Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) Warns he could vote against the $ 3.5 trillion budget package if more money is not added to housing assistance to close the racial wealth gap in the current version of the House bill, Axios has learned. .
Why it’s important: The Warner threat is another indication that the proposal will face several hurdles for the House and Senate to agree on a front-line number, how that money is spent on specific programs, and how everything should be paid for. .
- “As it is currently being written, this proposal falls short,” Warner said in a statement to Axios about the House’s provisions on housing assistance.
- Warner, a member of the Budget Committee who helped negotiate the $ 3.5 trillion bill in the Senate, is discussing the amount of funding for first-time home buyers in the House, which he believes is around 600 millions of dollars.
- “I will work in the Senate to make the American dream of property and wealth creation more accessible to historically disadvantaged communities.”
The overview: House and Senate committees are drafting specific legislation to raise $ 1.5 trillion in new revenue and invest about $ 3.5 trillion to expand the social safety net, including a variety of new programs, from the universal preschool to the free community college, going through new money in housing and rent assistance.
- The numbers on the top line could change drastically, with Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.) telling CNN’s Dana Bash that the $ 3.5 trillion package “won’t have my vote.”
- Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Also he said on the same program that Manchin’s refusal to support the $ 3.5 trillion plan “was absolutely not acceptable to me.”
- “I don’t think it’s acceptable to the president, or to the American people, or to the vast majority of the people in the Democratic group,” he added.
Between lines: Warner had negotiated a private bill in the Senate for billions of dollars for initial down payment assistance for first-time home buyers and to give them new tools, including a 20-year federal mortgage, that the help them generate their own resources in their home.
- Warner’s focus is on racial equity: “We have an obligation to use this historic investment to address the power inequalities and opportunities that have left black families with an average net worth of one-eighth of the size of their white counterparts “.
In depth: Manchin has privately warned the White House and congressional leaders that he has specific political problems with President Biden’s $ 3.5 trillion social spending dream, and will support up to $ 1 trillion.