华盛顿——参议院民主党人周二宣布，他们已经达成了一项预算协议，预计未来十年将支出3.5万亿美元。
该计划包括气候变化支出，卫生保健和总统寻求的家庭服务项目乔·拜登。
参议院多数党领袖查克·舒默(Chuck Schumer)宣布了这一协议，众议院预算委员会的所有11名民主党人参加了两个小时的晚间会议，结束了该党领导人、进步人士和温和派之间长达数周的谈判。
如果国会民主党人支持这项提议，并将其转化为他们可以在未来几周内推动国会通过的预算决议，这将有助于他们随后颁布一项全面的法案，实际上为他们的优先事项提供资金。
这是一个突发新闻更新。美联社之前的故事如下。
华盛顿(美联社)——周二晚些时候，一个由两党参议员组成的小组迅速行动，支持他们与乔·拜登总统达成的1万亿美元的基础设施妥协，尽管势头转向一项更加强劲的民主党提案，该提案正受到关注。
拜登的大型基础设施提案正在国会平行进行，与时间和政治阻力赛跑，在全国进行一代人一次的投资。周二晚上，这两个团体的参议员再次私下聚会。两党达成的协议似乎又回到了正轨，尽管商业领袖、外部活动人士和一些共和党参议员对如何支付费用持反对态度，但参议员们仍对周四的新截止日期持乐观态度。
“滚动，滚动，滚动，”阿拉斯加州参议员莉萨·穆尔科斯基说，她离开了参与这项工作的20多名参议员近三个小时的会议。
两党努力的民主党领袖、亚利桑那州参议员克里斯滕·西内马说，这是一次“富有成效”的会议。
一场会议即将结束，另一场会议在参议院多数党领袖查克·舒默办公室对面的大厅里举行。舒默召集预算委员会的民主党人和白宫官员，为拜登更广泛的提议谈判一个框架。它可能会膨胀超过3.5万亿美元。
拜登提出了一项数万亿美元的一揽子投资计划，这是同类投资中最实质性的一项，有人说这与20世纪30年代的新政不相上下。从修建备用道路和桥梁，到投资于美国人所依赖的日常服务，如儿童护理、老年人护理和宽带，这些提议无处不在。投资的基础是努力以能源效率和气候复原力应对气候变化。
周二早些时候，两党的努力遭到质疑，因为共和党人表示，不太可能像希望的那样，为下周的投票做好准备。
但退出会议的参议员们暗示，他们并没有很好地解决如何支付一揽子计划的问题，而是回避了这些问题——显然是接受了一些拟议的收入来源可能无法通过国会预算办公室(国会议员的主要财政记分员)的正式评估。
弗吉尼亚州民主党参议员乔·曼钦(Joe Manchin)表示，他希望CBO的得分能够表明“一切都得到了回报”。否则，我们将不得不做出一些调整。”
即使两党小组能够在新的最后期限前达成一致，该法案仍需很长时间才能在下周进行投票。
犹他州参议员米特·罗姆尼(Mitt Romney)表示:“我们希望在周四之前解决大多数问题，但之后肯定会有其他问题。”。
为新的基础设施买单总是一个挑战，这也是公共工程投资随着时间推移而滞后的部分原因。拜登提议对年收入超过40万美元的企业和美国富人增税，这不仅包括近1万亿美元的提议，还包括更广泛的民主党计划。共和党人拒绝这种做法。
相反，竞相挽救其计划的两党参议员小组试图拿出其他收入来源来资助1万亿美元的一揽子计划，其中包括由天然气税和其他来源资助的常规支出之外的约5790亿美元新支出。
一项针对逃避所得税的纳税人的提议最初有可能获得两党的支持，但现在被外部团体痛骂，认为这是美国国税局窥探美国人个人财务的一种方式。这将使国税局增加400亿美元，以支持审计纳税申报单的工作人员，给联邦国库带来高达1000亿美元的收入净增长。
共和党参议员凯文·克莱默(Kevin Cramer)表示，资助国税局审计潜在的逃税者“在我看来，对大多数共和党人来说，这太不明确、模糊、坦率地说听起来诡异了，不值得认真对待。”
另一项提议要求恢复化学公司用于清理美国最严重的危险废物场所的费用，这可能在10年内带来约130亿美元的收入。这些费用被允许在1995年到期，清理工作由一般收入资助。拜登呼吁恢复收费，“以便污染行业帮助公平支付清理费用。”
但美国化学委员会呼吁立法者取消这些费用，称这些费用可能会由消费者以更高成本的形式支付。
资金可能来自2020年批准但尚未支出的1250亿美元新冠肺炎救助基金，以及尚未开发的失业保险基金，还有其他各种来源的大杂烩。
美国商会的埃德·莫蒂默说，该组织的一些成员对两党框架内的一些收入来源感到担忧，但他补充说，“我们认为这是一项值得进行的投资。”
参议院少数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔。他说，他仍然希望两党的努力能够继续下去。但他早先坚持认为“应该可信地为此付出代价”，这表明了该党的立场。
需要10名共和党参议员支持这项两党法案，与所有50名民主党人一起达到60票的门槛，这是克服阻挠议案并推动其通过的典型要求。
与此同时，由独立参议员伯尼·桑德斯和他主持的参议院预算委员会的参议员们编制的更广泛的民主党框架正获得势头。
周二，桑德斯闭门造车，阐述了民主党人应该做大的理由。据一位不愿透露姓名的人士透露，为了讨论私人午餐会议，桑德斯鼓励他的同事们主要关注美国劳动人民的需求和气候危机，而不是一个最高预算数字。
桑德斯周一在白宫会见了拜登，并表示他们在为国家寻求“变革性”投资方面意见一致。
桑德斯和拜登曾经是白宫的竞争对手，现在他们正联手塑造总统的首要任务。
桑德斯说:“我的工作是尽我所能确保参议院拿出最强有力的立法来保护这个国家工薪家庭的需求。
“一天结束时，我们将完成一些非常重要的事情，”他说。
