Pelosi aiming to pass $2T social spending bill before Christmas
By Mike Lillis - 12/08/21 01:30 PM EST
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) predicted Wednesday that both chambers of Congress will pass the $2 trillion expansion of social benefits and climate programs — a massive package at the heart of President Biden's domestic agenda — before Christmas.
"We feel very confident about what is in Build Back Better," she told reporters in the Capitol. "We know what some possibilities are, and it would be my hope that we would have this bill done before the Christmas vacation."
That same bullish timetable is also being trumpeted across the Capitol by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is scrambling to rally his party's centrist holdouts behind the enormous spending bill, which features a host of Democratic economic and climate priorities.
But it's an ambitious deadline, largely because of the continued reluctance of Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from a deep-red state, to back the package — at least publicly. Speaking at a Wall Street Journal event Tuesday, Manchin amplified his previous concerns about the bill's potential effects on rising inflation, warning that "the unknown we are facing today is much greater than ... this aspiration bill."
Manchin's resistance has led many Democrats to predict that party leaders will be forced to kick the debate into next year.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/house/584927-pelosi-aiming-to-pass-2t-social-spending-bill-before-christmas
