The president will sign $1tn package into law after House ended months-long standoff by approving bipartisan deal
Joe Biden saluted a “monumental step forward as a nation” on Saturday, after House Democrats finally reached agreement and sent a $1tn infrastructure package to his desk to be signed, a huge boost for an administration which has struggled for victories.
“This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America,” Biden said, “and it’s long overdue.”
Continue reading...Joe Biden noted that he would soon be returning to the Oval Office to keep making calls to House members, encouraging them to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package today.
“I want to say very clearly: if your number one issue is the cost of living, the number one priority should be seeing Congress pass these bills,” Biden said.
Continue reading...Majority leader Steny Hoyer says House may vote on bipartisan infrastructure bill and $1.75tn reconciliation package as soon as today
• Giuliani investigators home in on 2019 plan to advance Ukraine interests
House speaker Nancy Pelosi would not provide any additional details about when the chamber might vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I wish to,” the Democratic speaker told reporters at her weekly press conference.
Continue reading...Senator Joe Manchin said it would take “quite a while” to pass the reconciliation package, even as the House looks to hold votes on that proposal and the bipartisan infrastructure bill by the end of the week.
“You’re talking about overhauling the entire tax code. That is tremendous. And there needs to be input. We need to know what the effect’s going to be,” the West Virginia senator told CNN on Capitol Hill.
Continue reading...Joe Biden has urged Democrats to pass his $1.75tn social spending plan, insisting he campaigned on the agenda in the bills and ‘81 million Americans voted’ for it. ‘Their voices deserve to he heard, not denied,’ the US president said as he delivered remarks at the White House after declaring he has reached a ‘historic economic framework’ with Democratic lawmakers
Continue reading...Another reporter pressed Jen Psaki on whether Joe Biden will be able to push for significant climate policies at the Cop26 conference if he has not yet reached a deal on the reconciliation package.
The press secretary acknowledged that it would be Biden’s “preference” to go to the United Nations conference with a deal on the reconciliation bill, which is expected to include a number of climate provisions, although some of them have been scaled back due to demands from Joe Manchin.
Continue reading...The US president hopes to be a transformational figure like FDR but inaction on voting rights, the climate crisis and social policy has fuelled frustration
When Joe Biden huddled with a group of historians in March, the conversation revolved around thinking big like one of his predecessors, Franklin Roosevelt, architect of the New Deal. Biden, it seemed, wanted to join him in the first rank of transformational US presidents.
Six months later, a very different gathering took place this week outside the White House gates. Five young climate activists, holding signs and sitting on folding chairs, began an indefinite hunger strike. It was a visceral expression of disgust at what they see as Biden’s willingness to think small and break his promises.
Continue reading...Climate activists have gathered on Capitol Hill to demand that Democrats’ reconciliation package effectively address the climate crisis.
One protester with Greenpeace carried cutouts of Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and moderate Democratic senator Joe Manchin, portraying Schumer as Manchin’s puppet.
Continue reading...White House medical adviser tells CNN vaccinated Americans will be able to get out and enjoy Halloween
Americans should celebrate good news about declining Covid cases as the holiday season approaches but should not “prematurely declare victory” over the coronavirus, Dr Anthony Fauci said on Sunday.
The right approach to increasing vaccinations and observing public health precautions would contribute to a happy Halloween for children, the chief White House medical adviser said, pointing to imminent federal consideration of data which will lead to a decision on whether children aged five to 12 are eligible for a shot.
Continue reading...Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, sought to fight his way out of a corner on Friday by releasing an angry letter in which he blamed Democrats for the impasse over the debt ceiling he broke by ending a refusal to co-operate he had said was absolute.
In the letter to Joe Biden, McConnell complained about a speech in which the Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, attacked Republicans for their behaviour.
Continue reading...The left of the party is celebrating holding firm on insisting on both parts of Biden’s domestic agenda over centrist objections
When House Democrats were forced to delay their planned vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill earlier this month, the reaction from progressives was a bit surprising considering it is a key part of Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.
Rather than lamenting the delay of the vote, progressive groups praised the Democratic lawmakers who had demanded the scheduling change.
Continue reading...Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer is drawing a line in the sand and saying budget reconciliation is absolutely not an option for when it comes to bypassing the Republicans and their filibuster and raising the debt limit.
This comes with senate minority leader Mitch McConnell writing directly to Joe Biden to tell him get Schumer and Pelosi to essentially get behind budget reconciliation because Republicans aren’t budging.
