House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may abandon a plan to take up President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure package on Thursday due to potentially insurmountable opposition from a faction of liberal lawmakers.
Pelosi told reporters following a closed-door meeting with fellow Democrats that she’s not sticking to any timetable despite a pledge she’d hold a vote on the infrastructure bill by the end of September.
“I can’t keep a commitment that the Senate has made impossible to do,” the California Democrat said when reporters asked about the plan to vote on the infrastructure bill by Thursday.
SENATE PLANS VOTE TO AVERT GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
Pelosi is under pressure from a faction of House liberals to postpone a vote on the infrastructure measure until both the House and Senate pass a much larger social welfare spending package that would cost up to $3.5 trillion.
She and other top Democrats are trying to convince their rank and file instead to accept a House-Senate agreement among Democrats on the cost of the bill and a legislative framework.
Senate centrists Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are standing in the way, insisting on lowering the cost of the bill and changing some key provisions. Manchin, of West Virginia, and Sinema, of Arizona, have been meeting with President Joe Biden this week in a frantic bid to create a consensus ahead of Thursday’s infrastructure vote.
With no general agreement in sight, Pelosi could postpone consideration of the infrastructure bill because it might not pass.
“We take it one step at a time,” Pelosi said, adding that House Democrats are seeking an agreement with Senate Democrats on the $3.5 trillion spending package, which has not yet materialized.
Later in the news conference, Pelosi acknowledged her initial plan to bring up the bill on Thursday and didn’t rule it out. “But I want it to pass. So, what we wanted to do is to pass it tomorrow, and anything that strengthens the hand of a speaker helps.”
Biden and top Democrats are eager to usher the infrastructure package into law.
The bill passed the Senate with bipartisan support earlier this year and has significant public support.
The bill would pay for roads, bridges, water projects, expanded broadband, and electric vehicle charging stations. Biden’s signature on the measure would give the party an opportunity to tout a significant legislative victory amid the president’s sagging poll numbers.
Liberal Democrats fear passing the infrastructure bill will eliminate the leverage they command over the Democratic Party in their bid to pass the largest social welfare package possible.
The measure they envision would pay for expanded Medicare and Medicaid assistance, free preschool and community college, paid family and medical leave, extended child tax credits, and much more.
Pelosi said she’s waiting on the Senate and Biden.
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“We have to come to a place where we have agreement in legislative language,” Pelosi said. “Not just in principle. Legislative language that the president supports. It has to meet his standard because that’s what we are supporting. Then, I think we will come together.”
