The U.S. Senate approved a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint with a party-line vote in the early hours of Wednesday morning, a key step toward passage of sprawling legislation that would expand Medicare, establish paid family and medical leave, and make substantial investments in green energy.

The chamber's approval of the budget framework came after the hours-long spectacle known as "vote-a-rama," a process during which senators are allowed to offer an unlimited number of largely meaningless, non-binding amendments to the resolution.

Republican senators, who are unanimously opposed to Democrats' $3.5 trillion proposal, seized the opportunity to put forth dozens of messaging amendments denouncing tax hikes on the wealthy, supporting a ban on the teaching of "critical race theory in prekindergarten programs and elementary and secondary schools," and pushing a $50 billion increase to the already-bloated Pentagon budget.

Democratic senators also introduced amendments to the resolution. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, offered an amendment expressing support for tax increases on the nation's richest 0.1%. The measure failed after Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) joined every Republican in voting no.

In a statement late Tuesday, the anti-war group CodePink applauded the Senate's rejection of the Pentagon amendment by a 46-53 vote.

"This vote should be viewed as a test of how committed our representatives are to actually addressing the climate crisis," said Carley Towne, CodePink's co-director. "The IPCC report released earlier this week made clear that if we're going to have any chance at addressing the climate crisis, we need to slash funding for the Pentagon, which is the largest institutional producer of greenhouse gases in the world."

"Today," Towne added, "46 senators prioritized increasing the profits of military contractors over the future of our planet."

The $3.5 trillion budget resolution now heads to the House, which can either pass the measure as is or amend it and send it back to the Senate. House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced Tuesday that the lower chamber will cut its recess short to take up the measure on August 23.

If the House passes the budget framework, congressional committees will then move to convert the blueprint into legislative text, a process that's expected to drag on until mid-September. Once the package is assembled, Democrats will move the pass the bill with just 50 votes using budget reconciliation, which is exempt from the legislative filibuster.

In a floor speech ahead of Wednesday's vote, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noted that Republicans have repeatedly used the budget reconciliation process to reward the wealthy and large corporations, pointing specifically to the $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that the GOP rammed through in 2017.

"I do understand that many of my Republican colleagues are in a bit of shock now," said Sanders, chair of the Senate Budget Committee and chief architect of the $3.5 trillion resolution. "They are finding it hard to believe that the president and the Democratic caucus are prepared to go forward in addressing the long-neglected needs of working families, and not just the 1% and wealthy campaign contributors. That's not the way things usually happen around here. Usually it’s the big money interests and the lobbyists who call the tunes. But not today. Today, we move the country forward in a different direction."

"The American people want a government which represents all of us, and not just the few," Sanders continued. "This legislation is going to ask the wealthy and the powerful to start paying their fair share of taxes so that we can address the needs of working families, the elderly, the children, the sick, and the poor. "

While all 50 Democrats voted in favor of the $3.5 trillion budget resolution, the framework merely sets the outer boundaries of the forthcoming reconciliation package. Some conservative Democrats—most prominently Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)—have indicated that they may not support that level of spending, setting up a potential fight with progressives in the House and Senate over the specifics of the legislation.

"In order to save millions of lives and have a chance at a thriving future economy, Democrats must take advantage of this moment and pass transformative legislation," Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Tuesday. "The $3.5 trillion in the Democrat-led budget resolution making its way through the Senate right now is much closer to what we need, but it still doesn't go far enough. We must absolutely pass that bill, but I will be doing everything in my power over the coming weeks and months to advance and support other pieces of legislation that reflect the scope and scale of the crises we face."

House Democrats are struggling to pass a budget framework that will unlock their ability to move forward on a sweeping $3.5 trillion economic package amid a standoff with moderates that has thrown a key agenda item for President Joe Biden into jeopardy.

The impasse forced House leadership into negotiations late into the evening on Monday attempting to reach a deal with the moderates that would allow them to move ahead with a vote to pass the resolution, but shortly after midnight members were notified that no further votes were expected in the House for the night.

