WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The two top Democrats in the U.S. Congress announced a revenue deal on Thursday that they said would pay for President Joe Biden’s social spending agenda, marking a major step forward in their effort to enact sweeping legislation.
“The White House, the House and the Senate have reached agreement on a framework that will pay for any final negotiated agreement. So the revenue side of this, we have an agreement on,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a press conference.
“We are writing legislation, and when you’re writing legislation, you have to be specific. And this took us a long way to a framework,” House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
“We’ll get more estimates as to how much money comes in on certain things. But we know that we can cover the proposals that the president has put forth,” she said.
The announcement comes as the White House and Democrats from the House and Senate try to overcome differences between moderates and progressives over Biden’s proposed $3.5 trillion social spending agenda, which Democrats hope to pass without Republican help through a parliamentary process known as budget reconciliation.
The Democratic-controlled House is also due to take up as early as Monday a Senate-passed $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which has also become a political football between moderates and progressives.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Diane Craft and Mark Porter)
