Washington, Oct. 5 (BNA) President Joe Biden is changing his strategy to sell off ambitious social spending plans by traveling outside Washington and courting Democrats who have complained that they feel left out of the process.
With his agenda at stake on Capitol Hill, Biden on Tuesday will visit the Michigan county home to a moderate Democratic lawmaker who has urged him to promote his proposals more aggressively to the public. Back in Washington, negotiations are continuing on a pair of bills to boost spending on safety net, health and environmental programs and infrastructure projects, The Associated Press reports.
While there is cautious optimism about the recent progress, no agreement has been reached to bridge the stark divisions between moderates and progressives in the Democratic Party over the size and scope of the package. In recent weeks, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has worked unsuccessfully to secure the passage of bills, Biden has remained in Washington to persuade lawmakers and work on phones.
Now, he’s trying to get the public focused on the common components of the bills rather than arguing within the Beltway about its price.
The president will appear with Democratic Representative Elise Slotkin when he visits a union training center in Howell, Michigan, reflecting the importance of securing moderate votes. Next to Biden, the Democrats with the most rhetoric about the shape and success of his spending plans are House members of swing districts whose reelection is essential if his party is to retain control of Congress.
Democratic lawmakers have warned that Biden’s bold ideas are getting lost in internal party wrangling and procedural skirmishes over the legislation.
“We must inform the state of the transformative nature of initiatives in legislation,” Pelosi said in a letter to lawmakers ahead of Biden’s trip.
A visit to the Slotkin area, made with a hassle by Republican Donald Trump in 2020, is part of the sales effort.
Slotkin supports the bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill passed by the Senate but would prefer it to pass in the House before negotiating the broader $3.5 trillion social program package. Her aides said she’s indicated she might vote to approve the broader bill sooner if it’s fiscally responsible and could make a difference for families, but she’s not guaranteed a yes — which she planned to tell Biden on Tuesday.
“Honestly, it was hard for me to understand why the leadership decided in the first place to tie the two bills together,” Slotkin recently told the Detroit News. “This is not the way we usually work. It is not my preference.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Monday that after Biden has spent so much time in recent days mired in messy negotiations over the bills, “it’s now also important to remind people that sausage-making was kind of a dominant narrative for the last few weeks, what He is all of this. Why would he fight so hard for it.”
Biden last week postponed a trip to Chicago, where he was planning to promote coronavirus vaccines and work within his schedule, in order to stay in Washington and lobby lawmakers. He has rescheduled that flight for Thursday, and more travel is expected in the coming days.
The increase in travel aims to garner public support for a wide range of initiatives grouped under the loosely labeled ‘build back better’ slogan. A series of crises, from Afghanistan to COVID-19, along with a complex legislative process have hampered the White House’s ability to promote the massive package or even say definitively what will be in the final version.
Opinion polls indicate that elements of the bill such as expanding childcare opportunities and infrastructure projects are popular with large parts of the public. But even some of the White House’s closest allies were concerned that the West Wing wasn’t doing enough to sell it.
Aides said Biden was keen to shift the conversation away from price to the benefits of the legislation. In Michigan, he planned to glorify its benefits to the middle class and union workers.
Washington took over the drama last week as lawmakers grappled with a massive Democrat-only social spending bill that has been tied to an infrastructure bill. Progressives refrained from scaling back the $3.5 trillion social package and refused to vote for one infrastructure bill if the other bill narrowed. Meanwhile, moderate Democrats are pushing for a bipartisan infrastructure bill to get a House vote first, and some fear the size of the much larger social spending bill.
That leaves Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress at a crossroads, trying to bypass the tangle of legislation and remind voters of what they are trying to achieve. The president held a virtual meeting with 12 progressive House members on Monday and plans to hold a similar session with moderates later in the week.
With so much attention focused on winning over two key Democratic senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kirsten Sinema of Arizona, ordinary lawmakers can take advantage of the high-level support that comes from Biden to prove his vision to the public.
House members are scattered in their home districts this week as public views of Biden’s agenda are being formed. Senators are still in Washington but are working on another problem, legislation required to raise the country’s debt limit by mid-month to avoid a devastating credit default.
Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and White House officials met late Monday in a room outside the Senate floor to discuss next steps to get Biden’s agenda through.
These behind-the-scenes talks are intense as Biden cuts the size and scope of his $3.5 trillion social spending package to win Mansion, Cinema and a small group of conservative House Democrats without alienating progressives, who are fighting to preserve their priorities. in the invoice.
RAE