Biden will reportedly announce spending framework deal before leaving for Europe
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After weeks of roller-coaster negotiations over the Democrats' Build Back Better social spending program, President Biden will announce on Thursday a framework he believes will draw support from all Democrats, The Washington Post reported early Thursday, citing multiple people with knowledge of the situation. Biden will deliver remarks from the White House after traveling to Capitol Hill to speak with House Democrats, the Post reports, and before he heads off for a trip to Rome and a major climate change summit in Glasgow.
Biden will travel to the Capitol at 9 a.m. and address the nation from the East Room at 11:30 a.m., NBC News reports.
"The specifics of what the president would announce were not immediately clear, nor was it clear whether he would be prepared to announce the support of key Democratic holdouts," the Post reports. Biden recently told congressional Democrats he believes the final deal, originally pitched at $3.5 trillion, will come in at between $1.75 trillion and $1.9 trillion. Biden and other Democratic leaders have been trying to find a deal that is acceptable to a handful of centrists, notably Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), while keeping progressive Democrats on board.
After early hopes of a breakthrough on Wednesday, "momentum fizzled and tempers flared as a paid family leave proposal fell out and a billionaires' tax appeared scrapped, mostly to satisfy" Manchin, The Associated Press reports. White House officials met with Manchin and Sinema in the Capitol on Wednesday, and Biden tweeted late Wednesday that universal pre-kindergarten, some $500 billion to tackle climate change, and expanded health care programs are "all within our reach," adding: "Let's bring these bills over the finish line."
"Democrats on Capitol Hill were preparing written details of the revamped for proposal for release on Thursday," the Post reports, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says the House Rules Committee will hold a procedural vote sometime Thursday to start moving the eventual deal toward the House floor.
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