Senate Democrats have passed The $3.5 trillion Good Package™ super infrastructure plan on top of the Biden Infrastructure Bill in the last 24 hours, but now comes the hard work of actually filling in the numbers, and arriving at something that both moderates like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin can accept that doesn't get sunk by AOC and The Squad in the House may already be an impossibility.
The blueprint now heads to the House, where lawmakers will return early from a scheduled summer recess the week of Aug. 23 to take it up. But moderate Democrats are also agitating for a stand-alone vote on the bipartisan infrastructure package, which could complicate efforts to swiftly pass the measure. Progressives have said they will not vote on the infrastructure bill until the House approves the budget package.
“Democrats have labored for months to reach this point, and there are many labors to come,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader. “But I can say with absolute certainty that it will be worth doing.”
The budget resolution will ultimately allow Democrats to use the fast-track budget reconciliation process to shield the legislation from a Republican filibuster. It will pave the way to expand Medicare to include dental, health and vision benefits; fund a host of climate change programs; provide free prekindergarten and community college; and levy higher taxes on wealthy businesses and corporations.
But months of arduous work remain. That includes not only turning the outline into fleshed-out legislation, but also reconciling the competing demands of liberal and centrist Democrats.
Moderates have begun to express reservations about the size and scope of the legislation. At least one Senate Democrat, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, has said she will not support a final $3.5 trillion price tag, despite voting to advance a budget resolution of that scope, and some House moderates have expressed similar concerns.
But many liberals in both chambers had sought even more spending, and they conditioned their support for the infrastructure deal, which they believe Democrats scaled back too much to secure Republican votes, on passage of the budget blueprint.
Senate Republicans sought to exploit some of those divisions through the so-called vote-a-rama, where an unlimited number of amendments could be offered by both parties. This was the third vote-a-rama this year, after Democrats prevailed through two identical exercises to push their $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package through Congress.
The marathon of nearly four dozen votes also gave Republicans a platform to hammer Democrats for trying to advance a package of this magnitude entirely without their input, as well as distinguish the process from the public works plan many of them had supported hours earlier.
“You’re spending money like drunken sailors,” declared Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Budget Committee. “You’re putting in motion, I think, the demise of America as we know it. You’re putting in motion a government that nobody’s grandchild can ever afford to pay.”
The proposed changes, many of which were shot down along party lines, were nonbinding and intended more to burnish a political case against the most vulnerable Democratic senators facing re-election in 2022 than to become law. Some Republicans said the brunt of their proposals would wait until the subsequent legislation was finished, when changes could actually be adopted.
“The next vote-a-rama is the one that really matters, because then you’re firing with live ammo,” said Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania. “So I’m much more interested in that one than this one.”
Remember, even if the bill passes the House in a final compromise form and heads back to the Senate, all it will take to sink the bill is one Democrat and all 50 Republicans adding an amendment that wipes out the entire thing.
And as always, the clock is ticking.
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