Biden’s $3.5 trillion bill to be scaled back

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi says centrist Democrats have been forced to reduce the cost of Joe Biden’s spending package

The Biden administration originally planned to spend $3.5 trillion, a massive package featuring expansions to health care access, child care benefits, education programs and efforts to tackle climate change.

But this was rejected by Senate lawmakers, with many raising concerns over deficit spending and governmental overreach.

Meanwhile, in a letter on Monday, Pelosi suggested that cost-cutting efforts would include focussing more attention on child benefits and efforts to tackle climate change. 

However, the speaker now says that she is receiving pushback from Democrats who would prefer to keep the wide range of benefits included in the original bill… but scale back the duration to cut costs.