US President Joe Biden will meet with 2 groups of House and Senate Democrats at the White House. His administration is working to bridge the gap between the moderate and progressive wings of the party over components of his sweeping plan to expand the social safety net. The White House said Biden, Kamala Harris, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will first sit down with 9 House progressives to discuss his legislative agenda. Legislators including Representatives Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, Ro Khanna of California, and Pramila Jayapal of Washington, and head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are scheduled to meet the President. They will then join a group of moderate legislators from the House and Senate. US Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, Senators Jon Tester of Montana, and Mark Warner of Virginia are also scheduled for a later meeting.
President Biden will separately meet with Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Progressive Democrats are advocating for a wide-ranging social policy package that includes plans to expand Medicare, combat climate change, provide free community college, and universal pre-K. But they’ve run into opposition from moderate Democrats, who have pushed back on the legislation’s original $3.5 trillion price tag and are pushing for it to be cropped. Jen Psaki earlier said the meetings of President Biden are the latest in a series of efforts to broker an agreement between moderates and progressives over the size and scope of his social spending package. Biden has already met this week with Jayapal at the White House and spoke with other Democrats in both chambers on the phone on Monday afternoon. But the impasse among Democrats over the details of the sweeping social spending package has threatened to derail Biden’s economic agenda.
Biden’s economic agenda is a pillar that includes a more targeted $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Progressives, led by Jayapal, have halted the advancement of the physical infrastructure plan and pledged to withhold support unless the broader package moves through Congress first. However, the $1 trillion infrastructure plan includes funding for highway programs that are due to expire at the end of October. The president has stepped in to help break the logjam between the competing factions of the Democratic conference and told progressives earlier this month they need to settle on a range of $1.9 trillion and $2.2 trillion for the social safety net package. The party breakdown in the Senate has made moderate Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sinema key figures in negotiations over Biden’s domestic policy agenda. Both have objected to the package’s $3.5 trillion price tag.