Senate readies long-awaited vote to consider climate and health bill

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats on Saturday readied for a vote to begin debate on a sprawling bill that aims to lower health care costs, combat climate change and reduce the federal deficit, a critical step in what will be a grueling legislative journey to deliver on President Biden’s long-stalled economic agenda.

The new push to consider the measure, which Republicans unanimously oppose, comes seven months after internecine bickering scuttled Democrats’ last efforts to adopt a package that many in the party regard as essential for retaining the House and Senate in this year’s midterm elections.

“Put simply, this legislation will save lives, create jobs, reduce costs and reduce inflation,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., during a news conference Friday.

To enable the vote to move to the legislation, Schumer led Democrats in working out a series of deals in recent days with his party’s two holdouts, Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz. The agreements won their elusive, must-have support, though it once again forced Democrats to whittle down their sky-high ambitions to remake broad swaths of the economy and U.S. tax code.

Democrats cannot afford to lose the backing of either centrist - or lose any other of their members’ votes, even to absences - if they hope to adopt the legislation this weekend over GOP objections. That’s an added challenge at a time when the coronavirus remains prevalent in the Capitol, threatening to tip the political balance in the narrowly divided Senate.

In the process, Democrats must also brace for intensifying Republican attacks and new attempts to weaken the bill. In a sign of their stewing opposition, GOP lawmakers recently have tried to malign the legislation as a tax increase on American families, even though the spending measure does not raise rates on individuals.

“It’ll be like hell,” promised Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., offering a warning to Democrats on Friday about his party’s attempts to change and undermine the legislation. Graham directed particular ire at Manchin and Sinema, saying they had enabled Democrats “to make the average person’s life more difficult.”

The Inflation Reduction Act, as it is known, includes $433 billion in new spending, nearly all of which contributes to the largest-ever U.S. investments to boost green energy and reduce planet-harming emissions. Democrats also aim to spare millions of Americans from seeing health insurance premium increases by extending subsidies that would otherwise expire next year.

To pay for it, Democrats have proposed a program that could lower prescription drug prices for seniors. It would allow Medicare to negotiate what it pays for a small set of medicines under a program that lawmakers believe can save both patients and the government money. That initiative - combined with new efforts to collect taxes targeting some billion-dollar corporations, their stock buybacks and a wide array of persistent tax cheats - is expected to raise enough to cover the costs of the bill while yielding $300 billion for deficit reduction.

The proposal marks a dramatic departure from the more expansive, roughly $2 trillion Build Back Better Act that Biden sought, and the House adopted, at the end of last year. That measure included more ambitious plans to offer free prekindergarten nationwide, provide paid family and medical leave, expand Medicare benefits and expand a slew of federal safety-net benefits. But the bill never won Manchin’s support, ultimately forcing Democrats back to the drawing board.

The subsequent negotiations - led by Schumer - proved perilous at times, at one point raising the prospect that Democrats might have to forgo their plans to respond to climate change if they wanted to get Manchin’s vote. But the two stunned practically all of Washington in late July when they brokered a deal that kept some of the party’s top priorities intact, setting in motion a sprint to adopt it before lawmakers depart for their usual summer recess.

Days later, Schumer had to shore up support from Sinema, who remained quiet even as others in her party hailed the breakthrough on their agenda. Privately, the Arizona senator communicated to Democrats that she had significant concerns with some of their original tax plans, including those that aimed to tax wealthy investors and close what is known as the “carried interest loophole.”

A period of intense new talks soon followed - with Sinema and Manchin often spotted huddling on the floor - before Democrats agreed to drop that tax increase. They also dialed back their plan to impose a minimum tax on corporations and included new money that Sinema sought in response to drought.

The expected Saturday vote marks the start of a debate that could prove raucous and winding under the process known as budget reconciliation. The legislative tactic allows Democrats to move their bill using their 50 votes, aided by the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, even in a chamber that typically requires the support of 60 to start or end debate.

Reconciliation enables Democrats to sidestep a filibuster from Republicans, but it also opens the door to political risks and potential delays. GOP lawmakers can offer a seemingly limitless number of amendments in a marathon process known as a vote-a-rama. And they also can seek to challenge the very heart of the legislation itself, asking the Senate parliamentarian to rule that some of the bill’s provisions aren’t permitted under the rules of reconciliation. The procedure can only be used for proposals that directly involve the budget.

Early Saturday morning, though, Democrats received positive news from the chamber’s chief rule-keeper, who ruled that their climate spending was permitted under the reconciliation process. The Senate parliamentarian still appears to be evaluating other provisions, including those involving drug pricing reforms.

Republicans invoked last invoked reconciliation to advance President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut law in 2017, and Democrats turned to the process to advance their roughly $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief law known as the American Rescue Plan last year. The latter debate spanned 25 hours and saw countless GOP attempts to divide Democrats, who had to muscle through their own last-minute divisions about the spending to proceed to a final vote.

With the Inflation Reduction Act, some Republicans have promised to tee up politically noxious amendments in a bid to rankle their Democratic peers or force votes that could later be used against them in campaigns. While Schumer ultimately should be able to rally his party to vote to wipe out any damaging changes at the end of the debate, the GOP still has set its sights on areas including “energy, inflation, border and crime,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the head of the Senate Republican Conference, during a news conference Friday.

But Democrats said this week they were ready for the political assault.

“We all know it’s a process,” said Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. “You try to put in as many ‘gotcha’ amendments as possible.”

“But,” he added, “I have more confidence about getting through the vote.”