'Close the deal': Biden struggles to unite Democrats behind his economic agenda
WASHINGTON – Joe Biden campaigned for president on bipartisanship, pledging to find common ground between Democrats and Republicans in a deeply polarized country.
Yet as he has sought to pass his defining domestic agenda, Biden's biggest obstacle is the struggle to unite his own party.
Pushing to rally moderate Democrats around his economic vision, he's trying to bridge an ideological chasm over the role of government even as Democrats control the Senate, House and White House.
It's a predicament that once seemed improbable – and perhaps self-defeating – as Democrats try to keep power in the 2022 midterm elections. The sheer scope of Biden's agenda is part of the challenge. The legislative package is so vast, it has taken on different names: The "American Jobs Plan." The "American Families Plan." And "Build Back Better."
More: Here's what's in the infrastructure bill as it nears a vote in the House
White House official were negotiating late into the night Thursday with moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, the two biggest Senate holdouts of Biden's $3.5 trillion social safety-net and climate package. In the Senate, Biden needs the votes of all 50 Democratic members to pass the bill in a procedure known as reconciliation.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been trying to corral progressive House Democrats, who have refused to support Biden's other domestic agenda plank – a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill – unless the more expansive reconciliation package moves forward.
Lacking the votes for passage, Pelosi, D-Calif., delayed a vote on the infrastructure bill late in the night. Talks were set to resume Friday morning.
Some Democrats want Biden to be clearer about his position.
"They need to know exactly where the president stands and what the president wants them to do," Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., said of her fellow House Democrats in an interview Wednesday on MSNBC, "and they're getting mixed signals depending who you talk to.
"What is it that he wants? What are his priorities? People are told you got to be with the president. Well, what is it that the president wants? Nobody can even answer that question." She added: "He's got to talk to more than two senators."
An outsized role for two senators
Biden welcomed Sinema at the White House for multiple meetings this week and hosted Manchin on Tuesday, yet the outreach has not moved the needle. The senators have balked at the steep price tag of a proposal to transform the economy with higher taxes on high-income earners and corporations to pay for free community college, universal prekindergarten, subsidized child care and national paid leave.
For the first time Thursday, Manchin revealed a reconciliation dollar-figure he said he willing to support: $1.5 trillion.
But signaling a compromise is far off, Manchin also doubled down Wednesday on his opposition to the current package, calling trillions more for new government programs “the definition of fiscal insanity." Though he offered hope for common ground, Manchin reiterated he won't support "trillions in spending or an all-or-nothing approach that ignores the brutal fiscal reality our nation faces."
Democratic leaders have grown restless, recognizing a shortening window while Democrats remain in control of both chambers of Congress.
"Now it’s time, I would say, for both senators: Make your mark and close the deal," Democratic Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on CNN. "What is it that you want? What is your final goal? It’s time to stop talking around it and speak directly to it."
Directing his comments to Manchin, Durbin said, "We can't delay these things. Simply delaying them is simply inviting a bad result, to be honest with you. We are one heart beat way from losing the majority in the United States Senate."
Democrats reach finger-pointing stage
Biden needs a win and Democrats need the infrastructure projects to help in their re-election next year, said Colin Strother, a veteran Democratic strategist in Texas.
Yet, "we have a handful of members who are acting like petulant children instead of public servants and threatening to derail a key part of the president's agenda," Strother said.
Manchin and Sinema "are getting too much attention and are being catered to too much," Strother said. "The president should make his final and best offer, and then let's take a vote. Let them vote against key infrastructure projects for their own states. If the progressives in the House want to throw a tantrum and try and kill the bill, make them vote against their own districts.
"We cannot allow a handful of people who are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good to hold the rest of the caucus hostage."
The Democratic National Committee should have been advertising in West Virginia and Arizona for months to build public support for the bill and asking voters to call their senators to express their support, Strother said
"Instead, they have now told two senators that the entire world stand still and we will all bend over backwards to get their approval," he said.
More: Democrats' 'Plan B' on immigration in reconciliation bill rejected by Senate parliamentarian
Although the White House focused largely on securing Manchin and Sinema’s support for reconciliation, some Democrats voiced frustration with the liberal wing. The progressives are led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chair of the House Progressive Caucus, which has 95 members.
