WASHINGTON — Democratic senators are pushing to pass President Biden’s social spending bill before Christmas. Time is running out to hit that deadline as support for the bill is still being figured out.
Once again the slim Democratic majority seem uncertain that it will have the votes to pass the plan in its current state, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) on the fence out the proposal. He and President Biden met at the White House on Tuesday to have what Manchin described as “good discussions”, but the two still appear to be stuck on a few other issues when it comes to the bill’s funding.
Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana is hopeful that Manchin will side with Republicans on it.
“His constituents back home, I think, will hold him accountable,” Braun said on Fox Business. “That’s why, I think, he believes we can’t afford it. He hasn’t even seen the text yet to see what’s in the fine print.”
Braun was able to convince Manchin to side with Senate Republicans in voting to invoke the Congressional Review Act last week to curtail the president’s COVID vaccine mandate on small businesses.
Other Republicans gathered in a press conference Tuesday to denounce provisions in the Build Back Better plan that would use roughly $87 billion to expand and strengthen the IRS.
“Now the Democrats propose spending half this money to field an army of IRS agents that are going to go out and initiate investigations, perform audits, and pry into the individual private lives of working Americans,” said Sen. Todd Young (R-IN).
Young also blasted the president for breaking campaign promises when it comes to possible tax increases on the middle class to pay for the bill, something that Biden has continued to say will not happen.
Republicans also spoke ill of a now-removed provision that would have lowered the tax reporting threshold for bank account inflows and outflows to $600. Instead, House lawmakers settled on lowering it to $10,000 a year.
It’s not clear yet when the bill might come up for a vote in the Senate.
