Sen. Biden is slated to meet separately with President Biden on Sunday. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema this week as he looks to sway two of Democrats' biggest holdouts on the party's sprawling tax and spending plan, according to a source familiar with the plans.
The meetings, scheduled to take place at the White House, show that Biden is causing a growing division among Democrats in negotiations amid an active bipartisan gap.
Both Manchin of West Virginia and Sinema of Arizona are crucial to the final outcome of the massive family and climate plan that Democrats are planning to pass using their extremely narrow majorities for budget reconciliation. The centrist Democrats have resisted spending up to $3.5 trillion to expand paid family leave, extend public education and combat climate change.
With their incredibly moderate multiplication of seats the party has no seats left in the Senate and just three in House Democrats face a delicate balance act in approving the reconciliation measure along with a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill, or they risk losing the support of moderate or progressive members.
5% of the amount is 5%.
The division consists of a fight for control over the size and scope of the spending package. Progressives say that $3.5 trillion is the bare minimum needed to vastly expand social safety net and combat climate change. Centrist Democrats are wary of another multitrillion-dollar bill funded by a bevy of new taxes, no less after the Pandemic pushed the U.S. deficit to a record high.
Chuck Schumer is not going to get my vote on $3.5 trillion and Manchin knows that, and we've talked about this, said Chuck in an interview on CNN on Sunday.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other House progressives have threatened to torpedo a separate, bipartisan infrastructure bill that already passed the Senate unless its passage is explicitly tied to the larger reconciliation measure.