Schumer and Pelosi race to finish budget bill, pass infrastructure

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are preparing for nightmare September where they try to negotiate the details of Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion budget, pass an infrastructure bill, raise the debt ceiling and fight over voting rights.

It begins this week when congressional committees meet to begin formally drafting the president's ambitious social policy program but the passage of the trillion-dollar program is not guaranteed.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin called for a 'pause' on the legislating, saying he could not support the $3.5 trillion price tag. And, in the 50-50 split Senate, Democrats need every member of the party to vote for it. 

'Obviously, I don't agree,' Pelosi told CNN on Tuesday of Manchin's 'pause' call. 

She said the price tag wouldn't go above the $3.5 trillion but shrugged off a question if she'd have to lower it to appease Manchin and Senate moderates.

'Well you have to go talk to the Senate about that, but we're going to pay for as much of it as possible,' she said. 

The ambitious legislation would be the biggest overhaul in social policy since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs. Biden's plan includes expanded Medicare, new programs to combat climate change, raising taxes on the wealthy, free pre-K and community college, a change in immigration policy to make it easier on Dreamers to become citizens, and boosting federal programs that aid low-income families and children 

Congress is also facing the looming debt ceiling, national voting rights legislation, and a fight over abortion in the wake of the new Texas law. 

Pelosi acknowledged the packed agenda.

'So we have reconciliation, infrastructure, CR and someplace in there we'll do debt ceiling,' she said as she left the House floor on Tuesday. 

Pelosi has already vowed to bring up abortion rights legislation when the House returns later this month after the Supreme Court upheld a new Texas law that is the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the nation.  

'Upon our return, the House will bring up Congresswoman Judy Chu's Women's Health Protection Act to enshrine into law reproductive health care for all women across America,' Pelosi said last week, referring to legislation that would codify Roe v. Wade.