Democrats are within striking distance of securing agreement on two critical components of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, according to a source familiar with the negotiations, as they work through final language on the universal preschool and child care components of the package.
For Biden, the looming agreement ensures that a central plank of his initial sweeping economic and climate proposal will make it into the final package, which over weeks of negotiations has been scaled down from $3.5 trillion to between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion.
The two proposals, which Democrats have said will combine to reach millions of children with free preschool and subsidized child care, make up some of the largest elements of a final package in terms of funding – though the overall number, expected to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars, hasn’t been finalized yet.
While there has been broad top-line Democratic support for both proposals, the move toward closing a final agreement on each is a key signal as Biden and Democratic leaders press for an agreement on the second piece of his sweeping infrastructure and economic plans.