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Pelosi shifts infrastructure bill deadline amid Biden frustration

By Nagasunder in Business News, posted October 5, 2021

After a week of discussions put Joe Biden's social and environmental policy overhaul plan in limbo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set a new deadline for the House to enact a large infrastructure jobs funding bill.

In a letter to House Democrats on Saturday, Pelosi announced that the House will have until Sunday, October 31, to pass the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure measure that cleared the Senate in August.

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.’ ‘We’re going to get it done’: Biden vows to break impasse after Capitol Hill talks

Despite pressure from their moderate counterparts, progressive Democrats in the House refused to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill as leverage in negotiations over a separate bill that includes massive spending on many of Biden's campaign promises, such as increased access to childcare and climate change action. "More time was needed to reach our goal of passing both bills, which we will,” Pelosi said in the letter.

Biden and progressive Democrats have called for a $3.5 trillion overhaul package, but moderate Democrats have failed to agree to that figure. In the talks, Senator jobs head Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a crucial centrist, presented a $1.5 trillion deal, a big reduction from Biden's original proposal.

Refusing to accept on such a low price, radical Democrats said on Friday that they would postpone a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill until an agreement on the overhaul plan is reached.

“We made all these promises to voters across the country that we were going to deliver on this agenda. It’s not some crazy leftwing wishlist,” Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a key House negotiator, told the Seattle Times on Friday.

Centrist House Democrats indicated they were frustrated with the delayed vote on the infrastructure bill, with Josh Gottheimer, a leading centrist in the House, blasting Pelosi and progressive Democrats for stalling a vote on the infrastructure bill. “We cannot let this small faction on the far left … destroy the president’s agenda and stop the creation of 2 million jobs a year,” Gottheimer said in a statement.

Talking to reporters on Saturday morning before he boarded a flight to his home in Delaware, where he is staying for the weekend, Biden said he was going to “work like hell” on selling his plan directly to the American people over the next month, educating Americans on what he has in mind for the plan.

“I’m going to try to sell what I think the American people will buy,” he told reporters. “I believe that when the American people are aware of what’s in it, we’ll get it done.”

Reflecting on the simmering angering between progressives and centrists in his party, Biden said: “Everybody’s frustrated. It’s a part of being in government, being frustrated.”

In a rare visit to Congress, Biden told House Democrats in a private meeting on Friday that he is determined to get both bills passed, even if it means a smaller price tag for his government overhaul bill. Biden reportedly said that a compromise top line could be between $1.9tn and $2.3tn.

“Even a smaller bill can make historic investments – historic investments in childcare jobs, daycare, clean energy,” Biden told House Democrats, according to a person familiar with his remarks.

In addition to negotiating the overhaul package, Democrats in Congress are attempting to find a way to raise the debt ceiling to prevent the United States from defaulting for the first time in history. Republicans have stated that they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling.

On Saturday, Biden told reporters that he hopes Republicans will not “be so irresponsible as to refuse to raise the debt limit.” “That would be totally unconscionable. Never been done before. And so I hope that won’t happen,” he said.

Source: The Guardian