The Senate plans to begin floor consideration of a roughly $300 billion deficit-reducing budget reconciliation package next week after Sen. Joe Manchin III and Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer announced a surprise agreement Wednesday to add climate and tax provisions Manchin previously shunned.
Just two weeks ago, Manchin said he wanted to wait for the July inflation data, which will be released Aug. 10, to decide whether he could support any climate provisions or tax increases.
At the time, the West Virginia Democrat said if Schumer was insistent on moving a reconciliation bill before the Senate departed for its August recess, he would vote only for provisions to allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices for certain drugs and a two-year extension of expanded subsidies to purchase health insurance on the 2010 health care law’s exchanges.
