WASHINGTON — The Senate took a major step early on Wednesday toward enacting a vast expansion of the nation’s social safety net, approving a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint along party lines that would allow Democrats to tackle climate change and fund health care, child care, family leave and public education expansion while increasing taxes on wealthy people and corporations. After an unusual bipartisan approval of a $1 trillion infrastructure package a day earlier, the vote over unanimous Republican opposition allows Senate Democrats this fall to create an expansive package that will carry the remainder of President Biden’s $4 trillion economic agenda. The Senate adopted the measure 50 to 49, with one lawmaker, Senator Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, absent. The blueprint sets in motion a perilous legislative process aimed at creating the largest expansion of the federal safety net in nearly six decades. But Democratic unity just before the crack of dawn Wednesday could belie difficulties ahead.

Source: New York Times August 11, 2021 08:01 UTC