President Biden on Thursday publicly unveiled his $1.75 trillion spending package framework, in hopes of ending Democrats' weeks-long negotiations over an administration-defining investment into the country's health care, education, and climate systems, reports The Washington Post.
Biden began his televised East Room address by defending the slimmed-down framework, which initial proposals had pegged at $3.5 trillion: "No one got everything they wanted, including me," he said.
"But that's what compromise is. That's consensus. And that's what I ran on," he added. "I've long said compromise and consensus are the only way to get big things done in a democracy."
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Biden argued getting this deal (and the accompanying infrastructure bill) through Congress is a "matter of critical importance" to U.S. progress and global stature, writes The Hill, and maintained that investments in health care, child care, and climate change would both bolster working Americans and protect the world they live in from environmental threats. He did, however, stop "short of laying out a timeline or calling on Congress to pass the reconciliation bill or a bipartisan infrastructure bill immediately," the Hill notes.
"It's about leading the world or letting the world pass us by," the president explained.
Soon after Biden's remarks, former President Barack Obama issued a statment celebrating the White House framework as a "giant leap forward," despite the often "frustrating and slow" nature of progress.
When he was through, the president left the room without taking any questions, despite the one very big, very important one plaguing us all: without explicit, pledged support from Democrats, can this deal even happen?
Only time will tell. And according to Politico's Ryan Lizza, it's "clearly not locked in."
