WASHINGTON — Despite a long night of frantic negotiations, Democrats were unable to reach an immediate deal to salvage President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion government overhaul, forcing leaders to call off promised votes on a related public works bill. Action is to resume Friday.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi had pushed the House into an evening session and top White House advisers huddled for talks at the Capitol as the Democratic leaders worked late Thursday to negotiate a scaled-back plan that centrist holdouts would accept. Biden had cleared his schedule for calls with lawmakers but it appeared no deal was within reach, particularly with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
Manchin refused to budge, the West Virginia centrist holding fast to his earlier declaration that he was willing to meet the president less than halfway — $1.5 trillion.
“I don’t see a deal tonight. I really don’t,” Manchin told reporters as he left the Capitol.
Deeply at odds, the president and his party are facing a potentially embarrassing setback — if not politically devastating collapse of the whole enterprise — if they cannot resolve the standoff over Biden’s big vision.
At immediate risk was a promised vote on the first piece of Biden’s proposal, a slimmer $1 trillion public works bill that is widely supported but has faltered amid stalled talks on his more ambitious package. Progressives were refusing to back the roads-and-bridges bill they view as insufficient unless there’s progress on Biden’s broader plan that’s the heart of the Democratic agenda. With support, leaders canceled a promised Thursday night vote, and said the House would be back in session Friday,
Pelosi called it a “day of progress” in a letter to colleagues, but offered few other words on the path forward.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki released a statement saying: “A great deal of progress has been made this week, and we are closer to an agreement than ever. But we are not there yet, and so, we will need some additional time to finish the work, starting tomorrow morning first thing.”
The political stakes could hardly be higher.
Biden and his party are reaching for a giant legislative accomplishment — promising a vast rewrite of the nation’s tax and spending plans — with a so-slim majority in Congress.
The president’s sweeping proposal topped at $3.5 trillion would essentially raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy and plow that money back into government health care, education and other programs, all of it touching the lives of countless Americans.