President Joe Biden Blame it on two Democratic senators on Monday for their inability to pass their $3.5 trillion budget package for social programs.
Biden didn’t call West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona by the name Senator Kirsten Cinema but it was clear what he meant when he pointed out that he had less than two Democratic votes managing committee.
“They need 50 votes in the Senate,” he said of the Democrats. ‘I have 48.’
Both Munchkin and Cinema have objected to the $3.5 trillion price tag. The president is in talks with both Congressional leaders and White House staff as Biden tries to get his legislative agenda passed.
“I’ve been able to close the deal with 99% of my party — two, two people,” Biden told reporters after commenting on the debt limit at the White House.
He argued that he has been dealt with a tough hand: the equally divided 50–50 Senate where Vice President Kamala Harris has the tie-breaking vote and the House, where Democrats have a four-seat majority, leaving them open to defectors. Very little is made. difference is found.
“I don’t think there has been a president who has been able to close deals, there has been a situation where he only has 50 votes in the Senate, and a bare majority in the House,” he said. “It’s a process.” We will complete it.
President Joe Biden blamed two Democratic senators – Kirsten Cinemas and Joe Manchin – for their inability to pass his $3.5 trillion budget package.
Senators Kirsten Cinemas and Joe Manchin want Biden to lower the price tag on his $3.5 trillion budget package
Biden ran for president on his ability to make deals and tout his legislative experience.
Now he is balancing the tight rope legislatively.
Progressives in the House are refusing to support his bipartisan $1.1 trillion infrastructure plan unless a $3.5 trillion budget package is passed by the Senate. But Munchkin and Cinema will not vote on the $3.5 trillion number for that package.
Hours of negotiations last week, which lasted late into the night in a dark, dimly lit basement at the Capitol, failed to lead to a deal. Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday tried to buy the president’s time by postponing a planned Monday vote on the infrastructure bill – then the legislative session opened on Friday – but to no avail.
So Biden took to Capitol Hill on Friday afternoon where, behind closed doors, he urged liberals in his party to come down more than a trillion dollars and support a $2 trillion package.
And he will fly to Michigan on Tuesday to begin the nationwide sales pitch.
He declined to name a specific number for his social agenda on Monday, saying, “I’m not going to speak publicly.”
However, he acknowledged that the $3.5 trillion figure does not exist and that the legislation would pass at a low cost.
‘Okay, I decided what I thought. that’s not going to happen. It’s going to be less,’ he said.
Tension is increasing in both the branches of the party.
After Biden made his private plea for Democrats during a visit to Capitol Hill, House lawmakers grumbled about the two senators.
‘Staging and cinema – should we call him co-president at this point,’ one Democrat said as he exited the meeting, the mountain. ‘Has it come down?’
A group of activists chases San Kirsten Cinema into the bathroom of Arizona State University on Friday
Sen. Joe Manchin addresses kayak protesters swinging his houseboat in Washington DC
Protesters boarded ship and asked why their senators would not support their own party’s $3.5 trillion bill
Munchkin and Cinema are being reprimanded by liberals for not publicly naming the price tag. After a flurry of criticism last week, Munchkin said he would support the $1.5 trillion package, while Cinema refused to downplay its numbers, but said he sent it privately to Biden and Congress leaders. told.
Both senators have also been targets of liberal activists. A group of them broke into the bathroom behind the cinema Arizona State University on Friday. She was also lampooned on Saturday Night Live over the weekend. Meanwhile, a team of kayak-workers recently cruised Munchkin’s DC houseboat.
Biden said he didn’t think the activists’ action was justified, but deferred them, saying it was “part of the process.”
‘I don’t think those are proper tactics, but it happens to everyone. They are not the only people who have the Secret Service. So it’s part of the process,’ he said.
The cinema also issued a statement criticizing the activists, saying it was “not a valid protest”. He said activists disrupted a class he was teaching at the university.
“It is unacceptable for activist organizations to direct their members to engage in illegal activities such as gaining entry into closed university buildings, disrupting the learning environment and filming students in a restroom,” he said. said.
Meanwhile, Biden told House Democrats on Friday that he expected the overall tab on his budget package – which includes funding for new education, health and climate programs – to fall between $1.9 trillion and $2.3 trillion, According to wall street journal.
speaking terms.
“There are no numbers on the table yet that everyone has agreed to,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
‘It’s the beginning of a conversation,’ she said.
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