Democrats Move to Avoid Shutdown, but Divisions Imperil Biden’s Agenda


WASHINGTON — Democrats drafted legislation Wednesday to avoid a government shutdown this week, but conservative-leaning conservatives were desperately trying to bail out President Biden’s domestic agenda as he opposed an ambitious $3.5 trillion social safety net and climate bill that bears many of the party’s many. top priorities.

Congressional leaders acted to address the most pressing threat and sought to complete a bill to prevent government funding cuts at midnight on Thursday. Still, after days of intense negotiations to resolve sharp differences in Mr. Biden’s two parties over his two biggest legislative priorities, the president and top Democrats are more likely than ever to reach an agreement on the marquee social policy package the White House is calling Build Back. they looked distant. Better plan.

That, in turn, jeopardized a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill scheduled for a House vote on Thursday.

The fate of the two measures may define the success of Mr Biden’s presidency, and the intense negotiations surrounding them set a test of his skills as a deal maker, which he highlighted as a calling card during his White House campaign. But after days of in-person talks with lawmakers in the Oval Office and phone calls with key players, Mr. Biden was far behind on a deal.

Leading West Virginia Senator III, who opposed the social policy bill.

“While I am hopeful that common ground can be found that will result in another historic investment in our nation, I cannot and will not support an all-or-nothing approach that ignores spending trillions or the brutal financial reality our nation is facing. Mr. Manchin wrote denouncing an approach he said would be “revengefully taxed for wishful spending.”

The statement was the opposite of what Mr Biden and top Democrats had hoped to receive from Mr Manchin and other centrist critics by the end of the week – a firm public commitment to eventually vote for social policy measure to appease. liberals who want to get it enacted.

Instead, it further enraged progressives who had already pledged to the opposition. infrastructure bill Until Congress took action on the larger social policy plan that Democrats planned to push to protect it from a scam using a quick process known as the budget consensus. They’re pushing to delay the infrastructure vote until a vote on the reconciliation bill – or at least, after the centrist rivalries have given a firm idea of ​​what they’re going to agree to in this package.

“I’m assuming the president said he’s crazy because that’s the president’s agenda,” said Washington Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal and leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Look, that’s why we’re not going to vote on bipartisan legislation until we agree on the compromise bill. It’s clear we have a way to go.”

“I’m telling you, after this statement, we probably have more people willing to vote ‘no’ to the bipartisan bill,” he added.

The stalemate left the fate of the infrastructure measure uncertain. While a handful of centrist Republicans plan to support it, GOP leaders urges its members to oppose it, leaving the Democrats with a small majority of the votes to pass the bill should the progressives revolt.

“The plan is to bring up the bill,” spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi told reporters as she returned to Capitol Hill after meeting with Mr. Biden and majority leader Senator Chuck Schumer from New York at the White House. “One hour at a time,” he added, when asked if he was worried about the votes.

He spoke shortly after Congress passed legislation that lifted the statutory limit on federal borrowing until December 16, 2022, to prevent a catastrophic federal debt default when the Treasury Department said it would breach the current limit next month.

Senate Republicans hindered a democratic effort Matching the increase with a spending bill to finance the government is likely to oppose the bill passed by the House, which was approved by an almost party-line vote of 212 to 219 on Wednesday. Still, the move signaled Democrats’ willingness to act separately on the government financing measure and avoided a shutdown, even if the debt ceiling has not been resolved for now.

But much of Wednesday’s urgency focused on salvaging the president’s agenda, after Mr.

Some Democrats complained this week that the president did not enter talks to their satisfaction. For example, he welcomed progressive and moderate groups at the White House last week, but instead of holding a group negotiation session, he met with each individually.

Mr Biden and his team’s efforts to put pressure on Mr Manchin, and Arizona Senator Kyrsten CinemaAnother Democrat hold on the reconciliation bill seems to have fallen flat. Officials have been working for days to persuade the couple to specify how much they would be willing to spend on the package, calculating that such a commitment would ease the concerns of progressives who refuse to support the infrastructure bill.

Both Ms. Cinema and Mr. Manchin visited the White House on Tuesday, but after their discussion neither they nor White House officials outlined a bill they could support. Leading White House officials also marched to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet Ms. Cinema alone for more than two hours.

“The president felt it was constructive, he felt they were moving the ball forward, he felt there was an agreement that we were at an important moment,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday, characterizing the meetings. “It is important to continue to complete the path forward to get the job done for the American people.”

White House officials said Mr Biden met with various lawmakers throughout the day on Wednesday and plans to continue those talks on Thursday.

Privately, management officials said that Mr. Biden continued to play an encouraging role with Mr. Manchin and Ms. Cinema, and they did not immediately demand that they accept anything. Both senators have yet to do so publicly, even as the Liberal Democrats continue to rage over the public silence.

Mr Manchin said on Wednesday he wants to set income thresholds for many of the social program expansions Democrats are proposing. He suggested that he would be open to rolling back some components of the 2017 tax cut.

Moderate House Democrats, who helped secure a commitment to a vote this week on the infrastructure bill, warned that a failed vote would worsen the already deep mistrust between the two factions of the party.

“If the vote fails or is delayed tomorrow, it would be a significant breach of confidence that would slow the pace of progress in realizing the Biden agenda,” said Florida Representative Stephanie Murphy, one of the moderates trying to leave. two plans.

As Democrats struggled to resolve their party’s philosophical differences over the bill, they suffered another setback Wednesday, when the Senate’s top rule enforcer rejected a second proposal to add a pathway to legal status for nearly eight million undocumented immigrants to the compromise bill. .

In a note obtained by The New York Times, Elizabeth MacDonough Senate parliamentarywrote that the policy change “largely outweighed its impact on the budget” and effectively disqualified its content from being included in a measure that should have had a direct impact on the federal budget.

In their latest effort, Democrats have proposed a process known as forwarding history. immigration registrationThis allows otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States continuously since a given date to adjust their status and gain a path to citizenship. Founded in 1986, the current date is set as January 1, 1972. Democrats tried to change that date to January 1, 2010.

Last week, Ms. MacDonough rejected the Democrats’ initial bid to grant legal status to several categories of undocumented people, including those known as Dreamers, who were brought to the United States as children; immigrants granted Temporary Protection Status for humanitarian reasons; persons working in the country on non-immigrant visas; close to one million agricultural workers; and millions of others considered “essential workers”.

He said these amendments to immigration law cannot be included in the reconciliation package under Senate rules, as they represent “an enormous and lasting policy change that dwarfs the budgetary impact.”

Democrats have said they will continue to seek alternative strategies to help immigrants in the reconciliation process.

Luke Broadwater and Jonathan Weisman contributing reporting.



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