Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) indicated Thursday she may accept President Joe Biden’s rebranded $1.85 trillion reconciliation framework.
Her potential blessing on the framework could be enough to convince the far-left to unlock the $2.1 trillion “bipartisan” infrastructure bill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA is attempting to pass Thursday.
“After months of productive, good-faith negotiations with President Biden and the White House, we have made significant progress on the proposed budget reconciliation package,” Sinema said in a press release.
“I look forward to getting this done, expanding economic opportunities and helping everyday families get ahead,” she added.
Sinema’s public statement has not convinced Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) the reconciliation framework is acceptable. He told reporters Thursday the framework “needs to be improved.”
“There is, to the best of my knowledge, no language in there that takes on the pharmaceutical industry” to subsidize prescription drug prices and “that’s a major problem,” he said.
Biden was on Capitol Hill Thursday morning to beg Democrats to stop infighting over his proposed agenda. He reportedly told Democrat lawmakers behind closed doors that if his agenda was enacted, it “would be greater and more significant than FDR and LBJ combined.”
U.S. President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi leave a meeting with House Democrats at the U.S. Capitol on Capitol Hill October 28, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).
But Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the Progressive Caucus leader of 95 members who many times has politically aligned with Sanders, told reporters after Biden’s visit she wanted to see the written legislation, not just a framework.
“The first step is we’ve gotta see the legislation,” she said.
The proposed framework by the White House omits several measures the Democrats have demanded. These include increased Medicare benefits, such as hearing, dental, and vision; the SALT deduction; and subsidies for prescription drugs.
The framework does include, however, a 15 percent corporate minimum tax on corporations, along with $555 billion for climate change provisions, $400 billion for subsidized child care and pre-K, $200 billion for a child tax credit, and $100 billion for amnesty.
“No one got everything they wanted, including me. But that’s what compromise is,” Biden publicly scolded Democrats before leaving for Rome.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø.