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US Senate Fails to Pass Government Funding, Debt Ceiling Measures

The U.S. Senate failed Monday to pass measures to avert a partial government shutdown and prevent a federal default at the start of a crucial legislative week that is highlighting the challenges facing the sharply divided Congress.

Republican lawmakers voted to oppose the bills Monday evening, forcing Democrats to look for other ways to keep the government open beyond Thursday and to raise the debt ceiling before the government is expected to default on its loans sometime in late October or early November.

The near party-line vote failed 48-50. Democrats narrowly control both Houses of Congress, but under Senate rules, 60 out of 100 votes are needed to pass most legislation in that chamber.

Republicans have said they want Democrats to lift the debt limit on their own, saying they do not support the Democrats’ multitrillion-dollar spending plans.

“We are not willing to help Democrats raise the debt ceiling while they write a reckless taxing and spending spree of historic proportions behind closed doors,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Monday.

Democrats say much of the nation’s debt was incurred during the Trump administration. Historically, both parties have voted to raise the limit to prevent the United States from defaulting on its debts. 

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that the Republican action is “one of the most reckless and irresponsible votes I have seen take place in the Senate” and that “the Republican Party has solidified itself as the party of default.” 

McConnell said Republicans would support a bill funding the day-to-day operations of the government, which runs out of money after Thursday. Democrats, however, do not want to separate the government funding measure from the debt limit bill. 

In addition to the impasse on those measures, Congress is also at odds over a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill as well as a $3.5 trillion Democratic social spending and climate change bill.

The House of Representatives began debate Monday on the infrastructure bill ahead of a planned vote Thursday on the measure, which is a major part of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the dates in a letter to Democratic lawmakers Sunday. In television interviews, she expressed confidence the bill would pass.

“Let me just say that we’re going to pass the bill this week,” Pelosi said on ABC’s This Week.

The Senate approved the infrastructure plan in a vote last month that saw 19 Republicans join all 50 members of the Democratic caucus.

Progressive Democrats in the House, however, have tied the infrastructure bill to the larger $3.5 trillion social spending bill, which faces more opposition, including from some Senate Democrats who say they will not support that much spending.

House progressives say they won’t vote for the infrastructure bill unless there is progress on the social spending bill, while Democratic moderates say they may not vote on the larger spending bill until the infrastructure bill passes. 

Pelosi told ABC’s This Week that the negotiations would certainly result in a lower price tag for the social spending bill, calling such a development “self-evident.”

The $3.5 trillion proposal includes plans to provide universal prekindergarten instruction, free community college classes, expanded health care for older Americans, child care funding and money to combat the effects of climate change. It would also attempt to change immigration law and lower prescription drug prices.

The infrastructure spending, with nearly half of it in new government funding, would repair aging roads and bridges and expand broadband, pay for replacement of dangerous drinking-water systems that use lead pipes, add new sewer infrastructure, expand passenger rail and transit systems, and improve airports.

Biden has been meeting with fellow Democrats to ensure his legislative agenda passes. 

When asked what legislative success would look like, he told reporters Monday at the White House, “We’ve got three things to do: the debt ceiling, the continuing resolution and the two pieces of legislation. If we do that, the country’s going to be in great shape.” 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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Democrats Negotiate on Spending Bills Key to Biden’s Domestic Agenda

A time of intensity. That’s what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, is calling this coming week in Congress as lawmakers are expected to vote on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, but also consider the Democrat-backed $3.5 trillion sweeping social spending package, core to the Biden administration agenda. Michelle Quinn reports.   

Produced by: Henry Hernandez 
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US House to Debate $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill 

The U.S. House of Representatives is due to begin debate Monday on a $1 trillion infrastructure bill ahead of a planned vote Thursday on the measure that is a major part of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the dates in a letter to Democratic lawmakers Sunday, and in television interviews she expressed confidence the bill will pass. 

“Let me just say that we’re going to pass the bill this week,” Pelosi said on ABC News’ “This Week” show.

