Pelosi says paid leave is back in the social spending bill, daring Manchin to tank the popular provi

[AZProgressive]

Pelosi says paid leave is back in the social spending bill, daring Manchin to tank the popular provision

President Joe Biden unveiled a $1.75 trillion social-spending framework last week, and it was significantly scaled-down, leaving many progressive priorities like free community college and paid family and medical leave out.

But Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and some other Democrats, made clear the framework was not final. On Wednesday, Pelosi informed her colleagues she is requesting four weeks of paid leave be added back into the bill, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to Insider.

"As we are reviewing priorities and at the urging of many Members of the Caucus, I have asked the Ways and Means Committee for its legislation for Paid Family and Medical Leave to be included in this morning's hearing," Pelosi wrote in a Dear Colleague letter. "Chairman Richie Neal and the Committee staff have worked on this priority for a long time and were ready."

In Democrats' initial $3.5 trillion proposal, they sought to include 12 weeks of the popular paid leave measure. However, due to opposition from centrist holdouts Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, it was cut from Biden's framework. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand — a Democratic lawmaker that has advocated for paid leave — wrote in a statement after the unveiling of the plan: "Until the bill is printed, I will continue working to include paid leave in the Build Back Better plan."

https://www.businessinsider.com/paid-family-medical-leave-back-in-democrats-social-soending-bill-2021-11?amp

[leftstreet]

1. Why didn't she dare him before taking it out?

I'm so confused

[FBaggins]

2. She never took it out

The President put forward a "framework" that we assumed represented an agreed-upon compromise position. But we now know that it was anything but (neither Sanders nor Manchin agreed to it). It was just the President taking a shot at crafting something in between whatever the two positions were and trying to strongarm both sides into a deal.

Pelosi, OTOH, had been boxed in by the House moderates to not vote on a House version of reconciliation until they had something that the Senate could pass (essentially pre-negotiating with Senate moderates). That kept the House from crafting their own version of the bill - which had been a very standard strategy for Pelosi in the past when dealing with the likes of Manchin. Pass a more progressive bill in the House first - and then that anchors the debate in the Senate.

So now we're back to that stretegy.