Washington: Democrats in the United States Senate will begin today the tortuous path where the agenda of President Joe Biden’s government can be left to the edge, Prensa Latina publishes.
After the return of the long Thanksgiving holiday, the challenges are many, negotiations will abound behind the scenes, some will give in and others will push to pass laws in which experts consider how Biden plays his government agenda.
The huge package of social and climate spending is perhaps the biggest challenge and not a few believe that it could be held back by Senators Joe Manchin (Democrat of West Virginia) and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona), centrists , for liberals like Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), determined to put their mark on the regulation.
According to experts, the parties are most likely to give up positions in order to comply with the norms of the budget reconciliation process, which Democrats use to avoid a Republican filibuster bent on seeing Biden’s failure.
Both Manchin and Sinema do not seem willing to give in and their vote is decisive if the project is to move forward to Biden’s table.
For his part, Sanders wants the Senate to strengthen provisions in areas including raising taxes on the rich, prescription drugs, expanding Medicare and the climate.
In this environment, it remains to be seen how Majority Leader Charles Schumer (r) copes with the internal conflicts in the blue awning and the challenges that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) will impose. , an old wolf in these negotiations.
According to The Hill newspaper, McConnell is expected to play a role in Republican strategy in forcing Democrats to cast tough votes on spending package amendments.
Under the budget reconciliation process that Democrats are using to pass the bill, Republicans will be able to vote on an unlimited number of amendments during a process known as vote-a-branch.
Republicans hope to get center Democrats to endorse some of their amendments or, at the very least, use some of the votes from the amendments against Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections.
Schumer will have to deftly circumvent the conflicting desires of progressives and moderates on his bench to advance this project before the end of the year.
But in addition, it is obliged to find spaces for other thorny issues in the legislative calendar such as the annual defense policy bill, the legislation to avoid a government shutdown and the regulations to raise the debt ceiling, some so compelling that must be addressed before mid-December.