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- Biden agreed to a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal on Wednesday.
- Progressives immediately said they'll only support it if a reconciliation bill comes alongside it.
- The reconciliation bill would include care-economy measures and could be bigger than $1 trillion.
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After weeks of negotiations, President Joe Biden on Wednesday arrived at a deal on a $1 trillion infrastructure plan with a bipartisan group of 10 senators. Immediately, progressive Democrats said they'd only support it if a reconciliation bill comes right beside it.
"There ain't going to be an infrastructure bill unless we have the reconciliation bill passed by the United States Senate," Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Wednesday.
The framework of the bipartisan infrastructure plan remains unclear, but it will likely encompass physical infrastructure, like roads and bridges, with around $550 billion in new spending. This plan cuts out nearly all of the proposals in Biden's American Families Plan, which included care-economy measures including universal pre-K, free community college, and climate initiatives.
Progressive lawmakers want to ensure that exactly those measures are not forgotten and they are pushing for passage of a bill that includes them to be passed via reconciliation, which would be possible with all 50 Democrats voting together.
As the bipartisan plan was announced the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden, said on a call with the climate advocacy group Climate Power that the plan "will not include comprehensive clean energy policy, and I am not willing to support throwing climate overboard."
"The two bills have got to be directly connected," he added, referring to the infrastructure and reconciliation bills.
His colleague Richard Blumenthal told reporters the bipartisan plan is "paltry" and "pathetic," saying he needs "ironclad" committement about contents of the reconciliation bill in order to support passage of the bipartisan infrastructure plan.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters Wednesday evening that both the bipartisan infrastructure plan and the reconciliation bill are moving at the same pace, and he hopes to that both the House and Senate will vote on them in July.
Last week, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders drafted a $6 trillion bill that included many elements left out of the bipartisan plan, like climate initiatives and affordable housing, which he said would require reconciliation.
But Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, part of the bipartisan group, has balked at the size of Sanders' proposal and the amount it would add to the national debt.
Biden supports the progressive wing of his party, saying in a Thursday press conference that the bipartisan deal represented "one half" of his economic plan, and he wants to get to work "right away" on care-economy proposals. He promised the two bills would move "in tandem."
"For me, investment in our physical and human infrastructure are inextricably intertwined," Biden said. "Both make us stronger."