华盛顿——一方被自近一个世纪前的新政以来政府支持最大扩张的前景所鼓舞。另一种担心以巨大的代价大幅扩大华盛顿的影响力。
他们都是民主党人。然而，每一方都在采取截然不同的方法来引导3.5万亿美元的庞大支出法案在国会通过。
该党再次面临其进步派和温和派之间相互竞争的政治优先事项。本周起草的众议院版本法案开启了辩论的新阶段，这可能会考验民主党人能否将他们在从收入不平等到气候变化等所有问题上的大胆竞选言论与实际立法相匹配。
任何失误都可能对该党在明年中期选举中的前景产生严重后果，届时该党将试图阻止共和党夺回国会。成品可能会疏远那些说它走得太远的中间派，或者挫败那些认为它在重大时刻过于胆怯的左翼人士。
“这对民主党人和他们在明年的选举中的信息至关重要选举“前纽约国会议员乔·克劳利说，他是一名资深的民主党人，在2018年的初选中被进步之星、众议员亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯击败。”我们会眨眼，我们会在2022年。"
克劳利说，提出数万亿美元支出的法案是“我执政20年来从未处理过的事情”。“以任何标准来看，这些都是巨大的数字，”他说。
但是，克劳利补充说，无论最终价格如何，“无论如何，我们都不要忽视这将是一个变革的事实。”
由于共和党人普遍反对该法案，民主党领导人在参议院和众议院的微弱多数中艰难前行。
许多民主党人同意立法中包含的目标，例如提供普及的学前教育和免费的社区大学，同时增加联邦对儿童保育、带薪探亲假和应对气候变化的资助。该党还打算扩大卫生保健医疗保险的覆盖范围，并为该国数百万非法移民创造了获得公民身份的途径。
但是，在这种措施应该花费多少以及应该如何支付费用的问题上存在分歧。
周三，西弗吉尼亚州的民主党参议员乔·曼钦(Joe Manchin)和亚利桑那州的基斯顿·西内马(Kyrsten Sinema)与美国总统乔·拜登(Joe Biden)私下会面，他们对3.5万亿美元的价格犹豫不决。
与此同时，众议院民主党人提议最高公司税率为26.5%，以帮助支付成本。这低于拜登28%的目标。但是曼钦要求更低的25%的公司税率。
对于如何向高收入者征税也存在分歧。拜登主张将资本利得最高税率恢复到39.6%。然而，众议院民主党人将对这类收入征收25%的税，这类收入通常由富人产生。他们还将对500万美元以上的个人收入征收3%的附加费。
拜登进一步支持更高赋税对于那些年收入至少40万美元的人来说，尽管一些进步人士希望看到更高税收的门槛降低。
“我们不会对收入低于40万美元的人增税，这可是一大笔钱，”总统周四表示。“我的一些自由派朋友说，应该低于这个水平。”
虽然这种差异是技术性的，但它们代表了许多众议院民主党领导人的愿望，即保护他们在温和地区最脆弱的成员免受他们支持挥霍无度的税收和支出的攻击。
华盛顿中间派智库进步政策研究所(Progressive Policy Institute)主席威尔·马歇尔(Will Marshall)表示:“我们的进步左翼朋友有一个假设，那就是，你做什么几乎不重要，只要它大就行。马歇尔说，相反，民主党人的意识形态足够多样化，以至于“在竞争激烈的竞选中竞选的人根本无法接受在安全、蓝色的民主党选区竞选的人的想法”。
进步活动家团体“我们的革命”的执行董事约瑟夫·吉瓦格斯反驳道，“总统说‘看，我们赢得了国会两院’将是难以置信的问题。我们赢得了白宫。他说，我们无法提供更好的医疗保健，也无法在气候方面带来变革。"
“这是无法向美国人民解释的，”吉瓦格斯说，“我认为会有后果。”
民主党人以前来过这里。进步派和温和派之间的分歧主导了该党2020年总统初选的早期阶段，拜登和佛蒙特州参议员伯尼·桑德斯是两党中最突出的代表。
桑德斯是一名与民主党进行党团会议的独立人士，他赢得了早期的胜利。但该党最终围绕拜登联合起来，部分原因是迫切希望团结在一位可能拥有最广泛吸引力并击败时任总统唐纳德·特朗普的候选人身后。
自那以后，拜登通过采取许多最优先的进步措施，在很大程度上保持了该党的团结，例如在3月份率先通过了一项1.9万亿美元的冠状病毒救济法案，并支持一项现已搁置的提案，将全国最低工资提高到每小时15美元。然而，他抵制了一些最大的进步目标，包括被称为“全民医疗保险”的全民医疗提案。
但尚不清楚这种平衡能否维持。
我们的革命和其他进步活动家已经在包括曼钦在内的温和派办公室外举行了抗议活动。他们已经开始称自己为“左翼茶党”，反对“阻挠的企业民主党人”
曼钦至今不为所动。他说，“我已经非常清楚和非常公开地”表明需要降低预算法案的价格标签。
与此同时，在众议院，温和派蓝狗联盟的负责人、佛罗里达州民主党众议员斯蒂芬妮·墨菲(Stephanie Murphy)在委员会中反对部分支出计划，认为她的政党强行通过该计划的努力过于仓促。
不过，进步人士已经通过自己的立法强硬手段做出了回应。众议院进步党团联合主席、来自华盛顿的民主党众议员普拉米拉·贾亚帕尔(Pramila Jayapal)表示，该团体仍然团结一致，发誓在支出法案推进之前，不支持一项许多温和派民主党人更为兴奋的单独法案——一项1万亿美元的两党公共工程措施。
“乔·曼钦当然有权力。我们需要他的投票。但事实上，我们每个人都是如此，因为在众议院，(民主党)有三票的优势，”贾亚帕尔在与进步活动人士的电话会议上说。“这里的每个人都是乔·曼钦。”
在一些进步人士推动价值高达6万亿美元的支出计划后，桑德斯作为参议院预算委员会主席带头提出了这一提议。他表示，目前的价格标签已经足够妥协，并誓言不会接受进一步削减。他说对富人增税可以引起两党工人阶级选民的共鸣。
马歇尔说，战场众议院选区的许多选民确实称赞对富人征收更高的税是“税收公平”，但如果额外支出更多地关注社会项目而不是经济刺激，这种支持就会减弱。
