WASHINGTON — Paid family leave, one of the hallmarks of President Joe Biden’s social safety net agenda, is in jeopardy of being pared down once again or even cut from a major spending bill over a lack of support from Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
Manchin, one of two Senate Democrats who have chipped away at the president’s “Build Back Better” proposal, is against including four weeks of paid family and medical leave, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations. The four weeks provision was recently presented as a compromise to the 12 weeks Biden initially proposed.
Asked Monday if he had concerns about the paid leave proposal, Manchin said: “I’m concerned about an awful lot of things.”
Manchin is also souring on Medicare vouchers to help cover annual dental costs, as well as a push to expand Medicaid in Republican-led states that have not offered expanded coverage. Biden’s original proposal called for broadening Medicare coverage to include dental care.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday on Manchin’s position.
The U.S. is one of just eight countries without national paid maternity leave. Even if Democrats were to settle on four weeks paid parental leave, the U.S. would still lag numerous countries. The global average of paid maternity leave is 29 weeks and paid paternity leave is 16 weeks, according to data from the World Policy Analysis Center at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Some Democrats say that too many key components of Biden’s spending package have already been gutted to satisfy Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the other Democratic holdout. Fresh opposition to paid family leave, a priority for Biden and progressives, could deal a significant setback to negotiations over the bill.
During a trip to New Jersey on Monday, Biden commended Gov. Phil Murphy (D) for offering paid leave in his state, but made little other mention of his own leave proposal.
“These bills are about competitiveness versus complacency,” Biden said. “They’re about expanding opportunity, not opportunity denied. They’re about leading the world or continuing to let the world pass us by.”
Advocates for paid leave had felt confident that four weeks of leave would make it into in the final bill, especially since the provision meets Manchin’s criteria for work requirements and means testing. But optimism appeared to drop over the weekend as advocacy groups sent email blasts asking allies to ramp up efforts to support paid leave on social media, according to emails obtained by NBC News.
After Republicans made clear they would unanimously oppose Biden’s social safety net bill, Democrats have been forced to hammer out legislation that can pass with a simple majority in each chamber.
Without any Republican support, Democrats cannot lose any of their 50 votes in the Senate and must hold together their narrow majority in the House.
Moderate Democrats, especially Manchin and Sinema, have taken issue with several aspects of Biden’s spending agenda and have sought a smaller price tag than the $3.5 trillion top line that was initially proposed. Biden had hoped to get the bill passed by the end of the summer, but internal negotiations have dragged on for months.
Biden told reporters Monday that it was his “hope” to get a deal done before he leaves later this week for the G20 summit in Rome and the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland.
“It’d be very, very positive to get it done before the trip,” Biden said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who joined Manchin on Sunday at Biden’s home in Delaware to discuss the spending bill, said on Monday that there were “three of four outstanding issues” but did not go into detail on what those were.
“No one ever said passing transformational legislation like this would be easy, but we are on track to get this done,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
Some House Democrats are putting pressure on Manchin to keep aspects of Biden’s proposal intact.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., called Manchin on Sunday after his meeting with the president and urged the West Virginia senator to support an expansion of Medicare. South Carolina is one of the Republican-led states that did not accept federal dollars to expand Medicaid.
Haley Talbot contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
