President Joe Biden and a bipartisan group of 10 senators Thursday triumphantly announced they had reached an accord on a narrow infrastructure spending framework that would provide roughly $1 trillion over five years for roads, bridges, water systems, and broadband expansion.
But while the group briefed reporters at the White House, lawmakers in both parties were grumbling about the deal on Capitol Hill.
Democrats complained the infrastructure bill fell far short of the sweeping spending package Biden proposed earlier in the year that would provide massive funding levels for universal preschool, free college, green energy initiatives, and expanded free and subsidized healthcare.
Republicans were also skeptical.
The infrastructure deal would hinge on pairing it with a second bill that would sweep in all of the aforementioned liberal wish list items the GOP opposes. Democrats would pass the bill on their own using an arcane procedural tactic called reconciliation.
By backing the narrow infrastructure package, Republicans would essentially enable Democrats to clear a second measure stuffed with social spending programs at a total price tag that could reach an astonishing $6 trillion.
Not even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was giving a green light.
Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she won’t even consider the narrow infrastructure bill unless the reconciliation package first passes the Senate.
“There ain’t going to be no bipartisan bill unless we have the reconciliation bill,” Pelosi said.
House progressives, who make up the largest faction of Democrats, don’t want a two-step process. Instead, they are hoping Senate Democrats will ditch the bipartisan deal and go it alone by passing one large measure using reconciliation to avoid a GOP filibuster.
But Manchin and other centrist Democrats want the bipartisan deal, too, as does Biden, who cited the need for bipartisanship when he announced the deal at the White House on Thursday.
Biden said the bipartisan accord “signals to ourselves and to the world that American democracy can deliver, and because of that, it represents an important step forward for our country.”
The top Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, “remains open-minded,” Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican and one of the negotiators, said after speaking with him about the narrow infrastructure deal.
McConnell, of Kentucky, told Fox News Radio’s Guy Benson Show that his support for the bipartisan bill partly depends on whether it is credibly paid for.
The bill would use unspent COVID-19 aid and additional tax revenue acquired by going after tax cheats, among other spending streams.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said lawmakers are waiting to see if the spending scheme holds up with the Congressional Budget Office, which has yet to provide an analysis.
But the second, larger spending package may be the biggest obstacle.
Senate Democrats so far do not agree on what should be included. Manchin of West Virginia and other centrists, including Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Mark Warner of Virginia, won’t commit to the massive spending levels many progressive Democrats hope to pass.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent and a socialist, pitched $6 trillion in spending in a meeting with fellow lawmakers earlier this month.
While the spending would reduce the cost in the first infrastructure package, it would still be enormous. Sanders proposes spending trillions on healthcare and social programs, including housing for the homeless, free college, and lowering Medicare eligibility to age 60.
Sanders and other progressives want ironclad assurances from Democratic centrists that they will support the second, massive social spending bill before they agree to go along with the narrow infrastructure package.
Democrats can not lose a single vote if they hope to pass the measure unilaterally.
“There will not be a bipartisan bill unless written in stone we’re going to go forward with a major reconciliation bill,” Sanders told SiriusXM’s Dean Obeidallah Show on Thursday.
Republicans, meanwhile, may walk away from the two-step dance out of disdain for the massive cost.
Democrats plan to pay for the second bill by reversing the GOP’s 2017 tax cuts and hiking taxes on businesses and the wealthy.
“That’s something we’ll probably have to have some conversations with Democrats about,” Thune said. “They could load it up with all the taxes and everything else, but the question is, are they going to be able to get all the Democrats to vote for it?”
