Biden tells House progressives spending package needs to be between $1.9 trillion and $2.2 trillion
![<i>Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images</i><br/>President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi walk out after a meeting with House Democrats on Capitol Hill on Friday.](https://abc17news.b-cdn.net/abc17news.com/2021/10/hypatia-h_a18008121f2482141872d0a385e4f643-h_1a065121730e3675870b279c97b40ec9-300-scaled.jpg)
President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi walk out after a meeting with House Democrats on Capitol Hill on Friday.
By Manu Raju, Annie Grayer and Ryan Nobles, CNN
President Joe Biden said in a virtual meeting with a group of House progressives on Monday that the top line of the social safety net package needs to come down to somewhere between $1.9 trillion and $2.2 trillion, according to two sources familiar with the call.
Biden told the group, according to one of the sources, that was the range he felt Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema would accept but did not specify further within that range.
On Tuesday, Manchin did not rule out a price tag range between $1.9 trillion to $2.2 trillion.
Asked by CNN about that range, Manchin said, “I’m not ruling anything out, but the bottom line is I want to make sure that we’re strategic, we do the right job and we don’t basically add more to the concerns we have right now.”
Manchin has previously indicated that $1.5 trillion is the price tag he is willing to settle on.
Top Democratic leaders are also making clear publicly that they want to see a compromise reached on a topline number.
Leaving a meeting with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and White House officials Monday night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once again said that the top line would have to be below $3.5 trillion.
“I’d like to be at three and a half trillion dollars, but we’re not. The President said that,” she said, adding, “Pay attention to what the President says.”
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal’s message to progressives on a call Tuesday was not to focus on the top-line number but on the programs and priorities and how they are structured, according to a source familiar with the call. Jayapal said that if the top-line number needs to be cut, the preference is to look at shortening the years of funding for some programs instead of cutting out entire policies or means testing them, the source added.
The Washington state Democrat also relayed to progressives that based on her call with Biden on Monday night, the White House is moving very quickly to negotiate what will be in the smaller package, and that some of the pieces may already be negotiated, according to the source. Jayapal told her members that she told the President that progressives want to continue to be at the table and be part of the negotiations, the source added. Jayapal also said that the White House is negotiating directly with Manchin and Sinema, according to the source.
The progressives on Monday night’s call with Biden reiterated to the President that they remain supportive of the package and want to pass “as robust a plan as they can” through both houses of Congress, a source familiar with that call said. Another source told CNN that Democrats agreed they need to get consensus on a deal and that “something is better than nothing.”
On that call, Jayapal told Biden the $1.9-2.2 trillion top line was too low for the social safety net package Democrats are trying to find consensus on. She pushed back on the lower range that Biden laid out, saying it sounded low for getting in all the programs that progressives and the President initially wanted included in the package, a source familiar with the call told CNN. The source added that Jayapal said instead that progressives wanted to be closer to a top line of $3 trillion, with a price tag in the range of $2.5-2.9 trillion.
A separate source on the call told CNN that Jayapal said explicitly that $2.5 trillion is too low for the package.
But on the other side of the Capitol on Monday, Manchin would not commit to the new timeline set by party leaders to find a deal on the social safety net expansion by October 31.
He also resisted calls from progressives and other top Democrats to raise his $1.5 trillion price tag for the package, which many in his party view as too low to achieve key policy objectives. And he drew a “red line” on the Hyde Amendment, saying the inclusion of the measure prohibiting federal funds from being used for most abortions is necessary for him to support the package — another point of disagreement with many progressives.
Biden, who dropped his long-held support for the amendment in 2019 when running for the Democratic nomination, said Tuesday he would sign a package that includes it. “I want to get the bill passed,” he said.
According to sources on Monday’s call, the group of lawmakers from the Congressional Progressive Caucus on the call included, among others, Jayapal; Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the assistant speaker of the House; Mark Pocan of Wisconsin; Barbara Lee of California; Debbie Dingell of Michigan; Ritchie Torres of New York; Ro Khanna of California; Peter Welch of Vermont; Mondaire Jones of New York; Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware; and Peter Aguilar of California, who’s not a member of the CPC but serves as the vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
Two members of Congressional Progressive Caucus leadership — Deputy Chair Katie Porter of California and Whip Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — were not invited on the call.
Biden met virtually with more members of the House Democratic Caucus on Tuesday.
This story has been updated with additional developments Tuesday.
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CNN’s Clare Foran, John Harwood and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this story.