She added that she would not bring a bill to the House floor for consideration unless it has enough support to pass. 

Biden also expressed confidence when asked about the bill, telling reporters Sunday “it’s going to take the better part of this week.”

The Senate approved the infrastructure plan in a vote last month that saw 19 Republicans join all 50 members of the Democratic caucus.

The infrastructure spending, with nearly half of it in new government funding, would repair aging roads and bridges and expand broadband, pay for replacement of dangerous lead-piped drinking water systems, add new sewer infrastructure, expand passenger rail and transit systems, and make airport improvements.

Pelosi said in her letter that House leaders are also working with the Senate and White House on a separate $3.5 trillion proposal involving social safety net and climate change programs. That measure includes plans to provide universal pre-kindergarten instruction, free community college classes, expanded health care for older Americans, childcare funding, money to combat the effects of climate change, and make immigration law changes and attempt to lower prescription drug prices.

But the larger bill, which advanced in the House Budget Committee on Saturday, faces more opposition, including from some Senate Democrats who say they will not support that much spending. 

Pelosi told ABC’s “This Week” that the negotiations would certainly result in a lower price tag, calling such a development “self-evident.” 

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters. 

 
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House Panel OKs Democrats’ $3.5T Budget Bill 

Democrats pushed a $3.5 trillion, 10-year bill strengthening social safety net and climate programs through the House Budget Committee on Saturday, but one Democrat opposed the measure in an illustration of the challenges party leaders face in winning the near unanimity they’ll need to carry the sprawling package through Congress. 

The Democratic-dominated panel, meeting virtually, approved the measure on a near party-line vote, 20-17. Passage marked a necessary but minor step for Democrats by edging the bill closer to debate by the full House. Under budget rules, the committee wasn’t allowed to significantly amend the 2,465-page measure, the product of 13 other House committees. 

The more important work has been happening in an opaque procession of mostly unannounced phone calls, meetings and other bargaining sessions among party leaders and rank-and-file lawmakers. President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have led a behind-the-scenes hunt for compromises to resolve internal divisions and, they hope, allow approval of the mammoth bill soon. 

Pelosi told fellow Democrats in a letter Saturday that they must pass the social and environment bill this week, along with a separate infrastructure bill and a third measure preventing a government shutdown on Friday. 

“The next few days will be a time of intensity,” she wrote.

Political vulnerability

Moderate Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., joined all 16 Republicans on the Budget Committee in opposing the legislation. His objections included one that troubles many Democrats: a reluctance to support a bill with provisions that would later be dropped by the Senate.

Many Democrats don’t want to become politically vulnerable by backing language that might be controversial back home, only to see it not become law. That preference for voting only on a social and environment bill that’s already a House-Senate compromise could complicate Pelosi’s effort for a House vote this week. 

Peters was among three Democrats who earlier this month voted against a plan favored by most in his party to lower pharmaceutical costs by letting Medicare negotiate for the prescription drugs it buys.

Party leaders have tried for weeks to resolve differences among Democrats over the package’s final price tag, which seems sure to shrink. There are also disputes over which initiatives should be reshaped, among them expanded Medicare, tax breaks for children and health care, a push toward cleaner energy, and higher levies on the rich and corporations. 

Democrats’ wafer-thin majorities in the House and Senate mean compromise is mandatory. Before the measure the Budget panel approved Saturday even reaches the House floor, it is expected to be changed to reflect whatever House-Senate accords have been reached, and additional revisions are likely. 

‘Decades of disinvestment’

The overall bill embodies the crux of Biden’s top domestic goals. Budget panel Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., cited “decades of disinvestment” on needs like health care, education, child care and the environment as the rationale for the legislation. 

“The futures of millions of Americans and their families are at stake. We can no longer afford the costs of neglect and inaction. The time to act is now,” Yarmuth said. 

Republicans say the proposal is unneeded, unaffordable amid accumulated federal debt exceeding $28 trillion and reflects Democrats’ drive to insert government into people’s lives. Its tax boosts will cost jobs and include credits for buying electric vehicles, purchases often made by people with comfortable incomes, they said. 

