There's no guarantee that it will happen today, but that's what congressional democratic leaders are shooting for.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke to the press early this morning and said they're very close to releasing the framework of a reconciliation spending bill that can pass through both chambers of Congress.
The biggest obstacle to passing something has been disagreement between moderates in the Senate and more liberal progressives in the House, but it looks like the former will win.
The final deal will reportedly weight in at about $1.75 trillion.
Pelosi told colleagues she would communicate later in the day on developments, according to another person who requested anonymity to discuss the speaker’s private remarks at a meeting of House Democrats.
“That will determine, our timetable, our course of action but we are in pretty good shape,” she said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sounded a similar chord opening the chamber.
“An agreement is within arm’s length,” said Schumer, D-N.Y. “We are hopeful that we can come to a framework agreement by the end of today.”
A $1.75 trillion reconciliation bill will total closer closer to $2.75 trillion when combined with the bipartisan infrastructure bill that's still waiting for final approval.
Progressives are obviously losing more than the moderates in this deal, but it's still enormous. No session of Congress has ever approved this much new spending outside of fighting a world war.
The final deal will reportedly center around higher taxes on the wealthy that specifically target rich individual with passive income from assets. It's a so-called "billionaire tax" that apparently has the approval of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. And why wouldn't they approve of that? There's no billionaires in West Virginia.
This is a related topic that will come into sharper focus in the coming weeks, but after congressional Democrats pass the reconciliation bill, infrastructure bill, a government funding bill and raise the debt ceiling, Congress will probably become quiet as a mouse until the end of January.