Biden met with several Democratic lawmakers to advance his economic plan

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden met Wednesday with moderate and progressive members of his party to try to unite them and approve a good part of his economic agenda in Congress in the coming days.

Biden first spoke with the leaders of the Democratic majorities in the Senate, Chuck Shumer , and in the Lower House, Nancy Pelosi, and later received members of the moderate faction in the White House, including the senators Joe Manchin , from West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

The president, what happened 36 years in Congress and knows its dynamics well, he planned to talk late in the day with the party’s most progressive legislators, such as Pramila Jayapa l, President of the Progressive Caucus.

The meetings occur just five days before the expected vote in the House of Representatives on an infrastructure package valued at $ 1 trillion that has already been approved by the Senate and whose objective is to rebuild bridges, ports and roads.

A month ago, Pelosi promised to put that law to a vote on 27 of September, but the tension between moderates and progressives is such that it is not clear

Although the Democrats have the majority of the House of Representatives, they hardly have room for defections because they only have eight more seats than the Republicans.

The most progressive wing has threatened to vote against that project if it is not approved time a social spending package of $ 3.5 billion dollars, that would increase taxes for the richest s and companies with the aim of expanding health coverage, fighting poverty and implementing measures against the climate crisis.

Neither the White House nor the Democrats have reported on the content of the encounters, although Schumer told reporters: “We have made some good progress. I’m not going to talk about the details. We are moving forward. ”

Separately, Pelosi was asked by several journalists if she would go ahead with her plan to vote on 27 of September the infrastructure law. “We are calm and everyone is fine. And our work is almost finished ”, said Pelosi, without giving details about her plans.

This tension between Democrats occurs when Congress faces two very important: pass a law to avoid a government shutdown for lack of of funds as of October 1 and reach another agreement on the US debt limit , which could go into default on the national debt in October.

On Tuesday night, the House of Representatives , controlled by the Democrats, voted in favor of a bill that would allow government funding to be extended until December 3 and that would suspend the debt ceiling .

That initiative, however, should receive the support of some Republicans to be approved in the Senate and that party has already made it clear that it will not increase the US borrowing capacity

The last time the US was close to the suspension of payments on its national debt was in 2011 with Barack Obama in the White House and then a huge chaos unleashed in the financial markets, which led to Standard & Poor’s downgrading the country’s solvency note.