Senate Democrats Reportedly Set To Push Biden’s Spending Bill To 2022 And Instead Try To Pass A Voting Bill

Senate Democrats’ hope to pass President Joe Biden’s tax and spending bill before 2022 may be slipping away, leading Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to consider making another Hail Mary attempt to pass a bill expanding voting access.

Schumer is planning on punting the $1.75 trillion package to January, according to NBC News, largely due to a continuing impasse between Senate Democrats and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, a centrist from West Virginia who has objected to several central provisions and the timetable for which Schumer wants the bill passed. Manchin has long sounded the alarm on rising inflation and has gone on-record opposing several of the bill’s various provisions addressing climate change, child care and more.

The reversal is a stark departure from Democrats’ long-stated goal of passing the bill, known as the Build Back Better Act, before the end of 2021. It cleared the House in November on a near party-line vote, though that version included provisions to which multiple Senate Democrats were already opposed.

And while Manchin and Biden met both Monday and Tuesday in hopes of nearing a deal, multiple reports said that the two remained far apart. Several reports said that Manchin wanted to rid the bill of the child tax credit, but he denied that he wanted to scrap the provision completely.