Not according to Nancy Pelosi. Democrats have almost reached an agreement on a social spending bill that is a much-reduced version of U.S. President Joe Biden's bill of leading concerns.
They plan to vote on that and an infrastructure bill in the coming week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said. "I think we're pretty much there now," Pelosi told CNN's "State of the Union" as Biden met with fellow Democrats Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin.
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Manchin has objected to parts of the bill, as has Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). What had been a sweeping $3.5 trillion plan is now being pared down to a $1.75 trillion package.
Biden, Schumer and Manchin had a "productive discussion" and continued to make progress, the White House said in a statement after the meeting.
According to Reuters, Democrats have struggled to agree on a framework of $2 trillion or less that will allow the House of Representatives to move forward next week on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and set the stage for passage of Biden's larger "Build Back Better" package.
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The divisions threatened to derail Biden's larger agenda on social spending and climate change and reduce the stature of the U.S. president at the global climate summit in Glasgow that begins on Oct. 31.
Disagreements over the scale of the original package have held up Biden's domestic agenda, with progressive Democrats in the House refusing to vote for the infrastructure bill, which has already been passed by the Senate, until a deal is reached on the social and climate components.
Moderate Democrats Manchin and Sinema had objected to the original $3.5 trillion price tag in what has been seen as a drift toward the Republicans who oppose the measure.
Sinema has opposed a hike in the corporate tax rate that had been a main source of funding for the bill, but Pelosi said losing that would not stand in the way of raising the roughly $2 trillion needed to pay for the programs, according to Reuters.
Pelosi said lawmakers have an array of options to fund the spending bill even without the corporate tax rate hike, including better tax enforcement, a so-called billionaires tax and international tax harmonization.
Senators were writing that tax proposal on Sunday and would introduce it Monday, Pelosi said.