House Dems begin moving parts of Biden $3.5T domestic plans

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats began pushing plans for providing paid family and medical leave, easing climate change and bolstering education through House committees Thursday as they battled Republicans and among themselves over President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion vision for reshaping federal priorities.

Five separate panels worked on their slices of the 10-year proposal, early steps in what looms as a fraught autumn for Democrats hoping to enact a remarkable range of major policy changes. They face not only solid GOP opposition but internal divisions among progressives and moderates in a Congress they control so narrowly that they can afford only three House defections, none in the Senate.

“We have a once-in-a-generation chance to make transformative, beneficial change," said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., as his tax-writing panel debated its pivotal chunk of the voluminous legislation. “This is our moment to lay a new foundation of opportunity for the American people."

Republicans cast the still-evolving measure as an economy killer that would raise taxes, cost jobs, worsen federal debt and make people increasingly reliant on government. In a signal of the broad political potency they believe the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan offers, they repeatedly conjured that image to belittle Democrats' economic plans.

“Following the humiliating Afghanistan surrender, now President Biden is leading America on an economic surrender to China, Russia, Europe and the Middle East," said the top Republican on Ways and Means, Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas.

In an early manifestation of Democratic unrest, one member of the Ways and Means panel said that for now, she planned to vote against that committee's portion of the bill.

Moderate Rep....