The media should be helping Democrats pass a stalled massive social welfare package.
That was one of the messages House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered to reporters when the House convened briefly on Tuesday to pass an extension of federal borrowing authority.
New polling shows few people know much at all about the massive proposal and that even fewer people believe the legislation would do anything to help their lives.
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That’s the media’s fault, Pelosi, a California Democrat, suggested.
“I think you could all do a better job selling it, to be frank,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi last month failed at wrangling her divided caucus to reach an agreement on both the social welfare spending package and a critical bipartisan infrastructure bill.
Two Senate centrist holdouts want a much smaller package and price tag, and the division has left the two measures hopelessly stalled despite a new Oct. 31 deadline.
Pelosi suggested the public simply doesn’t know enough about the broad array of government programs Democrats hope to pay for in the massive measure, even though she outlines it to the media regularly.
“Every time I come here, I go through the list,” Pelosi said from the podium in a Capitol press briefing room. “Family medical leave, climate, the issues that are in there. But it is true — it is hard to break through when you have such a comprehensive package.”
Democrats believe broad public support for the bill could help push Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to back the measure. The two lawmakers have so far resisted pressure from the party to vote for spending and policy changes that come anywhere close to what the most liberal Democratic caucuses in the House and Senate are seeking.
A CBS poll released last week, however, found only 10% of respondents knew much about the proposal, while a majority of respondents knew nothing at all about it.
Originally written with a price tag of $3.5 trillion, the measure was to pay for free preschool, free community college, paid family and medical leave, expanded Medicare benefits, extended child tax credits, significant green energy policies, and much more.
Pelosi acknowledged on Tuesday that the measure will likely have to shrink to roughly $2 trillion, which is a piece tag President Joe Biden floated privately with Democrats.
The CBS poll found that 59% of people knew about the eye-popping $3.5 trillion cost of the initial proposal, as well as 58% who knew of plans to pay for it by hiking taxes, while just 40% were aware of provisions in the bill aimed at lowering Medicare drug costs or expanding medicare benefits.
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Pelosi appeared acutely aware of the polling and noted that women favor the bill more than men, who she said show more support for the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package that pays for roads, bridges, water projects, and broadband expansion.
The social welfare bill, in particular the extension of child tax credits, will become more popular when it is finalized, Pelosi insisted.
“Do people know where it springs from? No,” Pelosi admitted. “But it is a vast bill. It has a lot in it, and we will have to continue to make sure the public does. But whether they know it or not, they overwhelmingly support it.”
