Biden Cancels Trip, Focuses on Spending Bills as Votes Approach

President Joe Biden canceled a Wednesday trip to Chicago and is staying in Washington D.C. as negotiations on his administration's spending bills have stalled. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has planned a vote on the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill Thursday, but progressives have pledged to vote against it unless the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package passes along with it. Moderate Democrats including Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Az.) oppose the $3.5T pricetag, and Republicans are also mostly unified in opposition to it. And if a federal funding bill is not passed by midnight on Thursday, the federal government will partially shutdown. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday that the government will run out of resources to fund operations by mid-October if the debt ceiling is not raised or suspended; Republicans have voted against efforts to raise the debt ceiling, saying they won't enable Democrats' purportedly reckless spending plans.

Coverage across the spectrum highlighted the news Wednesday. Many reports framed the next two days as critical for Biden's agenda, and hinted that failure to pass the bills and avoid a government shutdown would have negative consequences for Democrats.