Pelosi on spending bill: ‘I think we are pretty much there now’

WASHINGTON DC (Ag-encies): Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) indicated on Sunday that Democrats would reach an agreement this week on President Bid-en’s social spending bill.
“We have 90 percent of the bill agreed to and written. We just have some of the last decisions to be made,” Pelosi said on CN-N’s “State of the Union.”
“I think we are pretty much there now,” Pelosi said when asked if an agr-eement would be reached before the president leaves for Europe on Friday.
Pelosi also said that the scaled-back plan is still set for an Oct. 31 vote, when federal highway funding expires.
“There was no deadline that was missed because of the progressives. The deadline was missed because they changed from $3.5 [trillion] to one half of that,” Pelosi added.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Democrats are “almost there” on an agreement on a social safety net bill which would also allow the bipartisan infrastructure bill to move forward.
“I think we pretty much have a deal now,” she tells @jaketapper. “…I think w-e’re pretty much there no-w.” pic.twitter.com-/i5OG-4SzAGN — State of the Union (@CNNSotu) Octo-ber 24, 2021.
“Because the bill is not written yet, we hope it will be written today and introduced tomorrow, only then can the joint tax committee evaluate what it brings in,” Pelosi noted of plans to fund the new plan.
When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if she was frustrated by Sens. Joe Manc-hin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema’s (D-Ariz.) opposition to the initial $3.5 trillion package, Pelosi said she was “respectful of everybody’s point of view.”
During a CNN town hall last Thursday, Biden indicated some concern that Sinema’s opposition to tax increases for wealthy individuals and corporations could cause problems in terms of funding the final package. But on Sunday, Pelosi was less concerned.
“We’re going to fully pay for the plan. We will probably more than pay for the plan,” she told Tapper.
Pelosi acknowledged the new package was far less than initially proposed but said that the plan would be “transformative.” “It is less than we had projected to b-egin with, but it is still bigger than anything we’ve ev-er done in terms of addressing the needs of America’s working families,” she said.
Pelosi appeared surprised when CNN’s “State of the Union” host Jake Ta-pper asked about whether she would run again for her congressional seat, which she has held since 1987.
“I do want to ask about your own future in Congress. Are you going to run for reelection?” Tapper asked.
“Oh, you think I’m going to make an announcement right here and now?” she responded.