Democrats Make Big Push To Pass 'Joe Biden’s Bill'
"There’s too much on the line for our country,” Rep Gottheimer says
Democrats in Washington DC see the opportunity to enact so much of their agenda wrapped up in the ability to pass a $3.5 trillion spending package which too often lately has been on the rocks.
That's why they are focused this week on getting it over the finish line.
Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) began assembling the $3.5 trillion spending package weeks ago when it became apparent that President Biden was whittling away much of his own infrastructure initiative in order to win Republican votes.
Sanders assembled the $3.5 trillion package as an alternative vehicle to pass massive investments in the battle against global climate change and other aspects of the Democratic agenda. The $3.5 trillion bill is designed to be passed through a budget process known as “reconciliation,” which is immune from the filibuster.
However, the legislation requires the support of all of the Senate Democrats with their bare, 50-seat majority. And conservative Democratic Sen Joe Manchin of West Virginia pulled his support earlier this month, throwing the fate of the spending plan in jeopardy.
“This is Joe Biden’s bill. As he said in the Oval Office, ‘I’ve never been a progressive.’ This is about seizing what is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, like those who built the canals and the railroads, like those that built the incredible Eisenhower highway act,” said Sen Cory Booker (D-NJ). “So how this plays out, yeah, this is Washington. I’m sure there’s going to be some kind of compromise.
“But to me, the compromise of repairing our electrical grid or to compromise ending, being the only nation on the planet Earth of industrial nations that doesn’t have paid family leave, that has its costs and it’s going to make America lose the boldness of the possibility of jumping forward as a nation,” Booker added.
Storm effects like this from Hurricane Ida is pushing the need for big federal action on climate change
Moderates, like Rep Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) are also on board, which in the House means passing both the bipartisan infrastructure deal which is not popular among many progressives, as well as approving the separate $3.5 trillion spending package.
“I’m optimistic we’ll get both done. There’s too much on the line for our country,” Gottheimer said. “You think about infrastructure and that tragic train derailment in Montana on Amtrak last night and of course I’m here in New Jersey, we got hit so hard as other parts of the country did by Hurricane Ida. And in the infrastructure bill is climate resiliency to fight climate change, fix Amtrak and invest in our roads, bridges and rails, a ton of us, New York and New Jersey, tunnels that are crumbling, broadband.
“So much in this historic, once-in-a-century package and sitting waiting for our consideration, waiting for us to vote on it since early August. I can’t explain to everybody why we have this separate bill sitting here and hard working men and women ready to go to work and get this done and we haven’t voted on it,” he added. “That’s why I know we have to get [the bipartisan infrastructure plan] done and we will and we also have to get reconciliation done and that’s also going to get done.”
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