“This bill is a disaster for working-class families,” said Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, the committee’s top Republican. “It’s a big giveaway to the wealthy, it’s a laundry list of agenda items pulled right out of the Bernie Sanders socialist playbook.”

The unusual weekend session occurred as top Democrats amp up efforts to end increasingly bitter disputes between the party’s centrist and progressive wings that threaten to undermine Biden’s agenda.

 A collapse of the measure at his own party’s hands would be a wounding preview to the coming election year, in which House and Senate control are at stake.

Infrastructure bill

To nail down moderates’ support for an earlier budget blueprint, Pelosi promised to begin House consideration by Monday of another pillar of Biden’s domestic plans: a $1 trillion collection of roadway and other infrastructure projects. Pelosi reaffirmed this week that the infrastructure debate would begin Monday.

But many moderates who consider the infrastructure bill their top goal also want to cut the $3.5 trillion social and environment package and trim or reshape some of its programs. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have been among the most visible centrists demanding a smaller price tag. 

In response, progressives — their top priority is the $3.5 trillion measure — are threatening to vote against the infrastructure bill if it comes up for a vote first. Their opposition seems likely to be enough to scuttle it, and Pelosi hasn’t definitively said when a vote on final passage of the infrastructure measure will occur.

With each portion of the party threatening to upend the other’s most cherished goal — a political disaster in the making for Democrats — top Democrats are using the moment to accelerate talks on the massive social and climate legislation. Compromise is a requirement, because the party can lose no votes in the Senate and a maximum of three in the House to succeed in the narrowly split Congress.
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Republican Review Finds No Proof Arizona Election Stolen from Trump

A Republican-backed review of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona’s largest county ended Friday without producing proof to support former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.

After six months of searching for evidence of fraud, the firm hired by Republican lawmakers issued a report that experts described as riddled with errors, bias and flawed methodology. Still, even that partisan review came up with a vote tally that would not have altered the outcome, finding that Biden won by 360 more votes than the official results certified last year.

The finding was an embarrassing end to a widely criticized, and at times bizarre, quest to prove allegations that election officials and courts have rejected. It has no bearing on the final, certified results. Previous reviews by nonpartisan professionals that followed state law found no significant problem with the vote count in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix.

Still, for many critics, the conclusions reached by the firm Cyber Ninjas and presented at a hearing Friday underscored the dangerous futility of the exercise, which has helped fuel skepticism about the validity of the 2020 election and spawned copycat audits nationwide.

“We haven’t learned anything new,” said Matt Masterson, a top U.S. election security official in the Trump administration. “What we have learned from all this is that the Ninjas were paid millions of dollars, politicians raised millions of dollars and Americans’ trust in democracy is lower.”

‘They are trying to scare people’

Other critics said the true purpose of the audit may have already succeeded. It spread complex allegations about ballot irregularities and software issues, fueling doubts about elections, said Adrian Fontes, a Democrat who oversaw the Maricopa County election office last year.

“They are trying to scare people into doubting the system is actually working,” he said. “That is their motive. They want to destroy public confidence in our systems.”

The review was authorized by the Republican-controlled state Senate, which subpoenaed the election records from Maricopa County and selected the inexperienced, pro-Trump auditors. On Friday, Senate President Karen Fann sent a letter to Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, urging him to investigate issues the report flagged. However, she noted the review found the official count matched the ballots.

“This is the most important and encouraging finding of the audit,” Fann wrote.

Trump issued statements Friday falsely claiming the results demonstrated “fraud.”

Despite being widely pilloried, the Arizona review has become a model that Trump supporters are pushing to replicate in other swing states where Biden won. Pennsylvania’s Democratic attorney general sued Thursday to block a GOP-issued subpoena for a wide array of election materials. In Wisconsin, a retired conservative state Supreme Court justice is leading a Republican-ordered investigation into the 2020 election, and this week threatened to subpoena election officials who don’t comply.

