President Joe Biden, eager to secure passage of his much-touted economic agenda, met privately with disgruntled House Democrats on Thursday to urge them to support a $1.75 trillion social welfare spending package that leaves out many of their priorities.
“I need you to help me. I need your votes,” Biden told Democrats, according to a source in the room.
“I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that the House and Senate majorities and my presidency will be determined by what happens in the next week,” Biden said.
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Biden huddled with Democrats for about an hour in the Capitol basement, where lawmakers filing into the room expressed a combination of resignation and disappointment that their original $3.5 trillion package had been cut in half, forcing out key priorities, including 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.
The bill also shortens the extension of a child tax credit to just one year. Democrats had hoped to make the tax credit permanent.
“If I get sick, I can take all the time off,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters, lamenting the absence of paid sick leave. “Every member of the House, every member of the Senate, can take the time off. Isn’t it unfortunate that won’t be the case for the American people?”
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A group of liberal Democrats is debating how much certainty they’ll need that the Senate will back the framework before they are willing to advance a key infrastructure package that Speaker Nancy Pelosi hopes to pass by the end of October.
Biden assured House Democrats all 50 Senate Democrats would back the $1.75 trillion spending framework.
“I am back here to tell you that we have a framework that will get 50 votes in the United States Senate,” Biden told them. “We badly need a vote on both of these measures.”
Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, said Senate centrists Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kirsten Sinema of Arizona have yet to promise to vote for the $1.75 trillion deal, and their support is required to ensure it clears the Senate.
“I don’t know what ‘framework’ means,” Schakowsky told reporters.
Rep. Cori Bush, a Missouri Democrat, is among a group of those on the Left who say they will not vote for the infrastructure bill unless they see legislative text and vote in the House and Senate on the package.
“I need to see text,” Bush said. “But I want a Senate vote.”
Other Democrats say they believe a deal is near.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, told reporters in the Capitol a framework “is close to existing” and said that “there is a will to do it” among Democrats.
He added, “I want to see the final product, and I’m sure every senator feels the same way.”
Biden tied legislative success of the spending bills to his looming trip to Glasgow, Scotland, for a G-20 summit with fellow heads of state.
“He said he wants votes on both bills and what we do on these two bills is going to be determinative of how the world sees us,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat who heads the Progressive Caucus.
