• Progressives continue to push for a larger social spending infrastructure package.
• On Twitter, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said a $ 1,000 billion package was probably not enough to make an impact.
• Intra-Democrat wrangling over the size and scope of an infrastructure package has already torpedoed a voice.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez makes it clear once again that progressives want to go further with spending on social infrastructure, even amid the decline of the moderate wing of the party.

On Twitter, she wrote that a $ 1 trillion bill would run to around $ 100 billion each year.

“It’s the annual budget for New York only, but it’s scattered around for everyone in the US. Do you think that’s enough to have an impact? To be felt widely in people’s lives? is not the case. Sufficiency is the bare minimum, “Ocasio-Cortez wrote, implying that $ 1 trillion falls below its acceptable minimum.

—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 4, 2021

Indeed, New York City’s most recent budget was just under $ 100 billion, according to The City.

Infrastructure talks are currently at an impasse as Democrats determine how much they are willing to spend on party line social spending, in addition to the bipartisan $ 1,000 billion package. This has already been passed by the Senate, which means it only has to go through the House. Faced with unified Republican opposition to the other measure, Democrats are debating a $ 3.5 trillion party-line bill that could be cut by two-thirds.

For months, House progressives, including Ocasio-Cortez, have stressed that they will only vote on a bipartisan infrastructure package if it goes hand in hand with the broader social package, which contains major progressive priorities. like affordable child care, climate spending and an extension of health insurance.

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attempted to come up with an unbound vote on the bipartisan package, progressives backed down. Ocasio-Cortez has said she won’t vote for it unless she gets “new information.” Senator Bernie Sanders urged House progressives to vote against “until Congress passes a strong reconciliation bill.”

Finally, the vote on the bipartite package was delayed. President Joe Biden intervened, endorsing the progressives’ desire to move the two bills simultaneously – while also suggesting a lower price of $ 2 trillion. On Monday, Biden took aim at leading Sense moderates. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, both of whom sparked anger for pushing the size of the party line’s social spending program.

Manchin, for example, said just a few months ago that he would be prepared to spend up to $ 4 trillion on an infrastructure package. Now its turnover is $ 1.5 trillion.

Even $ 3.5 trillion is less than some progressive Democrats wanted. Sanders drafted a $ 6 trillion proposal; Ocasio-Cortez said she wanted $ 10 trillion. Either way, it looks like the progressives will continue to fight for as much spending as they can.

“We are facing the entire ruling class in this country,” Sanders said on ABC’s This Week about the $ 3.5 trillion package. “Right now the drug companies… the health insurance companies, the fossil fuel industry are spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to keep us from doing what the American people want. really a test of whether or not American democracy can work. “