“它必须与创造良好就业、刺激创新和增长的计划联系起来，”马歇尔说，他补充说，许多摇摆地区的人也对联邦债务增加和通胀加剧表示担忧。
不过，他表示，如果围绕预算提案最终价格标签的争论继续下去，民主党的成本将会更高。
马歇尔说:“我认为民主党人会找到一种方法来弥合他们的分歧，因为他们不能让这位总统失败。“利润空间太窄了。”
Budget bill reopens moderate vs. progressive divide for Dems
WASHINGTON -- One side is energized by the prospect of the greatest expansion of government support since the New Deal nearly a century ago. The other is fearful about dramatically expanding Washington's reach at an enormous cost.
They're all Democrats. Yet each side is taking vastly different approaches to guiding the massive $3.5 trillion spending bill through Congress.
The party is again confronting the competing political priorities between its progressive and moderate wings. The House version of the bill that was drafted this week ushered in a new phase of the debate that could test whether Democrats can match their bold campaign rhetoric on everything from income inequality to climate change with actual legislation.
Any stumble may have serious consequences for the party's prospects during next year's midterms, when it will try to prevent Republicans from retaking Congress. The finished product could alienate centrists who say it goes too far, or frustrate those on the left who argue it's too timid at a moment of great consequence.
“This is critically important for Democrats and for their message in next year’selection," said former New York congressman Joe Crowley, a veteran Democrat who was upset in the 2018 primary by progressive star, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "We’re going to blink and we’re going to be in 2022.”
Crowley said bills proposing trillions of dollars in spending were “simply something I never had to deal with in my 20 years" in office. "These are enormous figures by any standard,” he said.
But, Crowley added, no matter the final price tag, ”Let’s not lose sight of the fact that this will be transformational regardless.”
With Republicans universally opposed to the bill, Democratic leaders have a narrow path as they navigate an evenly divided Senate and thin House majority.
Many Democrats agree on the goals included in the legislation, such as providing universal pre-kindergarten and tuition-free community college while increasing federal funding for child care, paid family leave and combating climate change. The party also is aiming to expandhealth carecoverage through Medicare and create pathways to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the country illegally.
