Senate Democrats have unveiled a draft budget resolution that maps $3.5 trillion in spending, including for paid medical leave, two years of tuition-free community college, and a bevy of climate change fighting initiatives.
“Yes, we will pass this budget with 51 votes, not 60, by passing it under the rules of reconciliation,” Sanders said. “Today, with Democrats in control of the Senate, we will use reconciliation to benefit the working class, not the billionaire class.”
Republicans, a number of whom back the smaller traditional infrastructure package negotiated in a bipartisan fashion that’s now making its way through the Senate, are expected to unanimously oppose the Democrats’ broader “human infrastructure” measure.
“If our colleagues want to ram through yet another reckless tax and spending spree without our input, if they want all this spending and debt to be their signature legacy, they should leap at the chance to own every bit of it,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the Senate floor last week.
The measure lays the groundwork for legislation later this year that would pour mountains of federal resources into the Democrats’ top priorities over the next decade. Included would be more money for health care, education, family services, and environmental programs and tax breaks for families, with much of it paid for with tax increases on wealthier Americans and corporations.
The resolution calls for creating free pre-Kindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds and two years of free community college, extending tax breaks for children and some low-income workers, and establishing paid family and sick leave.
Medicare coverage would be expanded to cover dental, hearing, and vision benefits. Spending would increase for housing, home health care, and job training, and new resources would go toward efforts encouraging a faster transition to green energy.
The budget also calls for giving legal status to millions of people living in the United States illegally and—in a step aimed to win support from moderate Democrats—spending money to strengthen border security.
Notably absent from the resolution are plans for raising the debt ceiling, a measure that would give the federal government more room to spend under a recently reimposed debt cap.
The reimposed borrowing limit caps the federal debt at the current level of about $28.5 trillion, restricting the government’s ability to raise additional funds by selling government securities. The reinstated ceiling has forced Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to resort to emergency measures to allow the Treasury to keep meeting federal debt obligations.
Yellen reiterated on Aug. 9 her calls for Democrats and Republicans in Congress to agree to raise the debt ceiling.
In his remarks from the Senate floor last week, McConnell said that unless Democrats work with Republicans on trimming their budget resolution proposal, then “they won’t get our help with the debt limit increase that these reckless plans will require.”