Not only did Democrats not reach their initial goal of passing the budget resolution on Monday, they will return to the Capitol on Tuesday morning without a final vote scheduled or a firm plan on how to get there. A vote could take place as soon as Tuesday afternoon, but that would require the cohort of moderate Democrats or Democratic House leadership to make a concession that neither side has seemingly been willing to make up until this point.

The tension in the Democratic caucus came to a boiling point in a heated, expletive-laden meeting late on Monday. Multiple sources confirmed that lawmakers grew visibly angry when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was emphasizing lawmakers shouldn't "squander" the opportunity to pass these bills with their majority in the House.

"You all have to vote for the goddamn rule," House Rules Chair Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, also said, to cheers in the room, according to a source familiar. Moderates, who are refusing to vote on the rule, were not present in the room when McGovern made his comments, which Politico first reported.

When Pelosi left her office late Monday night, she told reporters, "We'll see tomorrow, won't we now," when asked about the rule that would be coming to the floor. A group of moderates has demanded to first vote on a separate $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, complicating an effort by Democratic leadership to quickly approve the budget resolution. The Democratic caucus is meeting Tuesday morning in search of a deal, including with some of the moderates who are blocking the bill from advancing.

The demand from moderates comes as Pelosi has made clear for months that the House won't take up the bipartisan bill until the Senate passes the larger and more sweeping package through budget reconciliation. Progressives have said they won't support the infrastructure bill on its own without the larger economic package that would expand the social safety net.

Trying to find common ground, Democratic leadership attempted to put forward a vote that would pass the budget resolution using a special procedural move instead of requiring it to have its own vote. Pelosi also floated assurances to the group of moderates that the Senate's bipartisan infrastructure deal would get a vote in the House by October 1, but it was unclear as of early Tuesday whether a specific date had been written into the rule to satisfy moderates.

McGovern told reporters late Monday night, "We're still trying to figure out if we go tonight or early tomorrow morning." Asked if moderates will vote for it, he replied, "I don't know that. I think we're still waiting to hear from people. ... We're waiting to figure out whether we have" the votes.

Earlier in the evening, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters, "We're still working," when asked about a meeting with moderate Democrats about whether they can come together and vote on the budget resolution. Hoyer said an agreement had not been reached. "We had a discussion and they have concerns," Hoyer said. "And we're trying to meet those concerns."

The House of Representatives narrowly approved a budget resolution that provides the framework for a $3.5 trillion spending deal following an impasse between House leaders and centrist Democrats that threatened to derail progress on the vast majority of President Biden's domestic agenda.

Tuesday's vote was 220-212 along party lines.

House leaders used a procedural workaround to avoid a lengthy battle and a separate vote on the budget resolution itself, but the rift between Democrats over how far Congress should go in reshaping the role of the federal government is still unresolved.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pursued a strategy of tying the fate of a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill to the broader spending plan full of Democratic priorities. She has repeatedly insisted the House would not vote on the infrastructure bill until the Senate passes the larger spending package. Progressives worry advancing a vote on infrastructure could lose much-needed momentum for the broader budget.

After hours of late-night talks Monday, Democratic leaders offered a compromise to the centrists who called for a vote on the infrastructure bill. Pelosi agreed to add the budget vote into a procedural measure and add a provision specifying that the House would vote on the infrastructure bill by Sept. 27.

Each of the moderate lawmakers who had demanded an early vote on infrastructure ultimately fell into step with Pelosi and voted for the measure. While they got a commitment on a date certain on the bipartisan bill, they did not extract any assurances on the size or substance of the policies in the broader bill.

Pelosi and other leaders have insisted that the only way to make good on promises to address climate change and provide support to workers and families is to tie the two bills together.

"I know we will succeed because of the confidence I have in the shared values of all in our Caucus for America's working families," Pelosi told Democrats in a letter sent Monday as negotiations dragged on between the two camps. "The success of each bill contributes to the success of the other."

As leaders worked to find the votes for the compromise, Pelosi told reporters Tuesday morning, "When we bring up the bill, we will have the votes."

lurker wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:39 am

CDFingers wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:11 am The Dems should just drop guns and run on, "See? We get shit done for the People." But, alas.