responsible plan. the white house coming back and saying, we don t think it is going to add anything to the deficit, we think it is going to offset the deficit. whether or not that s true, that $160 billion figure that we re talking about in terms of adding to the deficit over a decade is, like, a tiny, teeny tiny fraction of the amount of money that is going to go to the economy and into people s lives through this plan. it is a tiny fraction, like less than 1%. listen, in a classic washington phenomenon, the protests over adding to the deficit only happen for the other side s priorities, right? either party very happy to add to the deficit for their own priorities. tolu, the issue with this, for democrats, right, is it the big bill doesn t seem to be very popular, but all the constituent parts of the bill really are. you know, lower drug prices, child care tax credit, universal pre-k. do democrats have a plan to sell the parts of this so that, you
back better. let s start with the first one, allowing medicare to negotiate drug prices and bring down costs for americans. could you support that? again, when you say let s look at the constituent parts of it, it heersd to know what s in and out because it s always changing. you re right. always changing. it s very fluid. i m open to looking at a number of propose aals on individualized bases. this is throwing things at a wall, frankly seeing what will stick or be seen as acceptable by joe manchin or kyrsten sinema. we have been involved in no part of these discussions. have not had an attempted outreach by the administration or leadership in the house. i m happy to go through some constituent parts, but, frankly, these are all negotiations and details that have been entirely negotiated in secret, and all that i ve seen are the same talking points that you have. well, president biden was on cnn as you may have seen for a
trillion. you ve had this number floated of 1.9 to 2.2. i know it s not just about the number, but the constituent parts of the number. given the blowup within the democratic party last week and public disagreement, is there any movement towards a compromise figure in that range? i think there is movement, just from the signals that we re hearing both from comments made by senator manchin and the chair of the progressive caucus, congresswoman jayapal. we understand some middle ground has to be found. we re not quite there yet, but i think it s important to keep this in context. this is the democratic process, even if it s only occurring within the democratic party. this is the give and take, the argument over policy, the argument over scale. when we talk about this, a lot of people refer to this as a breakdown or dysfunction. i think it s the absolute
epitome of functionality, we re arguing out our differences. we re not storming the capitol for a violent overthrow. we re arguing out our points. that s a good thing. i m not going to pretend that storming the capitol is better in terms of dom oemocracy. you guys aren t doing great in terms of how the public sees this. republicans want this, just on the top line figure. forget the constituent parts, universal pre-k, child tax credit and so on. how do you turn that around? how do you win back some sort of public support to say, hey, this is what we re pushing for, not pushing to write a blank check. i think we have to realize that in this moment we have to argue this out. the most eloquent message is if we get something over the finish line. there s nothing quite as
$1 57 trillion, joe manchin s figure. if you break it up into constituent parts, which are the programs? expansion of medicare? universal pre-k? which are the ones that will survive this, that must survive this? we ll get in a room and have to have some discussions. part of the discussion is how does it get funded? is it for five years versus ten? child care, 3 million people have left the workforce because of the lack and cost of child care. lead in pipes, we need that. i ve never been one to bad mouth the bipartisan infrom structure bill we need what s in there but not enough money to take the lead out of all the pipes in this country. long-term care for seniors. just as joe mamplgin fights for the people of west virginia i ll fight for my autoworkers in mish