White House worked behind the scenes to push Senate toward breakthrough win
by Brett Samuels and Alex Gangitano - 08/08/22 12:25 PM ET
President Biden is closing in on a legacy-defining win in Congress with the passage of a climate and health care bill in the Senate, a process officials say was not just months, but years in the making.
While hopes of passing Biden’s agenda appeared dead just a few weeks ago, the president and White House officials quietly worked behind the scenes to help revive talks and ultimately get negotiations in the Senate over the finish line, an administration official said.
Over the weekend, while the Senate was working through a very long series of votes to approve the package, Biden called roughly a dozen senators and called the cloak room, an administration source told The Hill. The White House legislative team also delivered White House cookies to members on Sunday.
That followed several months of engagement between senior White House aides and Capitol Hill to get the reconciliation deal passed.
Senate Democrats on Sunday voted to pass a $740 billion bill that would raise taxes on corporations, tackle climate change, lower prescription drug costs and reduce the federal deficit. Vice President Harris broke the 50-50 tie to send the bill to the House for a vote, where it only needs a simple majority to pass and be sent to Biden’s desk.
The package includes tax credits for electric vehicles and is expected to reduce climate-warming emissions by 40 percent over the next decade. It gives Medicare broad new power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices. And it includes a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies at a cost of $64 billion.
The bill is a smaller version of Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan he proposed in the fall of 2021, lacking funds for child care and elder care programs and certain tax code changes. Talks over that $2 trillion package stalled when Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said in December 2021 he would not support it.
The White House responded at the time with a lengthy statement singling out Manchin for what it called “a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleague’s,” frustrating the moderate senator who has been a pivotal vote needed for any major legislation.
Negotiations came in fits and starts in the months since Manchin’s initial rejection of Biden’s plan, and any hopes for a major climate and health care package appeared dead last month when Manchin said rampant inflation was too big of a concern to move forward.
But rather than going on offense against Manchin, the White House opted for a quieter approach. Officials did not offer any rebuttal to Manchin appearing to call off negotiations, nor would they confirm any communications between the president and members of the Senate about the status of Biden’s agenda.
Ultimately, Biden stayed on the sidelines and allowed Manchin and Schumer to hash out the contours of a deal that was announced in late July. As the final deal came together and the Senate prepared to vote, Biden was isolating in the White House with COVID-19.
An administration official said Biden and his team “were determined to keep working toward a reconciliation deal, and that the best way to do so would be to give Schumer and Manchin space to negotiate” while serving as a resource to help guide the process where needed.
more
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3592787-white-house-worked-behind-the-scenes-to-push-senate-toward-breakthrough-win/
