WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 It\u2019s big. It\u2019s messy. And it\u2019s very politically complicated. That’s President Joe Biden\u2019s sweeping domestic policy package as Democratic leaders in Congress try to muscle it into law.<\/b>
\nIt\u2019s big. It\u2019s messy. And it\u2019s very politically complicated. That\u2019s President Biden\u2019s sweeping domestic policy package as Democratic leaders in Congress try to muscle it into law. Fallout was brutal Friday after Biden\u2019s announcement of a $1.75 trillion framework, chiseled back from an initial $3.5 trillion plan, still failed to produce ironclad support from two key holdout senators \u2014 West Virginia\u2019s Joe Manchin and Arizonan Kyrsten Sinema. On Capitol Hill, Congress adjourned the night before with fingers pointed, tempers hot and so much at stake for the president and his party. Yet a formal nod of endorsement of Biden\u2019s plan from the party\u2019s Congressional Progressive Caucus late Thursday moved the president one step closer to the support needed for passage in the House. Determined to wrap it up, the House will try next week to pass Biden\u2019s big bill, along with a companion $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package. \u201cIt\u2019s only 90% done,\u201d said Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. \u201cSo you got to get through the complicated \u2014 the last 10%, as you know, is always the most difficult.\u201d The fast-moving \u2014 then slow-crawling \u2014 state-of-play in Congress puts the president and his party at significant political risk. Biden\u2019s slipping approval rating and the party\u2019s own hold on Congress are at stake with the 2022 midterm election campaigns soon underway. Democrats are struggling in governor\u2019s races next week in Virginia and New Jersey, where safe victories might have been expected. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of stunning to me that we\u2019re in this place,\u201d exasperated Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., told reporters late Thursday as the House adjourned. Biden arrived that morning on Capitol Hill triumphant in announcing a historic framework on the bill that he claimed would get 50 votes in the Senate. But the two Democratic Senate holdouts Manchin and Sinema responded \u2014 maybe, maybe not. Manchin and Sinema\u2019s reluctance to fully embrace Biden\u2019s plan set off a domino series of events that sent Biden to overseas summits empty handed and left the party portrayed as in disarray. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to abandon plans to pass the related measure, the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan, that has become tangled in the deliberations. Progressives have been refusing to vote for that public works package of roads, bridges and broadband, withholding their support as leverage for assurances that Manchin and Sinema are on board with Biden\u2019s big bill.<\/p>\n