Senator Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), cited the budget measure to be the key to passing legislation that is most important for the working poor, elderly, and children since New Deal programs were established under President Franklin D. Roosevelt over 80 years ago.Although the Senate will likely begin voting on the budget Tuesday, before departing Washington for August recess (August recess), the final reconciliation bill won't be approved by Congress until the fall.The budget measure's exclusion of the debt limit is expected to facilitate action on the multitrillion-dollar plan as well as on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is on track for passage in the Senate Monday or Tuesday. As the Biden administration continues to count down to a national default on U.S. Debt, Democrats will be forced to procrastinate and scramble to get the votes they need to avoid the cliff.Democrats would like to tie the debt limit action to a temporary spending bill. This would allow the government to remain open past Sept. 30, which will mean Congress will not have much time to reach an agreement on these critical issues once they return from August recess.Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary, made Monday morning a statement to Democrats, offering them some support for not pursuing the debt limit hike through reconciliation. She also stressed that Congress should address the issue on a bipartisan level.She stated that the vast majority of debt subject to the limit was accumulated before the Administration took office. This is a shared responsibility. I urge Congress to work together as in the past on a bipartisan basis to protect the full faith, credit and sovereignty of the United States.Since months, the majority party has been working towards this legislative kickoff. They have been negotiating the starting amount for the $3.5 trillion package, and gaming out the procedural and political challenges ahead. Senate Democrats will have to vote this week in order to pass the measure and allow budget reconciliation to take place. This is the same voting frenzy that kept them awake all night in February when they passed $1.9 trillion in pandemic aid.The spending ceiling will be baked into the budget resolution, along with a rough framework of what can be included on the final social spending bill Democrats want to enact. The final product could fall short of $3.5 trillion as moderate Democrats in both the House and Senate thwart their liberal counterparts over the next few weeks.After the Arizona moderate tweeted late last year that she did not support a bill costing $3.5 trillion, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), publicly confronted Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema. She said that while she doesn't agree with the bill and would work in good faith in developing it in the next months.As senators prepare for the third vote-arama of the year they have been promised by Republicans a no-holds-barred process to amend bills. This will both exhaust their Democratic counterparts as well as force them into difficult votes that could be used for future campaign-trail attacks. Although amendments made during the vote-arama are not binding, they often touch upon politically symbolic flashpoints.The Senate was due to adjourn for August recess, and both the Senate and the Senate are exhausted from weeks of bipartisan legislation wrangling. Republicans want to make Democrats suffer by choosing reconciliation over negotiating a deal that at most 10 Republican senators could agree on.Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated that initiating another budget reconciliation in a 50-50 Senate was as partisan and uncompetitive as it gets. This is especially true in a Senate that continues to prove we can do bipartisan work.Although Democrats claim their $3.5 trillion final plan will be fully funded, Monday's budget resolution assumes that the legislation will increase the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollar. Majority party plans to offset a large portion of the final package's cost with a series of tax increases and savings, such as empowering Medicare to negotiate prices for pharmaceutical companies.
