Democrats are eager to advance an enormous infrastructure and social spending program package this summer, and time is running out.
With just a few remaining weeks of the legislative session ahead of a monthlong recess, Democrats amped up the pressure on tentative Republicans to back a $1 trillion bill that would fix aging roads, bridges, and waterways as well as expand access to broadband.
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer scheduled a test vote for Wednesday that will determine whether there is enough GOP support to advance the measure to the floor for debate and eventually pass it. The bill requires 60 votes to advance, which means at least 10 Republicans will have to vote alongside Democrats in support of the bill.
Schumer’s move angered Republicans who are awaiting more details about the cost and scope of the bill and are working on ways to broaden weak support in their party.
Schumer is rushing the process and jeopardizing bipartisan passage, Republicans said.
“It was a surprise to most of us,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune of South Dakota told reporters. “There are members who want to vote for a bill, and I know that they are proceeding in good faith on negotiations, but I think setting an artificial deadline is going to make it harder, not easier.”
Schumer set a second deadline, also on Wednesday, calling for Democrats to finalize a resolution that provides the framework for a much larger spending package that would pay for universal day care, free community college, elder care, climate change mitigation, and expanded Medicare services. Only Democrats are expected to support the $3.5 trillion budget resolution that, unlike most legislation, can pass with 51 votes instead of 60.
Schumer promised the two measures would be considered “in tandem,” which is a pledge meant to assure Democrats who are wary only the narrow infrastructure bill will become law. It also fulfills President Joe Biden’s strong desire for at least part of the overall package to have bipartisan support.
“We are making good progress on both tracks,” Schumer said Thursday, telling reporters later in the Capitol that “there is plenty of time” to pass the infrastructure measure despite complaints from the GOP that it has been squeezed by his sudden plan to call up the bipartisan bill for a vote next week.
Fiscal conservatives are urging the GOP to reject the bipartisan bill.
The mechanism to pay for the plan is unclear. It relies on future economic growth and savings from negotiating lower Medicare drug prices and bringing in underpaid tax revenue.
Democrats rejected a plan that would have raised money by tying the federal gas tax to inflation.
“There are details that we have to resolve, and so those details involve things like pay-fors,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Democrat and key negotiator, told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday.
The bipartisan deal isn’t likely to win much support from the GOP’s most conservative senators.
The narrow infrastructure bill will enable Democrats to pass the much larger spending package, which nobody in the Republican Party supports.
In total, new spending would top $4.1 trillion if both measures become law.
A half-dozen GOP senators issued a statement on Thursday calling on Republicans to reject the package by blocking the bipartisan bill.
“We urge our colleagues to support an alternative approach and recognize that supporting an infrastructure bill that authorizes new spending also enables the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend budget,” GOP Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida, and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, said. “We must stop mortgaging our children’s and grandchildren’s futures.”
But the measure only needs 10 Republicans to open debate, and GOP lawmakers working on the bill said they are optimistic.
Both parties have sought new infrastructure spending for years, and polling shows voters strongly favor legislation to fix the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges.
“The prospects remain good because infrastructure is so darn popular,” Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican and a negotiator, told reporters on Thursday.
Portman wouldn’t promise a deal by Schumer’s deadline.
“I don’t know if we are going to be able to make anybody’s arbitrary timeline,” Portman said. “That’s not the point. The point is to get it right. We’re moving as fast as we possibly can. “
