October 24, 2021

Pelosi Says Democrats Are “Pretty Much There” on Spending Bill Deal

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.,holds her weekly news conference on Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday that Democrats are close to reaching a deal on President Joe Biden’s social spending bill and will lock it down by the end of next week. Pelosi told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Democrats have “90 percent of the bill agreed to and written, we just have some of the last decisions to be made.”

Tapper asked if there would be a deal by the time President Biden leaves for Europe Thursday or Friday, and Pelosi said, “I think we’re pretty much there now.”

“You think you have a deal now?” Tapper asked. “We’re almost there,” Pelosi replied. 

The bill started out as a $3.5 trillion package that included family leave, child care, Medicare expansion, climate action, and free community college. Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin have opposed the bill, which is now down to about $2 trillion. 

Pelosi acknowledged that Democrats couldn’t agree on the bill as it was first proposed, so what’s on the table now is “less than what we had projected to begin with but it is still bigger than anything we have ever done in terms of addressing the needs of America’s working families.”  

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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