‘We’re going to get it done’: Biden vows to break
impasse after Capitol Hill talks
Biden on Friday on Capitol Hill. He said: ‘It doesn’t
matter when – it doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days, or six
weeks – we’re going to get it done.’
President meets Democrats with domestic agenda in
jeopardy
Hopes of truce dashed after moderate condemns Pelosi’s
tactics
David Smith
and Lauren Gambino in Washington
Fri 1 Oct
2021 20.03 EDT
Joe Biden
has made a rare visit to Capitol Hill to meet privately with House Democrats
amid a stalemate that has put his sprawling domestic agenda in jeopardy.
Pledging to
“get it done” after days of frantic negotiations that saw the party fail to
strike an internal deal on a scaled-back version of Biden’s $3.5tn social and
environmental policy overhaul, the president hoped to break an impasse even as
hopes of compromise before the weekend faded.
“It doesn’t
matter when – it doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days, or six
weeks – we’re going to get it done,” Biden said, as he exited the caucus room.
The visit
comes a day after after the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, delayed a vote on part
of his economic agenda, a bipartisan $1tn public works measure, in an
embarrassing setback. Democrats returned to the Capitol on Friday deeply
divided but determined to make progress on Biden’s ambitious economic vision.
Pelosi had
earlier promised that there would a “vote today” on the infrastructure measure,
which progressive House lawmakers have maintained they would not support unless
it is passed in tandem with the far more expansive $3.5tn package.
But hopes
that Biden had forged a truce among Democrats were dashed on Friday night when
Josh Gottheimer, a leading moderate in the House, publicly condemned Pelosi for
delaying the infrastructure vote.
“It’s
deeply regrettable that Speaker Pelosi breached her firm, public commitment to
Members of Congress and the American people to hold a vote and to pass the
once-in-a-century bipartisan infrastructure bill on or before September 27,”
the congressman from New Jersey said in a statement.
Gottheimer
added: “We cannot let this small faction on the far left — who employ Freedom
Caucus tactics, as described by the New York Times today — destroy the
President’s agenda and stop the creation of two million jobs a year — including
for the millions of hard-working men and women of labor.”
The
language appeared deliberately inflammatory. The reference to a “small faction
on the far left” was sure to infuriate progressives who claim to have the White
House and the vast majority of the Democratic caucus on their side. The Freedom
Caucus is a group of conservative Republicans intent on pushing party
leadership to the right.
Gottheimer
said: “This far left faction is willing to put the President’s entire agenda,
including this historic bipartisan infrastructure package, at risk. They’ve put
civility and bipartisan governing at risk.”
In a
further sign of internal tensions, Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney of New York
issued a sharp response to Gottheimer’s assertions, tweeting that Biden had
stood with Pelosi and 95% of House Democrats “and said the opposite: that his
historic vision for America first requires a Build Back Better reconciliation
deal. That’s the way a bipartisan infrastructure bill will win the votes to
become law.”
Pelosi
confirmed there would be no infrastructure vote as more time was needed to
negotiate.
“While
great progress has been made in the negotiations to develop a House, Senate and
White House agreement on the Build Back Better Act, more time is needed to
complete the task,” the House speaker said in a statement.
Democrats
remained deeply at odds over the scale and structure of the more expansive
package which contains a host of progressive priorities, provisions to expand
health care access, establish paid leave, combat climate change and reduce
poverty – all underwritten by tax increases on wealthy Americans and
corporations.
Democrats
are trying to score a major legislative victory with razor-thin majorities in
both chambers. Failure would deny Biden much of his domestic agenda, leaving
the party with little to show for their time controlling the White House, the
Senate and House.
Senator Joe
Manchin of West Virginia has proposed a spending package of about $1.5tn – less
than half the size of the proposal put forward by the president and Democratic
leaders. Another Democratic centrist, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, declined to say
whether she agreed with Manchin’s proposal.
In the
private meeting with House lawmakers, Biden reportedly discussed a compromise
topline of $1.9tn to $2.3tn, according to a person in the room who spoke with
the Associated Press.
Congresswoman
Madeleine Dean told MSNBC that Biden was “pragmatic” and “realistic” in the
closed-door meeting with lawmakers. “He said, ‘Look, clearly I have to be
straight up with you. It is not going to be the $3.5tn number that we would all
like, or many many of us would like … What I ask of you are the programmatic
things that must be in the bill, and then we can do the math from there’,” Dean
said.
Huddled
together in an hours-long caucus meeting, Pelosi tried to steer the feuding
factions within her party toward common ground after Thursday’s marathon
negotiating session generated deepening acrimony and no deal.
Congresswoman
Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, emerged from
the morning gathering optimistic that Democrats would eventually pass both
bills. But she remained firm in her position – and confident in her members –
that there the infrastructure bill would not move forward without assurances
that the Senate would pass Biden’s larger bill.
“We’ve seen
more progress in the last 48 hours than we’ve seen in a long time on
reconciliation,” she said, crediting progressives’ infrastructure revolt for
forcing Manchin and Sinema to the negotiating table.
The
decision to postpone the infrastructure vote was seen as a victory for
progressives who were unwavering in their resolve to “hold the line” and vote
against the bill unless they received “ironclad” commitments that Biden’s
proposed $3.5tn social and environmental package would also pass.
Many
progressives also say they will withhold support for the infrastructure bill
until the Senate passes the second piece of Biden’s economic agenda,
legislation that has yet to be written. Jayapal made clear this was her
preference, but later left the door open to the possibility that the party
could reach an agreement without a vote.
“If there’s
something else that’s short of a vote … that gives me those same assurances, I
want to listen to that,” she told reporters.
The
stalemate also laid bare deep ideological fractures within the party. Unlike
the debate over Barack Obama’s healthcare legislation a decade ago,
progressives appear to be more closely aligned with the president and able to
flex their political muscles. On Thursday they were united in making the case
that centrists are now in the minority.
Both pieces
of legislation are critical to Biden’s economic vision. While he has staked his
domestic agenda – and his legacy – on a $3.5tn social policy package, he
invested precious political capital in courting Republicans to support the
infrastructure bill, part of a campaign promise to usher in a new era of
bipartisanship in Congress. The bill passed the Senate in August, with 19
Republican votes and great fanfare.
But the
spirit of bipartisanship dissipated quickly. In the House, Republican leaders
lobbied members to vote against the bipartisan bill, forcing Democrats to come
up with the votes on their own. Republicans are unified in opposition to the
president’s broader spending-and-tax plan.
The House
is scheduled to leave Washington at the end of this week for a two-week recess
but this could be delayed if no deal has been reached. Congress must also find
a way to raise the debt ceiling to avoid the US defaulting for the first time
in its history.
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