But there are differences over how much such a measure should cost and how it should be paid for.
Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who met privately with President Joe Biden on Wednesday, have balked at the $3.5 trillion price tag.
House Democrats, meanwhile, have proposed a 26.5% top corporate tax rate to help cover the cost. That's less than Biden's 28% target. But Manchin has pushed for an even lower corporate rate of 25%.
There are also divides over how to impose levies on top earners. Biden has advocated restoring the top tax rate on capital gains to 39.6%. House Democrats, however, would tax such income, which is often generated by the wealthy, at 25%. They would also impose a 3% surcharge on individual income above $5 million.
Biden further supports highertaxesfor those earning at least $400,000 annually, even as some progressives would like to see a lower threshold for higher taxes to kick in.
“We’re not going to raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000 That’s a lot of money,” the president said Thursday. "Some of my liberal friends are saying it should be lower than that.”
While such differences are technical, they represent a desire among many House Democratic leaders to protect their most vulnerable members in moderate districts from attacks that they support profligate taxes and spending.
“There’s a supposition by our friends on the progressive left that it hardly matters what you do, as long as it’s big," said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a centrist Washington think tank. Instead, Democrats are ideologically diverse enough that “people who run in competitive races simply can’t embrace the same kind of ideas that people who run in safe, blue Democratic districts,” Marshall said.
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive activist group Our Revolution, countered that "It would be incredibly problematic for the president to say, ‘Look we won both chambers of Congress. We won the White House. We couldn’t deliver better health care, we couldn’t deliver transformational change on the climate.'”
“It is not going to be explainable to the American people," Geevarghese said, "and I think there’ll be consequences as a result.”
Democrats have been here before. The progressive versus moderate divide dominated the early stages of the party's 2020 presidential primary with Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders serving as the most prominent representatives of each end of the spectrum.
Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, scored early victories. But the party ultimately coalesced around Biden, in part because of an urgent desire to unify behind a candidate who could have the broadest appeal and defeat then-President Donald Trump.
Biden has since largely kept the party unified by adopting many top progressive priorities, such as spearheading a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill that passed in March and supporting a now-stalled proposal to raise the national minimum wage to $15 per hour. He has resisted, however, some of the biggest progressive goals, including the universal health care proposal known as Medicare for All.
But it's unclear whether that equilibrium can be maintained.
Already, Our Revolution and other progressive activists have staged protests outside the offices of moderates including Manchin. They've begun referring to themselves as the “tea party of the left” combatting “obstructionist corporate Democrats.”
Manchin is so far unmoved. "I’ve been very clear and very open" about the need to reduce the budget bill's price tag, he said.
In the House, meanwhile, Democratic Florida Rep. Stephanie Murphy, head of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition, opposed parts of the spending package in committee, arguing that her party’s effort to muscle it through was too rushed.
Progressives, though, have responded by playing their own legislative hardball. Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, co-chairwoman of House Progressive Caucus, said the group remains unified behind a vow not to support a separate bill that many moderate Democrats are more excited about — a $1 trillion, bipartisan public works measure — until the spending bill advances.
“Joe Manchin has power, of course. We need his vote. But so do, really, every single one of us, because in the House, (Democrats) have a margin of three votes,” Jayapal said on a conference call with progressive activists. “Everyone’s a Joe Manchin here."
Sanders, who spearheaded the proposal as head of the Senate Budget Committee after some progressives pushed for spending plans worth as much as $6 trillion, says the current price tag is compromise enough and has vowed not to accept further cuts. He says tax increases on the rich can resonate with working class voters from both parties.
Marshall said many voters in battleground House districts do indeed applaud higher levies for the wealthy as “tax fairness,” but that support wanes if additional spending focuses more on social programs than economic stimulus.
“It has to be tied to a plan to create good jobs, spur innovation and growth,” said Marshall, who added that many in swing districts have also expressed concerns about running up federal debts and contributing to rising inflation.
Still, he said, it would be even more costly for Democrats if the squabbles over the budget proposal's final price tag drag on.
“I think Democrats will find a way to compose their differences simply because they can’t afford to have this president fail," Marshall said. "The margins are just too narrow.”
