Democrats pared part of their proposed minimum tax on huge corporations and made other changes in their giant economic bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday, as they drove toward delivering a campaign-season victory to President Joe Biden on his domestic agenda.In an unusual peek at closed-door bargaining, Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats dropped a proposed tax boost on hedge fund executives after pivotal centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., said she would otherwise vote “no.” Schumer said that in its place, the measure now has a new tax — which others said will be 1% — on the shares companies buy back of their own stock, netting the government far more revenue.“Sen. Sinema said she would not vote for the bill" or even vote to let debate begin unless private equity tax was removed from the legislation, Schumer told reporters. “So we had no choice.”He spoke a day after he and Sinema announced compromise revisions to the environment, health care and tax package. With final numbers still to be calculated, the overall measure raises over $700 billion in revenue — including more robust IRS tax collections — using most of it for energy, climate and health initiatives and reducing federal deficits by $300 billion.The accord puts Democrats on the verge of a more modest yet striking resurrection of many of Biden domestic aspirations that appeal strongly to party voters. Those include taxing big business, restraining prescription drug prices, slowing climate change, helping families afford private insurance and trimming federal deficits.In another change, Schumer said a proposed 15% minimum tax on mammoth corporations had been trimmed and would now raise $258 billion over the coming decade, down from $313 billion. That provision, which has been the legislation's biggest revenue raiser, will now let those companies depreciate their equipment costs more quickly, lowering the government's tax take and helping manufacturers who buy expensive machinery. The new tax is expected to apply to around 150 companies with income exceeding $1 billion.Democrats plan for the Senate to begin considering the bill Saturday, and the House will return next Friday for votes. The measure is sure to face unanimous Republican opposition in the 50-50 Senate, where the backing of Sinema and all other Democrats will be needed for passage, along with Vice President Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote.“This bill is a game changer for working families and our economy,” Biden said at the White House.Still other revisions are possible. But the package passed one hurdle when the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, said a provision could remain requiring union-scale wages be paid if energy efficiency projects are to qualify for tax credits.She upheld another section limiting electric vehicle tax credits to those assembled in the U.S. and containing batteries with minerals from countries with whom the U.S. has free trade agreements.“I’m especially pleased that our prevailing wage provisions were approved. These provisions guarantee wage rates for clean energy projects,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said early Saturday.Democrats were awaiting the parliamentarian’s decision on other issues including requirements that pharmaceutical makers pay penalties if they raise prices above inflation for drugs patients get from private insurers.Democrats are using special rules that let them overcome GOP opposition and pass the package without needing the 60 votes most bills require. Under those procedures, the parliamentarian can force provisions to be dropped that break rules requiring them to be chiefly aimed at changing the federal budget, not making new policy.Republicans say the measure will worsen inflation — a premier concern of voters — discourage companies from hiring workers and raise already high energy costs with its taxes.“The pain at the pump is going to get worse, and it’s not just on the cost of energy to drive your car,” said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the Senate's No. 3 GOP leader. “It’s also the energy to heat your home, energy that powers our country, energy for electricity."Nonpartisan analysts have said the legislation will have a modest impact on inflation and the economy.“We’re feeling pretty good,” Schumer said about the legislation. “It’s what the country so desperately needs. And it’s what Democrats will deliver on in the coming days.”The measure will also include $4 billion sought by Western senators to help their states cope with ruinous drought conditions, according to Sens. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo. The group had sought $5 billion.The bill faces a long weekend, including a “vote-a-rama” of unlimited, non-stop votes on amendments, which will mostly come from Republicans. Most are destined to lose, though the GOP hopes some will box Democrats into votes that would create campaign-ad fodder.Taxing executives of private equity firms, such as hedge funds, has long been a goal of progressives. Under current law, those executives can pay significantly less than the top 37% individual tax rate on their income, which is called “carried interest."That measure was also a favorite of conservative Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a long-time holdout against larger versions of Biden's domestic plans who helped write the compromise legislation with Schumer.But progressives also support taxing publicly traded companies that buy back their own stocks, a move that critics say artificially drives up stock prices and diverts money from investing. The buyback tax will net $74 billion over 10 years, much more than the $13 billion the “carried interest” plan would have raised.

