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Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington, said progressives had been clear that they would not support the bipartisan infrastructure bill if it came to a vote on Monday.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times


President Biden and top Democrats in Congress are facing a daunting set of challenges this week as they maneuver to unite their party’s feuding factions around their multitrillion-dollar domestic agenda and keep the government from shutting down before a Friday deadline.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said on Sunday night that the House would vote on a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Thursday, pushing off action that had been planned for Monday and giving Democrats more time to reach a consensus on the measure.
Progressives have said they will not back that legislation until they see action by Congress on a sprawling $3.5 trillion social safety net and climate change package, but moderates have balked at the size and scope of that bill, leaving both bills in limbo.
With slim majorities in both chambers, Democrats cannot afford to lose even a single Democratic vote in the Senate — and have room for as few as three defections in the House — to push through the legislation in the face of Republican opposition. House Democrats are slated to meet Monday afternoon to hash out their differences on the measures.
The talks are unfolding under the cloud of a potential government shutdown. The House infrastructure vote will come hours before government funding — as well as key transportation programs addressed in the infrastructure bill — is scheduled to lapse after midnight on Sept. 31.
Republicans are expected on Monday to block action in the Senate on a stopgap spending measure to extend funding into December, which would also raise the debt ceiling to allow the government to meet its obligations. Their opposition risks a shutdown this week and a catastrophic debt default within weeks, leaving Democrats searching for a new strategy for averting fiscal disaster.
The House passed the temporary spending bill last week with only Democratic votes.
Ms. Pelosi had committed last month to holding a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure legislation by Monday, after a group of centrist Democrats threatened to vote against a budget blueprint needed to push through the party’s signature $3.5 trillion social policy and climate change bill without a quick vote on their priority.
Ms. Pelosi’s announcement that the House would aim to pass the infrastructure bill later in the week reflected the difficulty of the task that Democratic leaders face as they try to knit together a compromise to move forward with Mr. Biden’s agenda.
“I’m never bringing a bill to the floor that doesn’t have the votes,” Ms. Pelosi said of the infrastructure bill on “This Week” on ABC on Sunday.
Mr. Biden and members of his cabinet huddled with lawmakers over the weekend in a bid to push the two bills over the finish line, according to a White House official familiar with the discussions.
Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington and the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, pledged again on Sunday that liberal lawmakers would not support the infrastructure bill unless it was accompanied by action on the $3.5 trillion plan.
“The speaker is an incredibly good vote counter, and she knows exactly where her caucus stands, and we’ve been really clear on that,” Ms. Jayapal said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “The votes aren’t there.”

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Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader and critic of Democratic spending plans, wants to force Democrats to raise the debt limit on their own. Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times


For nearly two decades, lawmakers in Washington have waged an escalating display of brinkmanship over the federal government’s ability to borrow money to pay its bills. They have forced administrations of both parties to take evasive actions, pushing the nation dangerously close to economic calamity. But they have never actually tipped the United States into default.
The dance is repeating this fall, but this time the dynamics are different — and the threat of default is greater than ever.
Republicans in Congress have refused to help raise the nation’s debt limit, even though the need to borrow stems from the bipartisan practice of running large budget deficits. Republicans agree the U.S. must pay its bills, but on Monday they are expected to block a measure in the Senate that would enable the government to do so. Democrats, insistent that Republicans help pay for past decisions to boost spending and cut taxes, have so far refused to use a special process to raise the limit on their own.
Observers inside and outside Washington are worried neither side will budge in time, roiling financial markets and capsizing the economy’s nascent recovery from the pandemic downturn.
If the limit is not raised or suspended, officials at the Treasury Department warn, the government will soon exhaust its ability to borrow money, forcing officials to choose between missing payments on military salaries, Social Security benefits and the interest it owes to investors who have financed America’s spending spree.
Yet Republicans have threatened to filibuster any attempt by Senate Democrats to pass a simple bill to increase borrowing. Party leaders like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky want to force Democrats to raise the limit on their own, through a fast-track congressional process that bypasses a Republican filibuster.
“If they want to tax, borrow, and spend historic sums of money without our input,” Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor this week, “they will have to raise the debt limit without our help.”

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Democrats in tight races would like President Biden to push for a quicker passage of the infrastructure bill.Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York Times


With President Biden’s approval ratings falling below 50 percent after the most trying stretch of his young administration, pushing through his ambitious legislative agenda has taken on a new urgency for Democratic lawmakers.
Recognizing that a president’s popularity is the best indicator for how his party will fare in the midterm elections, Democrats are confronting a stark prospect: If Mr. Biden doesn’t succeed in the halls of Congress this fall, it could doom his party’s majorities at the polls next fall.
Not that such a do-or-die dilemma is itself sufficient to stop Democrats’ intraparty squabbling, which the president on Friday termed a “stalemate.” Divisions between moderates and liberals over the substance, the price tag and even the legislative timing of Mr. Biden’s twin priorities, a bipartisan public works bill and broader social welfare legislation, could still undermine the proposals.
But it is increasingly clear to Democratic officials that beyond fully taming the still-raging pandemic, the only way Mr. Biden can rebound politically — and the party can retain its tenuous grip on power in the Capitol — is if he and they are able to hold up tangible achievements to voters.
Voting is already underway in the Virginia governor’s race, and with Election Day just five weeks away, the race between former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, and the business executive Glenn Youngkin has grown closer, in part because of Mr. Biden’s dip in the polls.
In an interview, the rarely subtle Mr. McAuliffe underlined the risk posed by congressional inaction, all but demanding that lawmakers act.
“Voters didn’t send Democrats to Washington to sit around and chitty-chat all day,” said Mr. McAuliffe, himself a former national party chair. “They need to get this done.”
Voters, he said, want “to see competence; they want to see people doing their jobs.”
Mr. McAuliffe, who is in a dead heat with Mr. Youngkin in public and private surveys, is close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a number of White House officials. He and his advisers have been blunt with Biden aides about the closeness of the governor’s race and have argued that the souring political environment for Democrats is the reason that the contest has grown more competitive, according to party officials familiar with the conversations.
His fellow moderates, if not quite feeling the same level of political urgency, agree and are perplexed by Mr. Biden’s failure to press both Ms. Pelosi and recalcitrant progressives to approve the infrastructure bill and provide him with a substantial, and much-needed, victory.

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Source: New York Times

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