Senate Democrats Hit Roadblock on Health and Climate Bill

Democrats drove their election-year economic package toward Senate approval and debated a smaller measure than one that was proposed by President Joe Biden as they hit a roadblock on Sunday afternoon over a tax provision.

“I think it’s gonna pass,” Biden told reporters as he left the White House early Sunday to go to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) claimed that the $740 billion bill—slated to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars—”will reduce inflation.”

“It will close tax loopholes and it will reduce and reduce the deficit,” Schumer added. “It will help every citizen in this country and make America a much better place.”

But concerns over objections to the new 15 percent corporate minimum tax on private equity firms and other industries threatened to slow the progress.

Sen. John Thune, of South Dakota, the second-ranking Republican, was working on an amendment that would strip the tax for certain sectors. He was trying to draw support from Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), two holdouts who have bucked their party before.

Thune predicted several more hours of negotiations and debate. “Hopefully we’ll have a solution to land the plane,” he told reporters at the Capitol.

Republicans said the measure would undermine an economy that policymakers are struggling to keep from plummeting into recession. They said the bill’s business taxes would hurt job creation and force prices skyward, making it harder for people to cope with the nation’s worst inflation since the 1980s.

“Democrats have already robbed American families once through inflation, and now their solution is to rob American families a second time,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the floor.

Spending and tax increases in the legislation would eliminate jobs while having an insignificant impact on inflation and climate change, the

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