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Senators return to Washington on Monday, and with them will come fierce debate over President Joe Biden’s sprawling social-spending and climate bill passed by the House earlier this month.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, has said he’d like his chamber to pass the so-called Build Back Better plan before Christmas, but several key provisions in the roughly $2 trillion measure need to be hashed out after passing the House of Representatives on Nov. 19, and Senate action could reportedly slip into the new year.
Attention will turn once again to Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, two moderate members of Biden’s party who have aired concerns about the size and contents of the plan. But other lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who usually votes with Democrats, will also be critical to watch on issues including the state and local tax deduction, or SALT.
Here are a few key items that senators will debate afresh beginning next week — as they also must pass a stopgap funding bill to keep the government running past Dec. 3.
SALT
The House-passed bill raises the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction to $80,000, beginning in tax year 2021 and extended over nine years. Sanders has said the provision amounts to a tax break for wealthy Americans, calling it “wrong.” He’s not alone. Montana Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, has said he’d “just as soon have it out,” since “I think it gives tax breaks to the wrong people: Rich people.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, says he has a proposal that would aim the break at middle-class families. Compromise will be key on this and the rest of the bill, as the measure will need the backing of every Democrat to pass the 50-50 Senate. No Republicans support it. With next year’s midterm elections approaching, the GOP is bashing Biden’s plans and charging they will make high inflation worse.
Read: Why Biden’s $2 trillion spending plan won’t make high U.S. inflation much worse
PAID LEAVE
House Democrats approved four weeks of paid family and medical leave — but that’s as far as that idea could get.
Manchin is opposed to the $200 billion item in the House bill, insisting it should be done in a “bipartisan way” instead of through the so-called reconciliation process Democrats are using to push Build Back Better in the Senate. That process requires just 50 votes, meaning Democrats can’t afford opposition.
Manchin’s Democratic colleague, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, has been trying to bring him on board with paid leave and said after the House’s vote that they “continue to talk about ways to put paid leave in this bill.”
IMMIGRATION
About 6.5 million immigrants who have lived in the U.S. since 2011 would get relief from deportation as well as work permits if the Senate doesn’t change the House bill. Another provision would boost the technology industry’s
XLK,
efforts to hire foreign-born workers amid labor shortages, by increasing the availability of green cards.
Read: Democrats plan revamp for green cards in possible win for tech sector, as Republicans object
But will immigration measures pass the Senate’s budget rules? Since the reconciliation process is intended to be for federal-budget-related matters, immigration could be ruled out of a final bill.
