#infrastructure budget

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Investigators probe deadly Amtrak derailment in Montana

JOPLIN, Mont. (AP) — A team of investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board was at the site of an Amtrak derailment in north-

But sure, we don't need infrastructure reform or anything....

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Bernie Sanders said he'd oppose a $3 trillion Democrat-only infrastructure plan since it's 'much too low,' potentially setting up spending s

Sanders is pushing for an expansive package that includes spending on climate, housing, higher education, and childcare. Manchin may pose an

Sen. Bernie Sanders indicated that he would oppose a Democrat-only spending bill if its price tag didn't top $3 trillion, brushing anything lower as too meager. It may set the stage for a confrontation between Sanders and moderate Dermocrats looking to restrain the size of a follow-up package.

In an interview with New York Times opinion columnist Maureen Dowd published Saturday, the Vermont senator ruled out backing a party-line infrastructure plan that amounted to either $2 trillion or $3 trillion.

"That's much too low" he told Dowd. He also pulled out a list of his priorities for a reconciliation package.

They appeared to include broadband, climate, childcare, universal pre-K, paid family and medical leave, Medicare expansion and housing among others.

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Manchin wants to pause voting on Biden’s social-spending package until 2022

Manchin’s new timeline — if he insists on it — would disrupt plans to vote on the budget reconciliation package this month.

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Manchin: No guarantee reconciliation package will pass

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made clear she will not hold a vote on the bill in the House until the Democrat-led $3.5 trillion budget reconcilia

Sen. Joe Manchin would not guarantee Sunday that a Democratic-led reconciliation package would garner the necessary votes for passage, even as he predicted the bipartisan infrastructure package would pass the Senate this week.

"I can't really guarantee anybody," the moderate Democratic senator from West Virginia said on CNN. "And I have not guaranteed anybody on any of these pieces of legislation. Would we like to do more? Yes, you can do what you can pay for. This is paid for, our infrastructure bill is all paid for."

Manchin called for looking at the reconciliation package — which is expected to tackle social programs and "human" infrastructure — through the same lens.

"As far as reconciliation goes, it should be looked at the same," Manchin said. "That's why I said we're going to get the budget resolution. Let's start the process and then see where it goes."

Manchin also said he expected the text of the bipartisan bill would be released Sunday, and that senators would start the amendment process on the bill by Monday.

"We should finish up by Thursday, I hope," he said, before telling "State of the Union" host Jake Tapper he believed the bill would pass.

The bipartisan measure includes $550 billion in new spending for roads, bridges, public transit and broadband, and garnered Republican support last week during a procedural vote to move forward on the measure.

But Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made clear she will not hold a vote on the bill in the House until the Democrat-led $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill passes the Senate. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a moderate Democrat from Arizona, has already indicated she'd like to pare down the package's cost, angering progressives in the House.

Manchin on Sunday reiterated his own concerns over debt and inflation, and said he wanted to see the pay-fors for the reconciliation measure when asked if he'd like to see a smaller price tag.

"Someone should be concerned about getting your financial house in order," he said. "So, I'm worried about that. I'm worried about inflation. But, with that, we're going to pay for it. So, let's see what the pay-fors — if they're real."

"Are we going to go overboard and make ourselves noncompetitive? I wouldn't be for that," he added.

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The 17 Republicans who voted to advance the Senate infrastructure bill

Seventeen Republican senators voted with all 50 Democrats on Wednesday to advance a bipartisan infrastructure deal, in a win for President B

Seventeen Republican senators voted with all 50 Democrats on Wednesday to advance a bipartisan infrastructure deal, in a win for President Biden and the bipartisan group of negotiators.

The vote - the first of several steps expected before the Senate decides whether or not to ultimately pass the bill-comes one week after all Republicans blocked a similar move, arguing that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) was rushing the process as senators tried to finalize their agreement.

But the group announced earlier Wednesday that it had reached a final agreement with the White House for a $1.2 trillion bill over eight years, with $550 billion in new spending. Because the group is still finalizing text, the Senate is taking up a shell bill that it will swap the language into once it is complete.

At least 10 Republicans were needed to advance the bill. In the end, Democrats were able to net 17 GOP votes:

Roy Blunt (Mo.)

Richard Burr (N.C.)

Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.)

Bill Cassidy (La.)

Susan Collins (Maine)

Kevin Cramer (N.D.)

