Democrats start work on smaller version of Biden’s spending plan
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democratic lawmakers are working on a slimmed-down spending plan that will include some major provisions of President Biden’s failed Build Back Better package.
Despite the recent defeat of the $2 trillion plan, the powerful lawmaker from California said she is optimistic that a smaller package can pass both the House and Senate, which would mean winning over moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)
“I would hope would be a major bill going forward,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “It may be more limited, but it is still significant.”
Pelosi sounded a bit miffed at Biden’s description of the bill as a grab bag of “chunks” of his doomed plan.
“Call it a chunk if you want, but whatever you call it, we want it to be able to make a difference,” Pelosi added.
Democrats hope that a scaled-back package will still be passed in the Senate via the complex reconciliation process, meaning that it only requires a simple majority vote.
That still means getting the support of Manchin, who singlehandedly torpedoed Build Back Better over his concerns that the price tag was too high.
House Democrats hope to include universal pre-kindergarten, hundreds of billions to fight climate change and expanding Medicare in a new more Manchin-friendly package.
The moderate kingmaker sounded less than thrilled about any big new spending bill, saying inflation and COVID should be higher priorities.
“I want to see what’s feasible, what we can do in a reasonable, feasible way,” Manchin said.
