Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is aggressively aiming for a vote next week to take up the upper chamber's bipartisan infrastructure proposal in a bid to force consensus on President Joe Biden's ambitious domestic agenda before August, Politico reported.
The Senate is expected to vote next Wednesday advancing to a debate on the bipartisan plan to spend nearly $600 billion on roads, bridges, and broadband for which Biden’s given his support, the news outlet reported.
The vote to break a filibuster on proceeding to the bill will need 60 votes, and at least 10 Republicans — double the number of GOP senators who joined the president at the White House to back the agreement. And it’s unclear the proposal can clear that hurdle, the news outlet reported.
According to Politico, the bipartisan negotiators have yet to agree on legislative text for the proposal Schumer aims to force a vote on.
Schumer is pushing the Senate Budget Committee to finalize its measure setting up an additional $3.5 trillion in spending on social programs, Politico reported.
Several Republicans have expressed concerns about its financing and are waiting for an official score from the Congressional Budget Office once the bill's text is completed, Politico reported.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has withheld judgment on the bipartisan plan, encouraging his members to view it as a separate effort from the Democrats’ fatter $3.5 trillion bill, Politico reported.
Speaking at public events in his home state of Kentucky last week, McConnell saved his grim assessments for tax hikes in the other infrastructure legislation Democrats are expected to produce in addition to the bipartisan bill.
"This is going to be a hell of a fight. ... This is not the right thing to do for the country," McConnell warned as he attacked Biden's plans for possible tax increases on corporations and the wealthy to help finance the cost of some infrastructure investments.
One measure to be hammered out would simply provide the technical framework for ramming through the Senate — without Republican support — a second, bigger infrastructure measure to build upon the bipartisan plan.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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