House Democrats Expect To Pass the American Families Plan (Reconciliation Bill) This Week

The Associated Press reports, White House confident Biden’s bill will pass House this week:

President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser expressed confidence Sunday that the White House’s $1.85 trillion domestic policy package will quickly pass the House this week and said approval couldn’t come at a more urgent time as prices of consumer goods spike.

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“Inflation is high right now. And it is affecting consumers in their pocketbook and also in their outlook for the economy,” said Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council.

“This, more than anything, will go at the costs that Americans face,” he said, before adding that the House will consider the legislation this coming week. “It will get a vote, it will pass.”

In a letter Sunday to Democratic colleagues, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., counseled “time and patience” for working through a bill of this size.

Consumer prices have soared 6.2% over the last year, the biggest 12-month jump since 1990. Deese acknowledged that prices may not fully return to a more normal 2% level until next year due to the lingering effects of COVID-19, but he said the measure will go a long way toward “lowering costs for American families.”

“We’re confident this bill, as it moves through the process, is going to be fully paid for, and not only that, it’s actually going to reduce deficits over the long term,” he said.

* * *

House progressives had threatened to hold up the infrastructure bill without a firm commitment of immediate action on the broader package.

House centrists say they will vote for the package as early as this week if an upcoming Congressional Budget Office analysis affirms White House estimates that the bill is fully paid for. The measure would be covered with changes to corporate taxes, such as a new corporate minimum tax, while raising taxes on higher-income people.

On Friday, Pelosi wrote Democratic members reaffirming her plan to push ahead soon, noting that CBO estimates released so far on pieces of the plan have been consistent with White House projections.

“We are on a path to be further fortified with numbers from the Congressional Budget Office,” she said.

[T]he bill is expected to face changes in the Senate. With Republican opposition and an evenly split 50-50 Senate, Biden has no votes to spare.

Manchin in particular has been vocal about the risk of aggravating budget shortfalls and already has managed to bring the bill down from Biden’s original $3.5 trillion price tag. Last week, Manchin again sounded the alarm over “the threat posed by record inflation.”

This obstructionist coal baron is looking for any excuse to stop the clean energy measures in this bill out of self interest, not what is in the best interests of Americans. Where is his “good faith” that he is always asserting to the media he is showing?  Progressives demonstrated good faith in passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill, now it is up to the handful of “centrist” Democrats to honor the deal and demonstrate their good faith by passing the Democratic reconciliation bill.

Manchin would have to reject the American Families Plan included in the reconciliation bill, which will provide relief to American families and women who have been displaced by the Coronavirus pandemic from the work force. Does Joe Manchin really want to forever be branded an anti-family villain? This is political suicide.

The Hill adds, Democrats expect to pass $1.75T Biden package this week:

House Democrats are racing this week to pass President Biden’s $1.75 trillion social and climate spending package, which would give the party a burst of momentum heading into the Thanksgiving recess.

Democrats feel they are on the verge of a huge milestone in the House, where passage would be a big victory for the party.

House moderate holdouts have vowed to support the bill when it comes to the floor this week, even as they continue to wait for new numbers from the Congressional Budget Office to see if the package will add to the deficit.

[T]he Senate is unlikely to take action on the measure before December. Centrist Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) — whose arguments have helped whittle the once $3.5 trillion package in half — have yet to formally back the measure, and more changes are possible.

Despite the possibility of new drama in the Senate, senior Democrats say they are confident Congress can send the package to Biden’s desk by the end of the year.

“I think we’ll get it passed before Christmas,” one senior Democrat, Rep. G.K. Butterfield (N.C.), former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told The Hill.

* * *

Part of the Democrats’ messaging challenge stems from the fact that the Build Back Better bill is still in flux. With inflation recently hitting a 30-year high, Manchin will have fresh leverage to demand cuts to the House’s $1.75 trillion package, which features several provisions he’s consistently resisted, including paid family leave and a Medicare expansion.

Manchin, a former coal broker who has made millions of dollars from the industry, has also opposed certain provisions promoting a shift to cleaner energy sources — a position that’s prompted a backlash from more liberal Democrats pushing an aggressive green energy agenda as part of the massive spending package.

Fueling that debate was this month’s global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led a delegation of environmentally minded Democrats who are returning to Washington with a new zest for going big in the fight against climate change.

“Our grandchildren are not going to praise us for doing what was politically possible,” Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), a participant in the summit, said Friday. “They’re only going to praise us if we did what was scientifically necessary.”

The family leave provision and several others could be stripped out of the House bill once it hits the floor of the Senate [to appease Manchin], which is prepared to hold a vote-a-rama to see which policies can secure 51 votes and survive.

So, it’s all but inevitable the Senate will send an altered package back to the House next month, when it will compete for floor time with two huge but separate fiscal fights: one to fund the federal government and stave off a shutdown, the other to prevent a first-ever default on the nation’s debt, which the Treasury Department has warned would happen after Dec. 3.

This is only because of the “Grim Reaper of Democracy, ” Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, and his Sedition  Caucus policy of total obstruction. Insurrectionist Republicans have abandoned any responsibility for governance, they are hellbent on causing chaos and undermining American democracy.

Knowing they will need Manchin’s support, key Biden officials are gently pushing back on centrists’ concerns over inflation and the bill’s price tag. The package will reduce the deficit, according to White House estimates, thanks to a corporate minimum tax, tax hikes on the wealthiest households and cutting the cost of prescription drugs under Medicare. Officials also said the cost of not passing the package will mean that poor and middle-class families will continue to pay more for things like child care, housing and prescription drugs for seniors.

“If we don’t act on Build Back Better … we won’t be able to cut child care costs. … We won’t be able to make preschool free for many families starting in 2022, saving many families $8,600. We won’t be able to get ahead of skyrocketing housing costs … and we won’t be able to save Americans thousands of dollars by negotiating prescription drug prices,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.

You will own this, Joe Manchin, if you vote against American families. It will follow you to the grave.

“So our view is this makes a strong case for moving forward with this agenda,” she said. “Because what we’re really talking about is the cost to American families.”

Democrats say they have faith in Nancy Pelosi’s ability to deliver. If she does, it would likely serve as a capstone to a career that is already one of the most significant in modern congressional history.





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2 thoughts on “House Democrats Expect To Pass the American Families Plan (Reconciliation Bill) This Week”

  1. Stand strong, Manchin. Please don’t make the inflation any worse than it is. We all know that this bill offers nothing for American citizens and is all about the corrupt politicians satisfying their Donors and using taxpayers money to do it. Let them use their own money to give their donors what they want. It’s also about giving illegals the right to vote which is why they want millions of illegals to come to America. If that happens, there will be many more illegals than American citizens and the illegals will determine who wins American elections. Illegals will vote for Democratic candidates. This will end any chance of ever electing anything other than a Democrat. This will make America the dictatorship of which Nancy and her comrades will be totalitarian rulers.

    • Projecting much? Even the ‘illegal voting’ schtick wears thin when nearly all the actual documented cases of voter fraud turn out to be entitled Republicans trying to vote multiple times. As far as I can see, no Republican still actually supporting the party gives a tinker’s damn about democracy; they only care about getting and keeping power to impose their fake ‘values’ on the rest of us and give tax-breaks to the wealthiest.

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