新的一揽子计划将包括建立儿童护理中心和帮助家庭支付护理费用的资金，以及扩大美国老年人的医疗保健选择，包括眼睛、牙齿和视力福利。公共工程将得到支持，以消除饮用水管道中的铅，加强电动汽车市场，应对气候变化。
根据预算规则，民主党人可以在平分秋色的参议院自行通过该提案，而不需要通常要求的60票。
Senate Democrats announce $3.5 trillion budget agreement
WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats announced Tuesday that they have reached a budget agreement among themselves that envisions spending an enormous $3.5 trillion over the coming decade.
The plan includes spending for climate change,health careand family-service programs sought by PresidentJoe Biden.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced the accord flanked by all 11 Democrats on the chamber’s budget committee after a two-hour evening meeting that capped weeks of bargaining among party leaders, progressives and moderates.
If congressional Democrats rally behind the proposal and turn it into a budget resolution they can push through Congress in coming weeks, it would help them enact a subsequent, sweeping bill that would actually fund their priorities.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of senators worked swiftly late Tuesday to shore up a $1 trillion infrastructure compromise they struck with President Joe Biden even as momentum shifts to a more robust Democratic proposal that's coming into focus.
Biden’s big infrastructure proposals are moving on parallel tracks in Congress in a race against time and political headwinds to make a once-in-a-generation investment in the nation. Senators from both groups huddled privately again Tuesday evening. The bipartisan deal appeared back on track, with senators upbeat as they aimed for a new Thursday deadline to wrap up the details despite opposition from business leaders, outside activists and some GOP senators over how to pay for it.
“Rolling, rolling, rolling,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, as she exited a nearly three-hour meeting of the more than 20 senators involved in the effort.
A “productive” meeting, said Sen. Krysten Sinema of Arizona, a Democratic leader of the bipartisan effort.
As one meeting was wrapping up, another was being launched down the hall across from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's office. Schumer convened Democrats on the Budget Committee with White House officials to negotiate a topline framework for Biden's more expansive proposal. It could swell beyond $3.5 trillion.
