Bite, key senators gather as the demers run toward budget agreement

WASHINGTON (AP) – Deadline driven, President Joe Biden brought two key senators to his Delaware home Sunday for talks addressed …

WASHINGTON (AP) -Deadline-driven, President Joe Biden brought two key senators to his Delaware home Sunday for talks aimed at resolving the disputes that have dampened Democrats’ extensive social safety nets and environmental measures at the core of his home agenda.

In addition to the domestic schedule, Biden is pushing for progress so he can focus on the performance of his administration for world leaders at overseas summits starting this week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Said she expected an agreement on a framework by the end of the week, paving the way for a House vote on a separate $ 1 trillion infrastructure bill before next Sunday, in which a series of transportation programs will lapse. .

“That’s the plan,” she said.

The White House said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. and Senator Joe Manchin, DW.Va., came to Biden’s home in Wilmington, where he spent the weekend, for the session, but did not immediately make a statement describing what was being discussed.

Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., Two of their party’s most moderate members, have insisted on reducing the size of the huge package and have pushed for other changes.

Pelosi said she was waiting for the Senate to conclude the negotiations and expected a plan to be introduced as early as Monday. Top Democrats are fighting to get a framework so they can move on to adopt the infrastructure bill, which progressives in the House have held as a lever to force agreement on the larger package of health, education and environmental initiatives.

“I think we’re pretty much there,” Pelosi said, stressing that a few “final decisions” need to be made. “It’s smaller than what was expected to begin with, but it’s still bigger than anything we’ve ever done to meet the needs of America’s working families.”

Democrats originally planned that the measure would include spending of $ 3.5 trillion and tax initiatives over 10 years. But demands from moderates led by Manchin and Sinema to contain costs mean that its final price may well be less than $ 2 trillion.

There is still disagreement as to whether some priorities should be cut or excluded. These include plans to expand Medicare coverage, childcare assistance and help lower-income college students. Manchin, whose state has a large coal industry, has opposed proposals to penalize utilities that do not quickly switch to clean energy.

Pelosi said Democrats are still working to retain provisions for four weeks of paid family leave, but acknowledges that other proposals such as Extending Medicare to include dental coverage may prove more difficult to save due to cost. “Dental will take a little longer to implement,” she said.

It is also expected that a proposal for clean energy, which was at the heart of Biden’s strategy to combat climate change, will be cut. Biden has set a goal of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2030. But Manchin has made it clear that he opposes the original proposal for clean energy, which should have the government impose sanctions on power plants that do not meet benchmarks. for clean energy and provide financial rewards to those who do.

Democrats hoped Biden could name a major achievement when he attended a global conference in Scotland on climate change in early November after attending the summit of world leaders in Rome.

Senator Angus King, an independent in Maine who disagrees with the Democrats, said the expected cuts in clean energy provisions in the spending bill were particularly disappointing because “it weakens Joe Biden’s hands in Glasgow.”

“If we are to get the rest of the world to take serious steps to remedy this problem, we have to do it ourselves,” he said.

Pelosi insisted the Democrats had put together other policies in the expense bill that could reduce emissions. “We want something that will meet the president’s goals,” she said.

The White House and congressional leaders have been trying to push months-long negotiations toward a conclusion by the end of October. The goal of the Democrats is to present an outline before then that would clarify the overall size of the measure and describe policy goals that leaders as well as progressives and moderates would support.

The comprehensive measure carries many of Biden’s biggest domestic priorities. Party leaders want to end internal struggles, ward off the risk of failure, and focus voters’ attention on the plan’s popular programs to help families with child care, health care costs and other issues.

Democrats will also make progress that could help Democrat Terry McAuliffe win a neck-and-neck Nov. 2 gubernatorial election in Virginia.

The hope is that an agreement between the party’s two factions would create enough confidence to let the Democrats finally push through the separate $ 1 trillion package for highway and broadband projects.

This bipartisan measure was approved during the summer by the Senate. But it stalled after the House’s progressives withdrew their support over disagreements over the larger spending bill that prompted Congress to miss an initial deadline in late September and rush to approve stopgap money for lapse of transport programs. Pelosi later set an October 31 target for the adoption of the infrastructure bill, though lawmakers have already slipped past last Friday’s goal set by Democratic leaders to reach agreement on the spending package.

Since Republicans are completely against Biden’s spending plans, the president needs all Democrats in the 50-50 Senate to pass and can only save a few votes in Parliament.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, maintained that his assembly would not step up to support the infrastructure proposal by October 31 if there was no agreement on the broader package that would be adopted under so-called budget voting rules.

“The president needs the reconciliation agreement to go to Glasgow,” said Khanna, D-Calif. “That’s what’s going to tackle climate change, that’s what’s going to hit his goal of a 50% reduction by 2030. I’m convinced we’ll get a deal.”

Pelosi spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union,” King appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” and Khanna on “Fox News Sunday.”

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AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro and Associated Press author Alan Fram contributed to this report.

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