Democrats see hope for spending deal with Manchin as Congress returns

So far, top Democrats have worked out with Manchin a series of new agreements that would cut drug costs for seniors, improve the financial health of Medicare and close a tax loophole that benefits the wealthy. They even have advanced talks around addressing the challenges posed by a faster-warming planet, raising the prospect they can secure a limited initiative to penalize methane emissions.

Those early agreements have set the stage for Senate Democrats to make an upbeat return to the Capitol on Monday. Manchin is expected to have his next private meeting with Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) early in the week, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the deliberations. They are set to discuss climate as Democrats try to bring one of their thorniest fights with the moderate West Virginian to an end.

A slew of other climate and health care disputes remain unresolved, raising the prospect that the latest round of talks could collapse much as they did before. No matter the outcome, any broad compromise between Manchin and members of his own party also is guaranteed to be far smaller than Democrats’ original, roughly $2 trillion package, known as the Build Back Better Act, which the senator scuttled last year.

Those cuts might have been unthinkable earlier. But many Democrats have come to acknowledge them as the costs of compromise — and feel more hopeful than ever there’s now a pathway to achieve it.

“We’re making real progress, we’re picking up steam, and the central reason is we’re focused on cutting costs and addressing these real pocket book issues on the minds of Americans,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chair of the tax-focused Finance Committee.

“I’m not saying it’s all done, it’s all over and the like,” Wyden later added, “but I do feel more confident about the progress that has been made.”

The debate seemed intractable only months earlier, when Manchin announced on a Sunday news talk show that he could not vote for the original $2 trillion bill to overhaul the country’s health care, education, immigration, climate and tax laws. Even the White House attacked the West Virginia senator in response, arguing in unusually stark terms last December that Manchin had made a “breach of his commitments” to Biden.

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