(Bloomberg) -- White House National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said that proposals on clean energy, childcare and health care in President Joe Biden’s signature economic package are “doable” amid a stalemate over the bill in the Senate.
Deese, speaking in an interview with Bloomberg Television Thursday, was addressing what parts of the Build Back Better plan could get passed in Congress and help to address historically high inflation. Biden in a White House press conference Wednesday had said that the administration’s approach is now to “get as much as we can now and come back and fight for the rest later.
“The childcare provisions in this package will not only reduce child care costs for families, but help people get to work,” Deese said. “The health care provisions will improve health for our families, but also lower costs. Those are all things that I think are practical, would address costs, and are doable in this context.”
Deese also pointed to climate-change measures when asked what is passable in Congress, saying, “The clean energy provisions in this bill will not only make it easier and cheaper to deploy clean energy and address the climate crisis, it will reduce energy costs.”
Read more: Biden Nods to Need to Break Up Tax-and-Spending Plan for Passage
Passing some version of the tax-and-spending bill in the coming weeks would give Biden a key achievement to tout when he makes his first State of the Union address to Congress on March 1.
But getting the 50 votes needed for the bill to clear the Senate under special budget rules could involve jettisoning popular aspects of the bill like renewing an expanded child tax credit that expired in December.
Biden on Wednesday disputed the idea that his agenda has to be scaled down in its ambition, and said he will be making the case to pass it all through road trips around the country this year.
The package of tax, climate and social safety net legislation has been held up in the Senate because of objections from Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a pivotal vote in the evenly divided chamber.
It had already been scaled back from the version first proposed in the House to meet demands from Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, another key swing vote.
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