Mike Crapo (Idaho)

Lindsey Graham (S.C.)

Chuck Grassley (Iowa)

John Hoeven (N.D.)

Mitch McConnell (Ky.)

Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)

Rob Portman (Ohio)

James Risch (Idaho)

Mitt Romney (Utah)

Thom Tillis (N.C.)

Todd Young (Ind.)

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Bernie Sanders gave Washington whiplash this week — and it was all part of his plan. Barely 24 hours after the Vermont senator publicly rejected a $3.5 trillion spending deal following a Monday meeting with President Joe Biden, he turned around to tout it as the most transformational policy proposal in nearly 100 years.

The shift in tone was a tactic Sanders used to coax moderate Democrats into going far higher than they might have otherwise felt comfortable. After he had insisted on shooting for the moon with a $6 trillion budget proposal, $3.5 trillion suddenly looked pretty reasonable.

The episode revealed a conciliatory side to the liberal icon often depicted by the media and Republicans as wild-eyed and well to the left of his party. Sanders has opposed some of Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s policies and nominees, but never in instances when his vote would prove decisive. He’s also softened his opposition to a bipartisan infrastructure deal, recognizing that he can't alienate his fellow Democrats if he wants to move his own agenda.

Still, the Independent from Vermont isn’t quite ready for the “P” label. “It’s not that I’m more pragmatic. It’s that there are 50 members of the Democratic Caucus. And unfortunately not all of them agree with me on everything,” Sanders said in an interview. “It was important to have a vision going forward of where we needed to go. And I think that was the right vision,” Sanders added. “Obviously, it was a vision that was a little bit more comprehensive than some of my colleagues.”

Even after two presidential runs garnered him national stardom and effective ownership of the American left, Sanders has toiled in the Senate minority with few levers to pull. This Congress, as the Senate Budget chair and a member of Schumer’s leadership team, the 79-year-old is one of the most powerful people in Democratic-controlled Washington. He also seems to be having a good time after decades of prowling the Capitol with gruff rebuttals for reporters delivered in his signature Brooklyn accent. After his interview with POLITICO, he was pressed by another reporter to take “one more question.”

“She makes me speculate,” he teased the second reporter, his voice rising in playful incredulousness. “One more question?!”

Jokes aside, moderates surmised it wasn’t easy for Sanders to shed his uncompromising stance on this year's massive spending blueprint, which is still perhaps months away from becoming law. Tester, who quickly endorsed Sanders’ budget blueprint, despite reservations, observed that Sanders likely “had hesitation” in coming down by $2.5 trillion.

“It may have been one of those deals where it was: ‘Look, Bernie, if we don’t get this, we can’t do anything.’ And he decided to move with it,” Tester said of the haggling. Yet senators on the Budget Committee viewed Sanders as taking an extreme position precisely so that it would yield a compromise all the more fruitful for liberal Democrats. If Sanders had started off endorsing Biden’s number of $4 trillion, it’s possible he and other progressives might have had to settle for a number lower than the $3.5 trillion they agreed upon. “Bernie Sanders is like a human embodiment of shifting the Overton Window,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who serves on the Budget Committee. “We wouldn’t be there without him putting out $6 trillion.”

With a ceiling of $3.5 trillion, Sanders says he can pursue all the changes that he’s prioritized, just not for not as long as he wants. That raises the possibility of future fights over the extension of programs like the expanded child tax credits championed by Democrats. Nonetheless, Sanders argues every chance he gets that he’s pushing “the most consequential piece of legislation passed since the 1930s for working people.” On the price tag alone, he’s right: If successful, the current social spending bill will be the biggest ever passed by Congress.

Those ambitious aspirations, and his influence on the Democrat Party’s agenda, make Sanders a handy villain for Republicans. The GOP tried to use his possible ascension in the majority as an attack line in the Georgia Senate races -- only to see Democrats win those contests, giving Sanders the budget gavel. Senate Republicans still try to tie vulnerable Democrats to Sanders, more so even than Biden or Schumer. “We applaud Bernie Sanders’ commitment to socialism and his influential leadership pushing 2022 Senate Democrat candidates to the far left,” said Katharine Cooksey, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In addition to his central role in the Democratic caucus, Sanders also has the ear of former presidential rival Biden. Since winning the nomination and throughout the first six months of his presidency, the president has kept Sanders close. White House chief of staff Ron Klain essentially had an open-door policy with Sanders as he pushed for a $15 minimum wage earlier this year. That hike was ultimately crushed by moderates and the Senate parliamentarian, an early blow for Sanders.

