning on Capitol Hill triumphant in announcing a historic framework on the bill that he claimed would get 50 votes in the Senate. But the two Democratic Senate holdouts Manchin and Sinema responded maybe, maybe not.

Manchin and Sinema’s reluctance to fully embrace Biden’s plan set off a domino series of events that sent Biden to overseas summits emptyhanded and left the party portrayed as in disarray.