Schumer to push Senate forward on bipartisan infrastructure bill, budget resolution this week

In addition to the planned vote this week, the other major test that lies ahead for the infrastructure package is the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s so-called “score” of the bill, an assessment of how much the package would add to the federal deficit, based on how much the proposed funding would actually pay for. 

Schumer has also set an ambitious Wednesday deadline for his caucus to reach an internal agreement to move forward on their massive budget resolution, complete with instructions on reconciliation.

If they can invoke that parliamentary maneuver, Democrats would be able to pass the $3.5 trillion budget with just a simple majority in Senate — which is evenly divided 50-50 with Republicans — rather than the 60 votes that the GOP could demand through the filibuster rules.

But there, too, the timeline is squeezed. Senate Budget Committee chairman Bernie Sanders, who will lead the process of drafting the legislation only agreed to the topline number last week.

The package will likely include money for universal preschool, free community college, expanded health insurance, subsidized child care, expanded family and medical leave, new low-income housing, and nationwide green energy projects. 

If passed as Democrats envision it, the bill would mark both the biggest expansion of the social safety net in decades, and one of Washington’s most sweeping efforts to curb climate change and prepare the country for its effects.

Republicans, meanwhile, have balked at the prospect of injecting trillions of dollars more into the economy while inflation is on the rise.

The Democrats’ budget resolution is “completely inappropriate for the country, which is already suffering from dramatic inflation,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said last week.

Many of the provisions in Biden’s two spending bills are popular with voters, however. Democrats are relying on this public approval to help get the bills through the next few weeks and months.

The party’s electoral hopes in 2022 likely hinge on whether Biden’s two-track agenda actually passes, and whether Biden can maintain public support for it between now and November of next year.

Biden will promote the two bills, dubbed the “Build Back Better” agenda by the White House, on Monday in remarks about the economic recovery from the Covid pandemic.

Publicly, the president has tried to remain above the fray during the infrastructure negotiations.

“There may be some slight adjustments of the pay-fors and that’s going to get down to what the Congress wants to do,” Biden told reporters Wednesday afternoon after meeting with Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill. the White House. “I’m not sure what may happen, exactly how it’s going to be paid for,” he added.

But privately, senators in both parties have been in near constant communication with key White House envoys in recent days.

Portman said he spoke to White House negotiators on Saturday night about details of the infrastructure bill. On Thursday, a group of senators met with the White House team on Capitol Hill.

As the House returns to Capitol Hill this week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her aides are working behind the scenes to head off moderate Democrats’ potential issues with the $3.5 trillion budget plan, Punchbowl News reported Monday morning.

Pelosi has suggested that she would require the Senate pass both the infrastructure deal and the budget bill before she would take them up in the House.

“There ain’t going to be an infrastructure bill unless we have a reconciliation bill passed by the United States Senate,” Pelosi said last month.

Christina Wilkie reported from Washington, and Kevin Breuninger reported from New York.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/19/schumer-to-push-infrastructure-bill-budget-resolution-this-week.html