参议院民主党人周一公布了他们3.5万亿美元预算决议的细节，成立了国会，开始实施乔·拜登总统主要经济目标的第二部分。
立法语言出台之际，参议院正准备在周一晚间或周二凌晨完成一项1.1万亿美元的两党基础设施法案。总的来说，这些法案旨在包含拜登的美国家庭计划的全部优先事项。
与专注于道路、桥梁和水路等“核心”基础设施需求的两党基础设施计划不同，预算决议包括了拜登的许多社会计划，重点是家庭、气候和医疗保健。
关键的竞选承诺，包括普及学前教育、免费两年社区大学和带薪探亲假，以及拜登的许多气候优先事项，都包括在一揽子计划中。该法案由参议院预算委员会主席伯尼·桑德斯推动。，还获得公共住房投资，投资就业培训，增加新的医疗保险福利，并扩大患者保护与平价医疗法案。
预计民主党本周将试图在没有共和党投票的情况下，迫使参议院通过这项大规模方案。预算法案不受推进立法通常所需的60票常规门槛的限制。
但本周参议院对预算采取的任何行动，都只是这些目标提交给拜登之前一系列漫长步骤中的第一步。
在参议院就预算法案进行投票后，各个委员会必须根据新的预算起草立法，该立法将在众议院进行第二次投票，可能在秋季。
众议院议长南希·佩洛西也明确表示，她需要看到参议院的最终预算产品，然后才能让众议院就两党基础设施法案和预算决议进行投票。众议院的进步人士希望得到保证，即参议院可以在预算法案中批准社会项目，然后他们才会支持精简后的两党一揽子计划。
共和党人誓言要在每一步都反对预算决议，包括通过预计本周将是马拉松式的投票，对党派修正案进行投票，旨在获得政治分数，让中间派民主党人不安。
预计这项仅由民主党人提出的法案将通过提高大公司和美国富人的税收获得部分资金，共和党人认为这是对2017年减税的公投，他们中的许多人认为这是对前总统唐纳德·特朗普最重要的立法成就之一的公投。
除了普遍反对3.5万亿美元的巨额价格标签之外，共和党人还承诺，将围绕纳入立法的语言展开激烈斗争，该立法旨在对移民政策进行重大改革，包括为无证移民提供获得公民身份的途径。
根据周一发布的预算决议的最高摘要，该方案将“为数百万移民工人和家庭提供绿卡”，并“为安全高效的贸易、旅行和移民边境的智能技术提供资金。”
参议院司法委员会主席迪克·德宾·迪尔。，他告诉记者，他的小组将撰写最终法案的这一部分，计划起草立法，为所谓的“梦想家”(非法带到美国的儿童)和农场工人提供绿卡。
目前还不清楚，根据管理参议院预算法案的严格规则，这些移民政策是否会被允许，但除非众议院议员裁定这些政策不在范围内，否则如果所有民主党人都同意，共和党人无法阻止该法案的通过。
这将需要所有50名参议院民主党人加上副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯打破僵局的投票来推进预算决议，但尚不清楚核心小组是否会保持团结。
本月早些时候，亚利桑那州参议员克里斯滕·西内马(Kyrsten Sinema)宣布，她不会支持3.5万亿美元的顶线计划。她说，她将通过暂时支持预算法案来推进这一进程，但随着各委员会艰难地完成工作，她说她希望看到整体支出减少。
同样不清楚的是，是否所有民主党人都会同意领导层的预算策略，以保持该法案的整体价格标签下降。预计委员会将在该法案的10年预算窗口之前取消昂贵的项目，如儿童保育税收抵免，尽管这些项目可能会在未来几年延长，从而增加该计划的最终支出。
预示着另一场重大的党派斗争即将到来，民主党人还将提高联邦债务限额从他们的预算蓝图中剔除，这可能是为了安抚他们队伍中的温和派，其中许多人准备在2022年连任，并担心华盛顿的赤字支出会增加。共和党的挑战者几乎肯定会通过投票来提高他们的债务上限。
联邦债务上限的暂停在7月底到期，财政部长珍妮特·耶伦警告称，如果国会不迅速采取行动，美国可能在未来几个月耗尽其借款权限。
但共和党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)一再坚称，共和党人不会投票提高债务上限，他认为，民主党的政策，如大规模的新冠肺炎纾困法案和即将出台的预算法案，正在推高债务，尽管提高国家债务上限是为了适应已经发生的支出和减税，包括2017年共和党减税的影响。
“他们不会不顾后果地得到我们对债务限额增加的帮助，这些不顾后果的计划将需要我们的帮助。我再清楚不过了，”麦康奈尔上周在参议院谈到他的民主党同事时说。“他们有这个能力。他们控制白宫，控制众议院，控制参议院。他们可以提高债务上限，如果提高了，他们就会这么做。”
但政府在耶伦周一的一份声明中质疑了这一观点，他敦促国会使用“正常秩序”而不是预算法案来提高债务上限。
「受债务限额限制的债务，绝大部分是在政府上任前累积的。这是一项共同的责任，我敦促国会像过去一样，在两党基础上团结起来，保护美国的全部信仰和信用，”耶伦写道。
不采取行动可能是灾难性的。上一次两党就债务上限进行党派斗争是在2011年，导致美国信用评级首次出现历史性下调。世界和美国市场暴跌。
一旦完成预算工作，参议院预计将在8月份短暂休会。当他们在9月的第二周回来时，他们只有几周的时间来制定债务限额，并通过民主党预算法案的最终版本，因为政府将在10月1日耗尽资金。
Universal pre-K, free community college tuition: What's in $3.5T budget bill
Senate Democrats on Monday unveiled details of their $3.5 trillion budget resolution, setting up Congress to begin work on the second portion of President Joe Biden's major economic objectives.
