Biden puts Social Safety Net legislation ahead of his Infrastructure Bill…Update

In  indicating that social legislation should go first he is doing two things….

First he’s making House Progressive Democrats happy…

And?

He’s pressuring centrist Democrats and Senator’s Manchin and Sinema to bend, less the whole thing fail and come down on their heads….

(The Senator’s want the Infrastructure money…So do Republicans, even if won’t vote for it)

Biden isn’t saying how much he’ll accept in cuts to his overall goal of $3.5 Trillion….

But?

This IS a intra-party face off between two Democratic Senators, House centrists and House progressives….

And Biden HAS made it clear….

The WILL BE CUTS down from in the overall total amount of money involved which the two Senator’s are animate about…..

And it’s playing out a bit in public….

President Biden, facing an intraparty battle over his domestic agenda, put his own $1 trillion infrastructure bill on hold on Friday, telling Democrats that a vote on the popular measure must wait until Democrats pass his far more ambitious social policy and climate change package.

It was largely a bid to mediate the impasse that has stalled a planned vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which progressives refuse to support until they see action on the remainder of Mr. Biden’s agenda in a major budget bill to expand health care, education, climate change initiatives and paid leave.

“I’m telling you, we’re going to get this done,” Mr. Biden said at the Capitol after huddling with Democrats who have been feuding over the two bills. He added: “It doesn’t matter when. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days or six weeks. We’re going to get it done.”

In private remarks, he counseled Democrats that while he wanted both pieces of legislation to become law, final passage of the Senate-passed infrastructure bill needed to wait until the party agreed to the details of the broader reconciliation package. But he also warned liberal Democrats that a proposed $3.5 trillion price tag would probably need to drop in order to accommodate centrist holdouts, and he tossed out a range of figures around $2 trillion as a possible alternative….

…

The infrastructure bill, which would provide $550 billion in new funding, was supposed to burnish Mr. Biden’s bipartisan bona fides. It includes $65 billion to expand high-speed internet access; $110 billion for roads, bridges and other projects; $25 billion for airports; and the most funding for Amtrak since the passenger rail service was founded in 1971. It would also accelerate a national shift toward electric vehicles, with new charging stations and fortifications of the electricity grid that will be necessary to power those cars….

More…

President Biden, meeting with House Democrats on Capitol Hill on Friday, indicated they must further delay a final vote on a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and scale back his $3.5 trillion social spending package to around $2 trillion range if either is to pass, lawmakers told Axios.

Why it matters: Biden made clear he wants to keep the two packages linked together and that he is optimistic there can be an agreement…..

More…