As Democrats in Congress haggle over the price tag of their ambitious spending legislation, competing factions of the party have advanced different strategies for slimming down the size of the bill.
President Joe Biden has become active in negotiations between centrists and liberals over the package originally set to cost $3.5 trillion, floating a price range to progressives that would bring the overall cost down closer to $2 trillion in a series of closed-door negotiations.
Democrats hope to pass the package through a Senate procedure known as reconciliation, which would allow them to do so without any Republican votes. The 50-50 split of the Senate has given centrist Democratic senators, most notably Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, outsize influence over the content and cost of the bill.
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They have used that influence to demand cuts to the size and scope of the package, forcing Democrats to contend with painful choices about what to fund and how.
Here are the options on the table for shaving cost off the bill.
CUT SOME PROGRAMS
One obvious option for cutting the cost of the spending package would be for Democrats to drop some items from their wish list altogether.
Biden and Democrats have pushed for their sprawling legislation to cover everything from climate policies to free education.
Narrowing down the scope of the package to focus on a smaller docket of priorities would lower the top-line number for the package — an approach Speaker Nancy Pelosi hinted would interest some rank-and-file members.
Pelosi told Democratic committee chair members on Tuesday that her conference has an appetite “to do fewer things better” with the bill, according to Politico.
A Medicare expansion pushed by Sen. Bernie Sanders could be on the chopping block. While Sanders has pushed to include dental, vision, and hearing in Medicare coverage via the reconciliation package, Manchin has said he wants to see Congress address the program’s financial stability before expanding its coverage.
MEANS TESTING
Limiting some of the programs to lower-income people could also help Democrats get the price tag of their bill under control.
“That’s the opposite of a budget gimmick,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “That’s making choices and saying, ‘Let’s target our resources to where they’re needed the most.’”
The White House said Tuesday that Biden has expressed openness to the idea of means testing some elements of the spending package, though declined to specify which programs Biden might support limiting.
Some centrist Democrats have floated the idea of means testing certain programs, such as a proposal for free community college.
Manchin made means testing a feature of his demands to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer this summer, in which he requested the top-line number for the bill not to exceed $1.5 trillion.
And Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine has said he would support means testing child care subsidies in the proposed bill.
SHORTEN TIMELINES
House progressives favor shortening the amount of time they’d authorize programs, which would technically lower the stated cost of the spending package.
However, this tactic would not actually reduce the costs of the package in practice. Democrats would be banking on the political difficulty future Congresses might face in allowing the benefits to expire down the road and hoping the programs become permanent once people come to rely on them.
“This is the perfect example of a huge budget gimmick,” MacGuineas said. “If your intention is for it to be permanent, and yet, you direct it to be scored as temporary … that’s about as gimmicky as a budget can get.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Sunday that shortening the timelines for programs is the approach her liberal bloc of members would prefer.
The tactic could allow progressives to avoid eliminating any of their proposals from the spending package. They could also avoid limiting any of the benefits to eligible populations and offer them universally in ways that could broaden the constituency for their policies.
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MacGuineas said the approach risks creating benefits that people will come to rely on, only to have them ripped away in a few years by different members of Congress.
“That’s the kind of uncertainty that we want to get away from in budgeting,” she said.
