Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
- Joe Biden released a $1.75 trillion spending framework for his Build Back Better agenda.
- It's far less than many Democrats wanted to spend to provide new social benefits for Americans.
- It's unclear whether the framework will gain support among progressives who wanted a much bigger plan.
The White House unveiled a $1.75 trillion framework for President Joe Biden's social spending plan, dramatically curtailing their economic ambitions in an effort to appease centrist holdouts Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and break a logjam in negotiations bogging down the party.
CNN first reported the framework, which Biden will speak to on Thursday, which includes investments in childcare, housing, and climate, among other things.
The agreement would encompass $1.75 trillion in spending – half of Democrats' initial proposal for Biden's Build Back Better plan.
The sum is far less than most Democrats had envisioned spending on a package that's supposed to be the centerpiece of Biden's economic agenda. Progressives, chiefly led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, initially laid out a $6 trillion budget in June. Less than a month later, Senate Democrats struck a deal on a $3.5 trillion budget plan, which they advanced in August relying only on Democratic votes over unanimous Republican opposition.
But the $1.75 trillion plan reflects the painful sacrifices Democrats are making to win support from Manchin and Sinema, a pivotal pair of holdouts that they can't lose in the 50-50 Senate. Manchin has attempted to limit the reach of new social benefit programs, warning that it could cause American society to slip into an "entitlement mentality."
Some priorities like tuition-free community college have been jettisoned due to opposition from Manchin and Sinema. Other provisions like expanding Medicare so it covers dental, vision, and hearing have been pared down, with just hearing currently covered.
"Does Sen. Manchin really believe that seniors are not entitled to digest their food and that they're not entitled to hear and see properly?" Sanders previously said about the proposed Medicare expansion. "Is that really too much to ask in the richest country on Earth - that elderly people have teeth in their mouth and can see and can hear?
Democrats are also balking at only renewing bulked-up child tax credit payments for only a year.
The final price tag is far closer to centrist demands than those of Sanders. While provisions like universal preschool and affordable childcare remain, it doesn't appear that paid family and medical leave has made it in. Politico first reported on Wednesday night that the leave programs were imperiled.
"It is still a little inconceivable to me that after the last 18 months - and everything we saw during the course of the pandemic - that we are hearing that Congress is going to leave paid leave for another day," Laura Narefsky, the counsel on education and workplace justice at the National Women's Law Center, told Insider upon news of the potential omission.
Last week, Biden conceded that unwinding part of President Donald Trump's tax cuts for corporations and high-earning individuals is probably out because Sinema is opposed. Instead, the bill would be financed through other measures, including enhanced IRS enforcement and a surtax on multimillionaires and billionaires. It does not appear that the billionaires' income tax - announced Wednesday morning and then seemingly jettisoned by Wednesday afternoon - is included.