President Joe Biden’s massive government spending overhaul is in danger of being sunk by infighting within his party. The Democrats charged into high-stakes trouble Thursday as a promised vote on the first piece, a slimmer $1 trillion public works bill, faltered amid stalled talks on his more ambitious package.
For the Democratic Party, which control both the executive and legislative branches, it’s a serious fumble. For Republicans and conservatives, it would be a major fiscal victory.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was meeting privately with factions of lawmakers throughout the day, still determined to push ahead, strike a deal with Biden over his $3.5 trillion effort and avoid what would be a stunning setback if voting on the public works bill failed or had to be scrapped.
Democrats are deeply at odds, trust torn, as far-left lawmakers threaten to withhold votes on the bipartisan roads-and-bridges infrastructure bill. In the narrowly controlled House, Pelosi has no votes to spare.
All this on a day that should be a win for Biden and his party with Congress poised to usher through legislation to keep the government running past Thursday’s fiscal yearend deadline and avert a federal shutdown that had been threatened by Republicans.
“Step by step,” Pelosi said at the Capitol, suggesting a deal with Biden was within reach.
The public works bill is one piece of that bipartisanship, a $1 trillion investment in routine transportation, broadband, water systems, and other projects bolstered with extra funding. It has won broad support in the Senate… but has now become snared by the broader debate.
Attention remains squarely focused on Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, centrist Democrats who helped steer that bipartisan bill to passage, but a concern that the overall size of Biden’s plan. They view it as far too expensive.
In what could be the final blow to Biden’s agenda, Manchin called an impromptu press conference Thursday outside the Capitol, insisting he has been clear from the start — his topline is $1.5 trillion.
“I’m willing to sit down and work on the $1.5,” Manchin told reporters, as protesters seeking more government giveaways chanted behind him.
Manchin said he told the president as much during their talks this week. Tensions spiked late Wednesday when Manchin sent out a fiery statement, decrying the broad spending as “fiscal insanity” and warning it would not get his vote without adjustments.
Sinema was similarly working to stave off criticism and her office said claims that she has not been forthcoming are “false” — though she has not publicly disclosed her views over what size package she wants.
Sinema has put dollar figures on the table and “continues to engage directly in good-faith discussions” with both Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, spokesman John LaBombard said in a statement.
The centrist senators’ refusal to bring negotiations with Biden to a close has enraged far-left lawmakers and almost ensured they would tank the bipartisan public works bill if there was no end in sight to the White House talks with the centrist senators.
Democrats’ campaign promises on the line, the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, socialist Rep. Pramila Jayapal, said exiting Pelosi’s office that the progressives’ views were unchanged — they won’t vote for one bill without the other.
“We’re gonna stay here all weekend if we need to to see if we can get to a deal,” she said.
In a deepening party split, centrists warned off canceling Thursday’s vote as a “breach of trust that would slow the momentum in moving forward in delivering the Biden agenda,” said Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., a leader of the centrist Blue Dog Democrats.
At the same time, Congress was moving to resolve a more immediate crisis that arose after Republicans refused to approve legislation to keep the government funded past Thursday’s fiscal yearend and raise the nation’s debt limit to avoid a default on borrowing.
The Senate was voting Thursday to provide government funding to avoid a federal shutdown, keeping operations going temporarily to Dec. 3. The House was expected to quickly follow.
The debt ceiling debate shifts to October, ahead of another deadline when Treasury Department has warned money would run out to pay past bills.
Thursday’s congressional floor schedule was filled with question marks in the places where there should be the announced timing of votes.
With Republicans lockstep opposed to the president’s big plan, deriding it as a slide to socialism, Biden has been hunkered down at the White House trying to advance it within his own party.
It would appear he’s failing.
The president canceled a planned trip to Chicago where he was to discuss the importance of COVID-19 vaccines to met separately with Manchin and Sinema at the White House.
“I think it’s pretty clear we’re in the middle of a negotiation and that everybody’s going to have to give a little,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
Together, Sens. Manchin and Sinema are holding the keys to unlocking the stalemate over Biden’s sweeping vision, the heart of his 2020 campaign pledges. While neither has said no to a deal, they have yet to signal yes — and they part ways on specifics, according to a person familiar with the private talks and granted anonymity to discuss them.
Manchin appears to have fewer questions about the revenue side of the equation — the higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy — than the spending plans and particular policies, especially those that are important to his coal-centric state. He also wants any expansion of aid programs to Americans to be based on income needs, not simply for everyone.
Though Sinema is less publicly open in her views, she focuses her questions on the menu of tax options, including the increased corporate rate that some in the business community argue could make the U.S. less competitive overseas and the individual rate that others warn could snare small business owners.
Biden has been criticized for claiming the price tag of the $3.5 trillion in spending will be zero. The White House claimed that the expansion of government programs would be mostly paid for with higher taxes and growth.
The Associated Press contributed to this article