Liberals are rushing to complete their massive social expenditure proposal during the early weeks of summer break; they are fearful that they may miss their deadlines, due to a flurry of obligations later in the month.
Ironing out the Kinks
Nancy Pelosi has directed committee members to fight it out with their senatorial colleagues during the week to settle any major differences over what would be included in the $3.5 trillion measure.
However, there are significant differences between the House and the Senate on key aspects of the bill; this includes extending Medicare, strengthening Obamacare, boosting taxes, and reducing carbon emissions.
As Dems race to finish the social spending package before September 27, "wide gulfs remain between the House and Senate on central pieces" including Medicare, cutting carbon emissions, and raising taxes from @JAscholtes @heatherscope @caitlinzemma https://t.co/Dpvl2WFHCV
— Marianne LeVine (@marianne_levine) September 2, 2021
Democrats are facing a slew of problems as they try to ram through a social-spending bill in just a few months; they aim to do this by concurrently developing, researching, and driving legislation through the House and Senate.
Such high-velocity juggling, according to Pelosi and Schumer, seems to be the only way to make sure the idea goes along the nonpartisan infrastructure measure enacted by the Senate; this is a measure which is due for a vote in the House in less than four weeks.
However, if liberals fail to complete the welfare spending proposal before the infrastructure vote, President Joe Biden’s objective will be jeopardized on both fronts.
Democrats Seem Unorganized
Democrats in Congress have not begun to prepare their colleagues for the likelihood the welfare spending package will not be completed by Sept. 27, when the House decides on the infrastructure measure. Instead, Democrats are claiming that they will get it all accomplished by sheer willpower.
Newsy nugget from Fox News poll:
Dems’ $3.5 trillion social spending bill gets 56 percent support. Just 38 percent oppose.https://t.co/m3SgQDVo8v
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) August 11, 2021
House groups begin markups on Thursday to start churning out the elements of the final budget resolution; this comes even as internal party squabbles continue in private about what should be included in the bill.
Democrat politicians, senior members, and staffers are frantically working to address key policy disagreements that ordinarily take months or even years to solve. Senate Appropriations Chair Ron Wyden (who was in charge of creating the largest section of the budget) called it “a significantly greater undertaking” than approving the epidemic relief package in March.
Liberals are utilizing the same filibuster-proof compromise mechanism to pass their welfare spending proposal without conservative backing, as they did with the COVID relief measure.
Schumer unveils $3.5T bill to hike social and climate spending, raise taxes and give green cards https://t.co/n1i09HsicR pic.twitter.com/AhJ1SZR4mY
— New York Post (@nypost) August 9, 2021
Liberals are still wrangling over a number of critical issues, notably when to expire popular programs in the years ahead in order to stay below their $3.5 trillion budget target. Congressional Democrats have privately expressed concerns that a bewildering assortment of varied program termination dates in the years ahead may come back to bite them.
This is a strong possibility if Republicans take the majority in Congress or the White House and decline to prolong such policies. For instance, Democrats are discussing when to make a popular extension of the child tax credit expire.
Some Democrats in the Senate are pressing for 2024, while House Democrats worry that this would deprive the party of any power when a raft of Trump-era tax cuts expire the following year in 2025.
