Three-fifths of the public support President Joe Biden’s economic agenda, according to a new poll, despite massive uncertainty raised by opaque congressional negotiations on core components.
Data published by Navigator Thursday tracked support for Biden’s Build Back Better agenda from September 23-27. Overall, 61% of the roughly 1,400 respondents said they supported the $3.5 trillion infrastructure proposal. The figure did not change when respondents were specifically informed that the plan “would be paid for by increasing taxes on the top 2% of income earners, raising taxes on those earning over $1 million a year from selling stocks and bonds, known as capital gains, raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 26.5%, and cracking down on tax evasion.”
‘UP IN THE AIR’: WHITE HOUSE PASSING DEBT CEILING BUCK TO SCHUMER
The party vote found 60% of independents supporting the plan, compared to 89% of Democrats and 30% of Republicans. Again, independent and Republican numbers remained virtually unchanged once survey participants were explicitly informed of the proposed payfors, although Democratic support fell two points to 87%.
An even greater number, 66%, thought that it was “urgent” Congress pass the legislation, including 69% of Independents.
Though the White House has been negotiating the reconciliation package closely with centrist Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona in recent days, the two Democratic holdouts are threatening hopes of passing the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, previously scheduled for a Thursday vote by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus, led by Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, has threatened to tank that vote if Pelosi brings it to a vote without the reconciliation package. The White House and Sinema have publicly stated they are optimistic they can reach a reconciliation agreement by Thursday, but Manchin explicitly told reporters on Wednesday that will not happen. Pelosi also hinted at potentially delaying the vote at her Wednesday press conference.
Thursday’s Navigator poll also found that 58% of respondents were in favor of suspending or raising the debt limit, which Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned Congress to do by Oct. 18 to prevent a U.S. credit default. Fifty-four percent of respondents placed blame for a potential default with Republicans, who “want to score points against Biden at the expense of the economy,” compared to 46% who thought Democrats”irresponsibly spending government money and putting the U.S. in this situation” would be responsible.
The Democrats have been seeking to highlight Republican “hypocrisy” of the debt ceiling throughout September. One senior Democratic official confirmed to the Washington Examiner that a video the DNC tweeted on Sept. 22, contrasting statements Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made in 2019 supporting the Trump-era debt ceiling hikes with debt-focused comments he made earlier in September 2021, was its most viewed video of all time. The clip earned 1.5 million views on Twitter and millions more across all platforms.
Mitch McConnell vs. Mitch McConnell pic.twitter.com/YmwubhEdVd
— The Democrats (@TheDemocrats) September 22, 2021
White House officials also expressed frustration to the Washington Examiner regarding McConnell’s stance on the debt negotiations. White House press secretary Jen Psaki has repeatedly criticized McConnell in press briefings for voting in favor of all three Trump-era debt suspensions and supporting suspending or raising the debt limit 30 times in total throughout his Senate career.
“We obviously wanted to do this in a bipartisan fashion, as we’ve talked about quite a bit in here,” Psaki said following McConnell’s Monday decision to block a unanimous consent request from Democrats to address the debt limit via a majority vote. “It’s a shared responsibility. It’s been done at times in a bipartisan manner in the past.”
“It’s also our hope that if Sen. McConnell isn’t going to help us avoid a default and a shutdown, at least he’ll get out of the way and let Democrats do it alone so we can avoid a default, and right now that question remains up in the air,” she added.
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One White House official additionally told the Washington Examiner that McConnell’s actions on the debt crisis “made no sense.” The official claimed that Schumer’s attempts to approve a debt limit hike with only Democratic votes “was what Republicans suggested in the first place,” and was something Democrats did in 2006 when Republicans and the Bush White House sought to raise the debt ceiling.