None of the reviews can change Biden’s victory, which was certified by officials in each of the swing states he won and by Congress on Jan. 6 — after Trump’s supporters, fueled by the same false charges that generated the audits, stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to prevent certification of his loss.

The Arizona report claims a number of shortcomings in election procedures and suggests the final tally still could not be relied upon. Several claims were challenged by election experts, while members of the Republican-led county Board of Supervisors, which oversees elections, disputed claims on Twitter.

“Unfortunately, the report is also littered with errors & faulty conclusions about how Maricopa County conducted the 2020 General Election,” county officials tweeted.

Election officials say that’s because the review team is biased, ignored the detailed vote-counting procedures in Arizona law and had no experience in the complex field of election audits.

‘The Senate’s contractors don’t understand election processes’

Two of the report’s recommendations stood out because they showed its authors misunderstood election procedures — that there should be paper ballot backups and that voting machines should not be connected to the internet. All Maricopa ballots are already paper, with machines only used to tabulate the votes, and those tabulators are not connected to the internet.

The review also checked the names of voters against a commercial database, finding 23,344 reported moving before ballots went out in October. While the review suggests something improper, election officials note that voters like college students, those who own vacation homes or military members can move to temporary locations while still legally voting at the address where they are registered.

“A competent reviewer of an election would not make a claim like that,” said Trey Grayson, a former Republican secretary of state in Kentucky.

The election review was run by Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, whose firm has never conducted an election audit before. Logan previously worked with attorneys and Trump supporters trying to overturn the 2020 election and appeared in a film questioning the results of the contest while the ballot review was ongoing.

Logan and others involved with the review presented their findings to two Arizona senators Friday. It kicked off with Shiva Ayyadurai, a COVID-19 vaccine skeptic who claims to have invented email, presenting an analysis relying on “pattern recognition” that flagged purported anomalies in the way mail ballots were processed at the end of the election.

Maricopa County tweeted that the pattern was simply the election office following state law.

“‘Anomaly’ seems to be another way of saying the Senate’s contractors don’t understand election processes,” the county posted during the testimony.

Logan followed up by acknowledging “the ballots that were provided for us to count … very accurately correlated with the official canvass.” He then continued to flag statistical discrepancies — including the voters who moved — that he said merited further investigation.

The review has a history of exploring outlandish conspiracy theories, dedicating time to checking for bamboo fibers on ballots to see if they were secretly shipped in from Asia. It’s also served as a content-generation machine for Trump’s effort to sow skepticism about his loss, pumping out misleading and out-of-context information that the former president circulates long after it’s been debunked.

In July, for example, Logan laid out a series of claims stemming from his misunderstanding of the election data he was analyzing, including that 74,000 mail ballots were recorded as received but not sent. Trump repeatedly amplified the claims.Logan had compared two databases that track different things.

Arizona’s Senate agreed to spend $150,000 on the review, plus security and facility costs. That pales in comparison to the nearly $5.7 million contributed as of late July by Trump allies.

Maricopa County’s official vote count was conducted in front of bipartisan observers, as were legally required audits meant to ensure voting machines work properly. A partial hand-count spot check found a perfect match.

Two extra post-election reviews by federally certified election experts also found no evidence that voting machines switched votes or were connected to the internet. The county Board of Supervisors commissioned the extraordinary reviews in an effort to prove to Trump backers that there were no problems. 
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Biden Won’t Shield Trump Records From House’s January 6 Inquiry

President Joe Biden will not invoke executive privilege to shield former President Donald Trump’s records in relation to an investigation into the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday. 

“The president has already concluded that it would not be appropriate to assert executive privilege,” Psaki said. “And so, we will respond promptly to these questions as they arise.” 

The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee investigating the deadly January 6 riot at the Capitol has subpoenaed four former members of Donald Trump’s administration, including Mark Meadows and Steve Bannon, the panel’s chairman said on Thursday. 

A mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6 as Congress was meeting to certify Democrat Biden’s presidential election victory, delaying that process for several hours as then-Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress, staff and journalists fled from rioters. 

Trump said he would fight the subpoenas “on executive privilege and other grounds.” 

Executive privilege allows the White House to refuse to comply with demands for records such as congressional subpoenas or Freedom of Information Act requests. The legal principle is rooted in the idea that some privacy should be given to presidential advisers so they can have candid discussions. 

A sitting president has in the past used executive privilege to keep records and communications from an earlier administration secret, but it is rare. 

With Biden nixing executive privilege, it was widely expected that Trump would file a legal challenge. 

Representatives for the former president were not immediately available for comment.
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Experts: Biden Foreign Policy Troubles Linked to Domestic Focus

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is defending President Joe Biden’s foreign policy record as the administration faces pressure over its handling of Haitian migrants on the U.S. border, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and a nuclear submarine deal with Australia that angered France. VOA’s senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine has more. 

Produced by: Kim Weeks
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Arizona County Says Cyber Ninjas Election Review Shows Biden Win

Arizona’s most populous county has confirmed that a draft report of a partisan audit of its vote count in the 2020 presidential election declares Joe Biden as the winner.

The report by Cyber Ninjas, a little known Florida-based cybersecurity company, shows Maricopa County’s result in November was correct, the county tweeted late Thursday.

“The #azaudit draft report from Cyber Ninjas confirms the county’s canvass of the 2020 General Election was accurate and the candidates certified as the winners did, in fact, win,” it wrote.

The conclusion, which is expected to be released publicly Friday, effectively ends the discredited Republican-led bid to throw out Biden’s victory there in favor of former president Donald Trump.

Maricopa County did not publish the draft report and Cyber Ninjas did not immediately respond to an AFP request.

Biden’s victory in the key Arizona county was the first by a Democratic presidential nominee in decades.

Trump supporters and organizations who claim he was cheated out of an election win, including some who have also peddled wild conspiracy theories, funded the review to the tune of millions of dollars.

Since his crushing election defeat, Trump has resurfaced to criticize his successor.

In July, at his first campaign-style rally since leaving the White House, he repeated the lie that he won November’s election and that Biden prevailed only through fraud.

Trump, who has been booted from social media and was impeached for inciting the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol, may yet seek reelection in 2024 but has not announced his plans. 

 
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US House Backs Bill to Provide $1B for Israel Missile-Defense System

The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Thursday for legislation to provide $1 billion to Israel to replenish its “Iron Dome” missile-defense system, just two days after the funding was removed from a broader spending bill. 

The measure passed by 420 to 9, with two members voting present. 

Some of the most liberal House Democrats had objected to the provision and said they would vote against the broad spending bill if it was included. That threatened the bill’s passage, with Democrats only narrowly controlling the House, because Republicans have opposed the plan to fund the federal government through December 3 and raise the nation’s borrowing limit. 

The removal led Republicans to label Democrats as anti-Israel, despite a long tradition in the U.S. Congress of strong support from both parties for the Jewish state, to which Washington sends billions of dollars in aid every year. 

Israel responded quickly. “Thanks to all members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Democratic and Republican alike, for their sweeping support for Israel and the commitment to its security. Those who try to challenge this support got a resounding response today,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement. 

Some liberal Democrats voiced concerns recently about the United States’ Israel policy, citing Palestinian civilian casualties as Israel responded to Hamas rocket attacks in May. Israel said most of the 4,350 rockets fired from Gaza during the conflict were blown out of the sky by Iron Dome interceptors. 

“We should also be talking about the Palestinian need for protection against Israeli attack,” Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib, an opponent of the funding, said during debate.

The bill, which was introduced in the House Wednesday, provides $1 billion to replace missile interceptors used during the May conflict. 