Continue reading...Another piece to the whole debt ceiling todo is the infrastructure bill and the $3.5tn reconciliation bill (also known as the Build Back Better Act).
Republicans have long balked at the amount of spending proposed by the Democrats in each of these key pieces of legislation for the Biden administration and are using them to justify voting against raising the debt limit - they’re saying the Democrats are spending too much domestically.
Continue reading...Party locked in a bitter struggle over two massive legislative bills that could make or break the Biden presidency
Bernie Sanders, the leftwing firebrand who has drawn the fight against poverty and inequality into the mainstream of American politics, issued a call to arms on Sunday for fellow progressives to stand firm in the intensifying battle over the future of Joe Biden’s economic and social policy agenda.
With the Democratic party locked in a bitter struggle over two massive legislative bills that could make or break the Biden presidency, Sanders said the outcome of the next few weeks would be critical not just for the future of American working families but also for the country’s political future.
Continue reading...The West Virginia and Arizona senators’ resistance threatens to upend Biden’s entire presidency – is self-preservation to blame?
Donald Trump’s favorite insult for political opponents inside his own party is “Rino” – Republican in name only. By such logic, Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are the epitome of Dinos, two elected Democrats whose dogged resistance to Joe Biden’s social agenda threatens/threatened to upend his entire presidency.
Their standoff with the party’s progressive wing over the price tag of Biden’s ambitious reform package has become almost more of a hazard to his legacy than anything the Republicans, currently in a narrow minority in both chambers of Congress, can throw at it.
Continue reading...Two massive economic and social packages have reached an impasse, threatening to derail Biden’s first term in office
Warring factions of the Democratic party are bracing themselves for a potentially bruising month of negotiations over the two massive economic and social packages that have reached an impasse in Congress threatening to derail Joe Biden’s first term in office.
With Democratic leaders racing against a new 31 October deadline to pass the legislation, and with pressure building on the White House from both centrist and progressive wings of the party, the centerpiece of Biden’s agenda now hangs in the balance. Democratic prospects in next year’s midterm elections are also at stake.
Continue reading...President meets Democrats for talks and insists ‘it doesn’t matter whether it’s six minutes or six weeks – we’re going to get it done’
Democrats returned to the Capitol on Friday deeply divided but determined to make progress on Joe Biden’s ambitious economic vision, after an embarrassing setback delayed a planned vote on a related $1tn measure to improve the nation’s infrastructure.
Biden on Friday made a rare visit to Capitol Hill to meet privately with House Democrats amid a stalemate that has put his sprawling domestic agenda in jeopardy. The visit comes after after the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, delayed a vote on part of his economic agenda, a bipartisan $1tn public works measure, on Thursday night after a frantic day of negotiations failed to produce a deal.
Continue reading...Bill passed by Senate and House will extend funding until 3 December as Democrats continue to wrangle over Biden’s economic agenda
House speaker Nancy Pelosi left her press conference by urging reporters to “think positively” about the negotiations over the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package.
And yet, as Pelosi was making her comments, House majority leader Steny Hoyer said he was not confident that the infrastructure bill would pass today, as Democratic leadership had previously hoped.
Continue reading...
Melody Schreiber reports for the Guardian:
The southern US state of Alabama, which has the highest death rate from Covid-19 in America, is planning to use Covid relief funds to help construct three large prisons and renovate several others.
Related: Alabama plans to use Covid relief funds to finance prison-building spree
As Democrats remain at an impasse over the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package, some have expressed concern that the American public could have been better informed about what the latter bill actually aims to achieve.
The White House has packaged the wide range of initiatives under the loose slogan of “Build Back Better,” but the bill has more commonly been labelled in the media by its headline price tag - $3.5 trillion - with Democrats also unable to say definitively what would be in it.
The package, now the subject of furious negotiations on Capitol Hill, would fundamentally transform the government’s relationship with its citizens and dramatically expand the social safety net.
It sets out to broaden well-known programs for example, adding dental vision and hearing aid benefits to Medicare and continuing the Obama-era health law’s temporary subsidies that helped people buy insurance during the pandemic [...]
Continue reading...Former president says billionaires should ‘pay a little bit more in taxes’ to fund healthcare, childcare and the climate crisis fight
Barack Obama says wealthy Americans – including himself – can afford tax rises to help fund Joe Biden’s ambitious spending plan.
Related: Pelosi: Biden spending plan, infrastructure deal and funding ‘must pass’ next week
Continue reading...