Reform plans presented: Biden wrestles with the left wing - and two party rights

Immediately before his departure for Europe, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, presented a new framework agreement for his social and climate reform package to Congress on Thursday.

The White House in Washington had been negotiating with representatives of both wings of the Democratic Party well into the night.

On Thursday morning, Biden appeared at the Democratic group meeting in the House of Representatives to promote the compromise.

It was initially unclear whether the left wing of the party would accept the cut package.

It was also open whether a mere framework agreement would be enough for the representatives of the left to agree to a second reform package, the Infrastructure Act.

The left wing of the Democrats had previously made its approval of the $ 1 trillion infrastructure package conditional on party-right Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema approving the social and climate package bill.

The cuts that the president had to accept under pressure from the two senators are far-reaching.

The package was originally supposed to be $ 3.5 trillion.

The version that Biden presented to the parliamentary group on Thursday only includes investments of around $ 1.8 trillion.

Among other things, it provides for the cost of childcare to be reduced for many families in the country and, in some cases, to be taken over entirely by the state, tax relief for families and the expansion of health services.

Investments in renewable energies and tax incentives for the purchase of electric cars are also planned.

Financing through tax increases

With a view to the climate policy part of the package, Biden had called for an agreement by Thursday in order to travel to the international climate conference in Glasgow strengthened. Biden had to remove several elements of the social program from the package, including two specific campaign promises: a free two-year "community college" that is a mixture of vocational and technical college, as well as paid time off for education or for medical reasons.

Originally, twelve weeks were planned for this. In the meantime, the performance in the negotiations had been reduced to four weeks. In the end she was completely absent. The improvement in health care for the needy and the elderly is also lower. In addition, the package does not contain any measures to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. The package is to be financed through tax increases for corporations and top earners. The government expects about $ 2 trillion in new revenue - a little more than the cost of the package.

The White House was confident that the necessary majority for the social and climate package would come about in both chambers.

In the left wing of the Democrats, on the other hand, they had been skeptical to the last: The package is now more about what is not included than what is included, it was said, for example.