The legislative language comes just as the Senate is preparing to complete its work on a separate $1.1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill late Monday or early Tuesday morning. Taken together, the bills are designed to comprise the whole of Biden's American Families Plan priorities.
Unlike the bipartisan infrastructure plan, which focuses on "core" infrastructure needs such as roads bridges and waterways, the budget resolution includes many of Biden's social programs focusing on family, climate and health care.
Key campaign promises, including universal pre-K, free 2-year community college, and paid family leave are included in the package, as are many of Biden's climate priorities. The bill, pushed by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also secures investments in public housing, invests in job training, adds new Medicare benefits and extends expansions of the Affordable Care Act.
Democrats are expected to try to force the massive package through the Senate this week without a single GOP vote. Budget bills are not subject to the regular 60-vote threshold generally necessary to move legislation forward.
But any Senate action on the budget this week is just the first in a long series of steps before these objectives make it to Biden's desk.
After the Senate votes on the budget bill, individual committees must craft legislation in line with the new budget, and that legislation will go before the full chamber for a second vote, likely in the fall.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also been clear that she'll need to see the Senate's final budget product before she brings the House in to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the budget resolution. House progressives want assurances that the Senate can approve social programs in the budget bill before they lend their support to the slimmed-down bipartisan package.
Republicans have vowed to fight the budget resolution at every step, including through what is expected to be a marathon of votes this week on partisan amendments designed to score political points and make centrist Democrats squirm.
The Democrat-only bill is expected to be funded in part by raising taxes on big corporations and wealthy Americans, something Republicans see as a referendum on the 2017 tax cuts, which many of them view as on one of former President Donald Trump's most significant legislative achievements.
As well as general opposition to the massive $3.5 trillion price tag, Republicans have also promised a bruising fight over language incorporated into the legislation aimed at implementing significant changes to immigration policy, including providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
According to a top-line summary of the budget resolution released Monday, the package will "provide green cards to millions of immigrant workers and families" and "fund smart technology for safe and efficient borders for trade, travel and migration."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has told reporters that his panel, which will write this portion of the final bill, plans to draft legislation that would provide green cards for so-called "Dreamers" -- children brought to the U.S. illegally - and for farmworkers.
It is not yet clear whether these immigration policies will be permissible under the strict rules governing what may be in a Senate budget bill, but barring a ruling by the chamber's parliamentarian that such policies are out of bounds, there isn't much that Republicans can do to stop passage of the bill if all Democrats are on board.
It will require all 50 Senate Democrats plus the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris to move the budget resolution forward, but it is not yet clear that the caucus will remain united.
Earlier this month, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., announced that she would not support a $3.5 trillion top-line package. She said she'll allow the process to move forward this week by lending her support to the budget bill for now, but as committees slog through their work, she said she wants to see overall spending reduced.
It is also not clear if all Democrats will agree with the leadership's budget strategy for keeping the overall price tag of the bill down. Committees are expected to sunset costly programs - like the childcare tax credit - before the bill's 10-year budget window, even though the programs could be extended in later years, thus growing the ultimate spending on the plan.
Foreshadowing another major partisan fight to come, Democrats also left a hike of the federal debt limit out of their budget blueprint, perhaps to appease moderates in their ranks, many of whom are up for re-election in 2022 and fearful of growing deficit spending in Washington. Republican challengers are all but certain to use a vote to raise the debt limit against them.
A suspension of the federal debt limit expired at the end of July, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned that the US could exhaust its borrowing authority in the coming months without swift congressional action.
But Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly insisted that Republicans will not vote to increase the debt limit, arguing that Democratic policies, like the massive COVID-19 relief bill and the upcoming budget bill, are driving up the debt, even though an increase in the nation's debt ceiling is done to accommodate spending and tax cuts that have already occurred, including the effects of the 2017 GOP tax cut.
"They won't get our help with the debt limit increase that recklessly, that these reckless plans will require. I could not be more clear," McConnell said of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate floor last week. "They have the ability. They control the White House, they control the House, they control the Senate. They can raise the debt ceiling and if it's raised, they will do it."
But the administration challenged that notion in a statement Monday from Yellen, who urged Congress to use "regular order," rather than the budget bill, to raise the debt ceiling.
"The vast majority of the debt subject to the debt limit was accrued prior to the Administration taking office. This is a shared responsibility, and I urge Congress to come together on a bipartisan basis as it has in the past to protect the full faith and credit of the United States," Yellen wrote.
Failure to act could prove catastrophic. The last time the parties engaged in a partisan fight over the debt ceiling in 2011 resulted in a historic downgrading of the U.S. credit rating for the first time. World and U.S. markets plunged.
The Senate is expected to leave town for a shortened August recess upon completion of its work on the budget. When they return the second week in September, they'll have just weeks to forge a path forward on the debt limit, as well as pass a final version of the Democrat-budget bill, this as the government runs out of funding on Oct. 1.