There was no immediate word on timing of a vote in the Senate.
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Democrats See Tax ‘Framework’ to Pay for Huge $3.5 Trillion Package

The White House and congressional Democrats have agreed to a framework of options to pay for their huge emerging social and environment bill, top Democrats said Thursday. Now they face the daunting task of narrowing the menu to tax possibilities they can pass to fund President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion plan. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California announced the progress as Biden administration officials and Democratic congressional leaders negotiated behind the scenes. The package aims to rewrite tax and spending priorities to expand programs for Americans of all ages while upping efforts to tackle income inequality and fight climate change. 

Staring down a self-imposed Monday deadline, lawmakers said they would work nonstop to find agreement on specifics. Democrats’ views on those vary widely, though they largely agree with Biden’s idea of raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy to fund the package.

“We certainly think it’s progress,” Biden press secretary Jen Pskai said at the White House. 

Biden has been encouraging the negotiations, inviting more than 20 of his party’s moderate and progressive lawmakers to the White House for lengthy meetings this week. He’s working to close the deal with Congress on his “Build Back Better” agenda at a time when his presidential campaign promises are running into the difficulty of actually governing.

But the party has been divided over many of the details. 

Moderate Democrats, most prominently Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, are demanding that the massive dollar total be reduced. The revenue options to pay for it — that mostly means taxes — being considered can be dialed up or down, the leaders say. The ultimate price tag may certainly slip from the much-publicized $3.5 trillion. 

Republicans are solidly opposed to the package, calling it a “reckless tax and spending spree.” So Democrats will have to push it through Congress on their own, which is only possible if they limit their defections to a slim few in the House and none in the Senate.

“We’re proceeding,” Pelosi said. “We intend to stay the course and pass the bill as soon as possible.” 

The congressional leaders huddled early Thursday with the chairs of the tax writing committees to agree to the framework, pulling from work already being done on those panels. They are intent on sticking to Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year. 

Representative Richard Neal, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has already drafted his version, which would raise about $2.3 trillion by increasing corporate tax rates to 26.5% for businesses earning more than $5 million a year and increasing the top individual tax from 37% to 39.6% for those earning more than $400,000, or $450,000 for married households. 

The House panel’s bill also includes a 3% surtax on the adjusted incomes of very wealthy people making more than $5 million a year. 

The Senate Finance Committee under Senator Ron Wyden has not yet passed its bill, but it has been eyeing proposals that further target the superrich, including efforts to curtail practices used to avoid paying taxes. 

“I’m not going to get into any specific stuff today, but I’ve made it very clear as chairman of the Finance Committee a billionaire’s tax will be on the menu,” Wyden said.

Those tax goals align with the Biden administration, which is marshaling arguments that the increases are fundamentally about fairness at a time of gaping income inequality. 

According to a new analysis released Thursday by the White House, the wealthiest 400 families worth more than a billion dollars paid an average tax rate of just 8.2% between 2010 and 2018. Treasury Department tables show that is lower than the average tax rate of families with an income of roughly $142,000.

The analysis suggests two clear reasons why billionaires pay a lower rate than the upper middle class: They derive income from stocks, dividends and other assets that are taxed at lower rates, and they can permanently avoid paying tax on certain investment gains that by law are excluded from taxable income.

Without divulging a framework, Wyden indicated he is in agreement with the House’s plans for certain retirement savings accounts used by the wealthy to shield liabilities. 

Targeting “Mega IRAs,” Democrats hope to correct what they see as a flaw in the retirement savings system enabling billionaires to amass millions in independent retirement accounts without ever paying taxes. Under some proposals, individuals earning beyond $400,000 would be barred from contributing to their IRAs once their account balances top $10 million. 

The Biden administration has also shown interest in one climate change tax, a so-called pollution importer fee, which would essentially impose a tariff on goods coming from countries without certain emissions controls. The tax is seen as a way to pressure China.

Gaining less traction seems to be a carbon tax that could fall on households and stray from Biden’s pledge not to tax those earning less than $400,000. 