Throughout negotiations, Jayapal and her members haven’t budged from their stance that they won’t support the infrastructure bill without the reconciliation package advancing.
“I don't want to suggest the progressives are wrong,” Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., also a member of the House Progressive Caucus, said in an interview on CNN. “They have good attitudes and good instincts and good goals. But they haven't been legislators, most of them, for a very long period of time and a lot of them have been activists and try to get things in other ways.”
“My car is older than quite a few of the progressives,” Cohen, 72, added. “You've got to get things done for the American people and it takes compromise. And I'm willing to do it, and I'm a progressive with a capital P."
Biden keeps low profile in negotiations
Biden has been active in the negotiations but has kept a low profile, said Matt Bennett of Third Way, a Washington-based public policy think tank that champions center-left ideas.
"He believes he’s most effective negotiating face to face rather than publicly," Bennett said. "That’s how he did it for decades as a senator and as (vice president), when he was Obama’s top negotiator with Congress. So you don’t see him or his staff giving directives or signaling policy shifts through the media, which can give the false impression that he’s not involved."
Biden canceled a trip previously planned for Chicago on Wednesday to continue negotiations. The White House has said it has had "engagements" with around 300 lawmakers from both chambers including progressive members about the legislation in just September.
But, "there are more than 200 House Democrats, so they can't all be part of the conversation individually," he said. "... Biden and his team are working this hard, but they are letting Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi and (Senate) Leader (Chuck) Schumer serve as the public faces of the dealmaking. I think that’s smart."
More: Live updates: Congress passes bill to avert government shutdown, sending bill to Biden's desk
Getting the bills through Congress was always going to be messy, Strother said, because large pieces of legislation always are. The infrastructure bills should have been broken into four or five pieces of legislation focused on specific areas to increase the likelihood of earning some crossover votes and also to accommodate the concerns of some members who are worried about the overall price tag, he said.
Strother said Pelosi should be put in charge of the negotiations. "It is painfully obvious that neither Chuck Schumer nor the White House are capable of moving this critical legislation forward," he said.
Connecting in polls, but not yet in Congress
Polling has shown support for Biden's spending proposals. A Fox News poll last week found 56% of U.S. adults support Biden's $3.5 trillion reconciliation plan and 39% oppose it, while a Pew Research Center poll found found a 49%-25% margin of support. Surveys have show even greater public backing for the infrastructure bill.
"The evidence is overwhelming that the wind is at our backs and the public is eager for both of these packages to become law," the White House wrote in a memo distributed Monday.
Touting public support proved an effective strategy to push Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 rescue plan through Congress with no Republican votes in March. But it hasn't translated to complete party unity with Biden's economic agenda and tax increases.
"Part of the explanation is a very old story, which is the Republicans are the party of discipline and the Democrats are the party of disagreement," said Vanessa Beasley, associate professor of communication studies at Vanderbilt University
Beasley, who studies presidential rhetoric, said the White House hasn't effectively "told the story" to explain why the most expensive domestic investment in recent history is needed at this moment. She pointed to Biden's $225 billion plan for child care, which seeks to cover all child care costs for the neediest families and ensure the middle classes pays no more than 7% of their income on child care.
"If you can't tell that story well now – especially after a year and a half of people with different socioeconomic levels having their kids at home and seeing the weaknesses within the safety-net system for parents – then something's wrong," Beasley said. "That's a story that should be able to tell itself right now."
White House press secretary Jen Psaki downplayed the finger-pointing within the party, saying, "This is how democracy works" and adding, "I know it feels foreign" after years of inaction in Congress.
"We're not trying to paint over how messy it looks from the outside," Psaki said. "We know that. But what the good news is is that there is agreement that among most Democrats if not every single one of them that we need to get something done."
Psaki declined to say whether Biden would support a $1.5 trillion number suggested by Manchin, citing the ongoing negotiations. She called compromise "inevitable" and said, "We're clearly in the thick of it."
Pressed by a reporter that Democrats seem increasingly further apart, Psaki said, "I don't think the president feels that way."
Joey Garrison, Michael Collins and Matthew Brown cover the White House. Follow Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison, Collins @mcollinsNEWS and Brown @mrbrownsir.