par Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic voters will be disappointed if their side is forced to downgrade the Biden administration’s infrastructure, welfare and climate ambitions, a White House adviser said on Sunday.
The presidency is working to reach a compromise within the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives to pass both its $ 1 trillion (862 billion euros) infrastructure investment plan and its 3.500 billion dollars budgetary program dedicated to strengthening social protection and combating climate change.
But the adoption of these two texts is currently facing both the opposition of the Republican Party and the moderate and progressive divisions between the wings of the Democratic camp.
“People will be disappointed. People will not get everything they want, it is the nature of the legislative process itself but the objective is to succeed on both texts and we will fight until we succeed. on both texts “, said on NBC Cedric Richmond, one of the persons in charge of the file at the White House.
Joe Biden himself went to Capitol Hill on Friday to try to advance negotiations within the majority and then said he was ready to “work hard” to promote a compromise.
These discussions could result in reducing the amount of the budget plan for social protection and the climate from 3.500 billion to about 2.000 billion, according to elected Democrats.
In the Senate, the cost of this program is disputed in particular by two moderate Democratic senators, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin. The latter said he could vote for a text closer to 1.5 trillion dollars and Kyrsten Sinema has so far not mentioned any amount.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, had to postpone this week the planned vote on the plan for infrastructure, adopted in the Senate in August, the Progressive Democrats demanding that the two texts be considered simultaneously.
On Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the goal now was to pass the two drafts in less than a month.
Congress must also reach an agreement quickly in order to prevent the federal government from reaching the ceiling on public debt, which would place the United States in a situation of default at the risk of triggering a financial crisis.
Pramila Jayapal, who chairs the Progressive Democrats’ caucus in the House, said on Sunday that an acceptable amount of the budget plan should be between $ 1.5 trillion and $ 3.5 trillion.
While Joe Manchin claimed that 1,500 billion was a cap for him, Pramila Jayapal said on CNN: “It will not happen. Because it is too little to advance our priorities. So it will be somewhere between 1,500 and 3.500 (billion). “
(Report Susan Cornwell, Phil Stewart and Jonathan Landay, French version Marc Angrand)
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