Another big unknown: whether Democrats can coalesce around a plan to rein in prescription drug costs, which could save the government hundreds of billions that could be used for Biden’s goals 

Thursday’s sudden announcement of framework options caught key lawmakers off guard, including Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent and the chairman of the Budget Committee, and others playing leading roles in assembling one of the biggest bills Congress has ever attempted.

Schumer later acknowledged of the emerging framework, “It’s hardly conclusory, but it was a good step of progress.” 

Yet the framework could help the congressional leaders show momentum as they head toward crucial deadlines and start to address concerns raised by Manchin and other moderates who want a more clear-cut view of what taxes are being considered before they move forward, aides said. 

On Monday, the House plans to begin considering a separate $1 trillion package of road and other infrastructure projects as a first test of Biden’s agenda. That public works bill has already passed the Senate, and Pelosi has agreed to schedule it for a House vote to assuage party moderates who badly want that legislation passed but are leery of supporting the larger $3.5 trillion measure. 

But progressives are threatening to defeat the public works bill as inadequate unless it is partnered with the broader package. To make sure both bills can pass, Democratic leaders are trying to reach agreement on the bigger bill.

Meanwhile, the House and Senate remain at a standstill over a separate package to keep the government funded past the Sept. 30 fiscal year-end and to suspend the federal debt limit to avert a shutdown and a devastating U.S. default on payments. Senate Republicans are refusing to back that House-passed bill, despite the risk of triggering a fiscal crisis. 
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Bipartisan Police Reform Talks Collapse in US Senate

Bipartisan talks in the U.S. Senate to reform policing that began after a spate of police killings of unarmed Black citizens in 2020 have collapsed, dealing at least a temporary setback to President Joe Biden’s vow to address police brutality.

The negotiations started nine months ago following the high-profile police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, and the deaths of other Blacks that drew less attention.  

Floyd was pinned under a white police officer’s knee for more than nine minutes in an incident captured on cellphone video by a bystander. His death in police custody   inspired global protests of institutional racism and police practices, particularly in the United States, where Blacks are disproportionately the victims of deadly encounters with police. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was convicted on murder and manslaughter charges.

Blacks in the U.S. were more than two-and-one-half times more likely to have been killed by police than whites during a five-year period ending in May 2020, according to a Yale University study.

Democratic Senator Cory Booker announced the collapse of the talks on Wednesday, citing a failure to garner Republican support for Democratic proposals to make officers personally responsible for abusive conduct, to raise professional standards and to gather national data on police agencies’ use of force.

“It was clear that we were not making the progress that we needed to make,” Booker said.

In a statement, Republican Senator Tim Scott said he was “deeply disappointed” that Democrats left agreements on the negotiating table banning chokeholds, limiting the transfer of military equipment to police agencies and increasing mental health resources.

“Crime will continue to increase while safety decreases, and more officers are going to walk away from the force because my negotiating partners walked away from the table,” Scott said in a statement. Both senators are African American.

Declaring Floyd’s murder “a stain on the soul of America,” Biden said in a statement that Republicans were to blame for the failed talks.

“Regrettably, Senate Republicans rejected enacting modest reforms, which even the previous president had supported, while refusing to take action on key issues that many in law enforcement were willing to address,” Biden said in a reference to his immediate predecessor, former President Donald Trump.

Biden also said he would continue to pursue police reform through Congress and through “potential further executive actions.” Biden noted his administration had previously announced new policies on chokeholds, no-knock warrants and police body cameras.

Earlier this year, Biden called on lawmakers to reach a bipartisan agreement by May 25, the anniversary of Floyd’s death. But Biden’s appeal and lobbying trips to Washington by victims’ families failed to provide enough momentum among lawmakers, leaving attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, who have represented victims’ families, feeling “extreme disappointment.”

“We cannot let this be a tragic, lost opportunity to regain trust between citizens and police,” the attorneys said.  

Crump and Romanucci said the Senate should vote anyway on the Democrats’ policing bill. They said Republicans would likely defeat the bill, but that would allow voters to “see who is looking out for their communities’ best interests.”

Some information in this report was provided by The Associated Press and Reuters.
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