But Sanders returned quickly to press Biden to embrace an expansion of Medicare coverage for dental, hearing aids and vision. During a private Oval Office meeting ahead of the budget announcement, Sanders “made that case passionately” again and Biden “gave his full backing,” said a senior White House aide. Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said Biden “deeply respects Senator Sanders’ unflinching commitment to fighting for working people."

Medicare expansion is included in Senate Democrats’ budget proposal, though it’s unclear whether Sanders will be able to lower the Medicare eligibility age as he set out to do months ago. Nonetheless, Sanders seems close to cinching a major change to an entitlement program that's helped define the party's legacy for generations.

For many years, Sanders played “a kind of gadfly role,” said David Axelrod, who served as an adviser to former President Barack Obama, who Sanders briefly entertained primarying during the 2012 presidential campaign. But now, he added, Sanders “has comfortably shifted into the role of deal-maker."

“You're seeing a very pragmatic Bernie Sanders, but he's pragmatic in a principled way,” Axelrod said, observing that Biden and Sanders, “who really were from different places in the party, have come together in the sunset of their careers to do something potentially historic.”

Asked if Sanders is a pragmatist, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) offered a clipped “yes” for an answer: “I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

This isn’t the first deal Sanders has cut, and it probably won’t be the last. In 2014 he memorably teamed with the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on a landmark agreement to reform the scandal-plagued Veterans Affairs Department. As part of that agreement, Sanders signed off on expanding private care access for veterans, a concession directly at odds with his long-standing commitment to single-payer health care. Sanders also struck an alliance last year with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in pushing for new pandemic stimulus checks.

“He’s obviously a passionate advocate. But he also understands this is a moment that we can’t let go by,” said Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a member of the Budget Committee and Democratic leadership. “He was able to read the room.”

Sanders is already digging in for the next round of fights. He may have centrist Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and the rest of the Budget Committee on board with his budget plan, but he still needs to win over more conservative Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Manchin said he hasn’t yet talked to Sanders about the proposal.

Once again, Sanders is drawing a line in the sand, saying he’s not coming down any more from $3.5 trillion. Time will tell whether this one is real or tactical. “No. Quite the contrary,” he said, hinting that progressive allies across the Capitol might drive the price back up. “We’ll see what happens in the House.”

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Biden's infrastructure plan would cut U.S. debt and slightly increase economic growth, Wharton study finds

Wharton found that Biden's infrastructure plan would cut the U.S. debt and slightly increase GDP.

A bipartisan infrastructure deal reached by President Joe Biden and a group of senators would not only add to economic growth, but also lower the national debt, according to a new study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Researchers at the Wharton School said the additional $579 billion in new infrastructure spending would increase domestic output by 0.1% and decrease the U.S. debt by 0.9% by 2050.

“Over time, as the new spending declines, IRS enforcement continues, and revenue grows from higher output, the government debt declines relative to baseline by 0.4 percent and 0.9 percent in 2040 and 2050 respectively,” the Wharton team wrote.

Speaking to CNBC on Tuesday, Wharton senior economist Jon Huntley said improvements to public capital (roads, bridges and other physical infrastructure) makes private capital (trucks and trains hauling goods for companies) more productive over time.

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Democrats release sprawling budget plan as Senate moves to pass bipartisan infrastructure bill

After the Senate passes a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, Democrats will take the first step to approve their $3.5 trillion spending plan.

As the Senate was putting the finishing touches on a bipartisan infrastructure bill Monday, Democrats released their $3.5 trillion budget plan that sets the stage for a massive investment in social programs and climate policy.

The plans fit into what Democrats consider a complementary, two-part agenda to boost the economy, strengthen the social safety net and attempt to curb climate change. The party will have to carry out a complicated legislative dance to get both proposals through Congress in the coming months.

First, the Senate could pass the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill as early as Tuesday morning. The plan, which calls for $550 billion in new spending on transportation, utilities and broadband, is expected to get through the chamber with Democratic and Republican support.

The Senate will then “immediately” move toward passing the budget resolution, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told colleagues in a letter Monday. The measure would allow Democrats to pass up to $3.5 trillion in spending on climate policy, paid leave, child care, education and health care without a Republican vote.

Schumer aims to approve the measure in the coming days before senators leave for their August recess.