Senate Democrats are refusing to give up on a bipartisan infrastructure deal that has repeatedly teetered on the brink of collapse and has already been blocked once by Republicans.
“We’re getting close,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Tuesday afternoon, a day after lawmakers had planned to announce a deal on the $1.2 trillion package.
Schumer has little choice but to keep the talks open after months of negotiations between the two parties and President Joe Biden.
The party’s centrist faction has signaled that it wants a bipartisan accord on funding the nation’s infrastructure projects to pass before Senate Democrats unilaterally consider a much larger package of social spending programs that comes with a staggering $3.5 trillion price tag and is paid for with tax increases.
Key centrist Democrat and negotiator Joe Manchin of West Virginia suggested to reporters Tuesday that the Senate may not be able to pass the big social spending package if it cannot first pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
“Both of them are extremely important,” Manchin told reporters Tuesday. “When one falls apart, how do you do the other one?”
Democratic leaders are increasingly intent on passing the bipartisan bill and said they’ll keep the Senate in session as long as it takes to pass it.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, told reporters he’s not pulling the plug on the bipartisan talks, which have dragged on for weeks.
“They’re both very good bills,” Schumer told reporters Tuesday after meeting privately with the Democratic caucus. “They’re both important. What one bill has, basic infrastructure, the other bill doesn’t. And what the other bill has, the one bill doesn’t. So, we’ve got to get both done.”
Negotiators say the talks between the two parties are producing results and that the deal is much closer to getting finalized.
The group has already blown past a self-imposed Monday deadline.
Sticking points include a language in the bill that could lead to rate-setting requirements for broadband, Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, told the Washington Examiner. Republicans oppose any legislation that might push broadband into being governed like a public utility.
“There are major changes that need to be made in the broadband section,” Wicker said.
Lawmakers are also debating how much funding should be included for mass transit and whether the measure should add $15 billion to the water infrastructure portion of the bill for the removal of lead pipes.
Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat involved in the negotiations, said Tuesday the two parties have resolved water infrastructure funding and were working on the differences in transit spending.
“I think things are coming together nicely,” Tester said.
The Senate is scheduled to leave town on Aug. 6 for the remainder of the summer. Schumer has repeatedly threatened to keep lawmakers in Washington, D.C., if the bipartisan deal is not approved by their scheduled departure.
The move would likely disrupt long-planned travel and summer vacations.
The party may have no other choice than to remain in session into August.
If the bipartisan deal stalls, Democrats will be forced to try to include infrastructure spending in the $3.5 trillion social spending bill. Such a move would leave Democrats to act alone to pass nearly $5 trillion in federal spending at a time when economists are warning of prolonged inflation.
Manchin and other Democratic centrists are frowning on the idea of combining the spending measures, and the approval of every single Senate Democrat would be needed to get the measure through the Senate with a simple majority vote.
In other words, the party’s entire spending package could fall apart.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, a socialist from Vermont who authored the $3.5 trillion package, signaled Democrats were not going to abandon the infrastructure talks, even if they keep dragging on with new disagreements.
“At the end of the day, we’re gonna do both bills,” Sanders said. “And the question is how long we have to stay here.”