Biden is proposing a multitrillion-dollar package of investments, among the most substantial undertakings of its kind, some say on par with the New Deal in the 1930s. From building back roads and bridges to investing in the everyday services Americans depend on like child care, elder care and broadband, the proposals reach all corners. Underpinning the investments are efforts to combat climate change with energy efficiency and weather resiliency.
The bipartisan effort was thrown into doubt earlier Tuesday when Republicans said it was unlikely it would be ready for a vote next week, as hoped.
But senators exiting the meeting suggested they hadn't so much resolved the questions over how to pay for the package but moved past them — apparently accepting that some of the proposed revenue streams may not pass muster in formal assessments by the Congressional Budget Office, the lawmakers' main fiscal scorekeeper.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he hoped that CBO's score, as it is called, would show that "everything’s paid for. If not, we’ll have to make some adjustments.”
Even if the bipartisan group can meet its new deadline for agreement, it's still a longshot the bill would be ready for a vote next week.
"We hope to get most issues resolved by Thursday, but there will surely be others after that,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah.
Paying for the new infrastructure was always going to be a challenge, which is partly why public works investments have lagged over time. Biden has proposed raising taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans earning more than $400,000 a year, which would cover not only the nearly $1 trillion proposal, but also the broader Democratic plan. Republicans reject that approach.
Instead, the bipartisan group of senators racing to salvage its plan strained to come up with other revenue streams to fund the $1 trillion package, which includes about $579 billion in new spending beyond regular expenditures that are funded by gas taxes and other sources.
One proposal to go after taxpayers who skip out on income taxes initially had potential bipartisan appeal, but now is being lambasted by the outside groups as a way to enable the IRS to snoop around Americans' personal finances. It would boost the IRS by $40 billion to bolster staff to audit tax returns, unleashing as much as a $100 billion net increase in revenues to federal coffers.
Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said funding the IRS to audit potential tax scofflaws "is just way too undefined and nebulous and frankly eerie-sounding to most Republicans to be serious, in my view.”
Another proposal calls for reinstating fees that chemical companies used to pay for cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites, which could bring in about $13 billion over 10 years. Those fees were allowed to expire in 1995, and the cleanup efforts are funded by general revenues. Biden has called for restoring the fees “so that polluting industries help fairly cover the cost of cleanups.”
But the American Chemistry Council called on lawmakers to remove the fees, saying they would likely be paid by consumers in the form of higher costs.
Money could come from $125 billion in COVID-19 relief funds approved in 2020 but not yet spent, as well as untapped unemployment insurance funds, among a hodgepodge of other sources.
Ed Mortimer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said some of the group’s members have concerns about some revenue sources in the bipartisan framework, but he added, “This is an investment we believe is worth making.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he remained hopeful the bipartisan effort could proceed. But his earlier insistence that it "ought to be credibly paid for” signaled the party’s stance.
Ten Republican senators would be needed to back the bipartisan bill, joining with all 50 Democrats to reach the 60-vote threshold typically required to overcome a filibuster and advance it toward passage.
Meanwhile, the broader Democratic framework being compiled by independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and senators on the Senate Budget Committee he chairs is gaining momentum.
Behind closed doors Tuesday, Sanders made the case for why Democrats should go big. According to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private lunch meeting, Sanders encouraged his colleagues to focus primarily on the needs of America's working people and the climate crisis, rather than a topline budget number.
Sanders met with Biden at the White House on Monday and said they are on the same page in seeking a “transformative” investment for the nation.
Once rivals for the White House, Sanders and Biden are now joining forces to shape the president’s top priority.
“My job is to do everything I can to see that the Senate comes forward with the strongest possible legislation to protect the needs of the working families of this country,” Sanders said.
“The end of the day, we’re going to accomplish something very significant,” he said.
The emerging package would include funds to build child care centers and help families pay for that care, and expanded health care options for older Americans including eye, dental and vision benefits. Public works would be bolstered to remove lead in drinking water pipes, enhance electric vehicle markets and fight climate change.
Under budget rules, Democrats could pass the proposal on their own in the evenly split Senate, without the 60 votes typically required.