President Joe Biden's top economic adviser expressed confidence Sunday that the White House's $1.85 trillion domestic policy package will quickly pass the House this week and said approval couldn't come at a more urgent time as prices of consumer goods spike."Inflation is high right now. And it is affecting consumers in their pocketbook and also in their outlook for the economy," said Brian Deese, director of the National Economic Council."This, more than anything, will go at the costs that Americans face," he said, before adding that the House will consider the legislation this coming week. "It will get a vote, it will pass."The House has been moving toward approval of the massive Democrat-only-backed bill even as the measure faces bigger challenges in the Senate, where Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., have insisted on reducing its size.In a letter Sunday to Democratic colleagues, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., counseled "time and patience" for working through a bill of this size.Consumer prices have soared 6.2% over the last year, the biggest 12-month jump since 1990. Deese acknowledged that prices may not fully return to a more normal 2% level until next year due to the lingering effects of COVID-19, but he said the measure will go a long way toward "lowering costs for American families.""We're confident this bill, as it moves through the process, is going to be fully paid for, and not only that, it's actually going to reduce deficits over the long term," he said.Biden on Monday planned to sign a related $1 trillion infrastructure bill, a bipartisan effort that was passed earlier this month after the president and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., pledged action on Biden's broader package expanding health, child, elder care and climate change by mid-November.House progressives had threatened to hold up the infrastructure bill without a firm commitment of immediate action on the broader package.House centrists say they will vote for the package as early as this week if an upcoming Congressional Budget Office analysis affirms White House estimates that the bill is fully paid for. The measure would be covered with changes to corporate taxes, such as a new corporate minimum tax, while raising taxes on higher-income people.On Friday, Pelosi wrote Democratic members reaffirming her plan to push ahead soon, noting that CBO estimates released so far on pieces of the plan have been consistent with White House projections."We are on a path to be further fortified with numbers from the Congressional Budget Office," she said. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., one of 13 House Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill, said he's not convinced that the broader package will get House approval this week."I don't think the votes are there yet," he said. "A good number of Democrats had demanded and are going to receive a CBO report as to whether is, it really paid for? What does it do when you expand Medicare? What does that do to the solvency?""Somehow, I don't think we're going to get these answers ... for Pelosi to get the votes set before the end of the week."The bill is expected to face changes in the Senate. With Republican opposition and an evenly split 50-50 Senate, Biden has no votes to spare.Manchin in particular has been vocal about the risk of aggravating budget shortfalls and already has managed to bring the bill down from Biden's original $3.5 trillion price tag. Last week, Manchin again sounded the alarm over "the threat posed by record inflation."Deese appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" and ABC's "This Week" and Upton spoke on CNN.

It's one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's favorite sayings, a guidepost for Democrats in trying times: "Our diversity is our strength. Our unity is our power."But as Democrats try to usher President Joe Biden's expansive federal government overhaul into law, it's the party's diversity of progressive and conservative views that's pulling them apart.And only by staying unified does their no-votes-to-spare majority have any hope of pushing his rebuilding agenda into law.Biden will travel to Michigan on Tuesday to speak directly to the American people on his vision: It's time to tax big business and the wealthy and invest that money into child care, health care, education and tackling climate change — what he sees as some of the nation's most pressing priorities. Together, Biden, Pelosi and other Democrats are entering a highly uncertain time, the messy throes of legislating, in what will now be a longer-haul pursuit that could stretch for weeks, if not months, of negotiations. "Let me just tell you about negotiating: At the end, that's when you really have to weigh in," Pelosi said recently. "You cannot tire. You cannot concede.""This," she added on a day when negotiations would stretch to midnight, "this is the fun part."The product — or the colossal failure to reach a deal — will define not only the first year of Biden's presidency, but the legacy of Pelosi and a generation of lawmakers in Congress, with ramifications for next year's midterm elections. At stake is not only the scaled-back $3.5 trillion plan, but also the slimmer $1 trillion public works bill that is now stalled, intractably linked to the bigger bill. As Democrats in Congress regroup, having blown Pelosi's self-imposed Friday deadline for passing legislation in the House amid bitter finger-pointing, they now face a new one, Oct. 31, to make gains on Biden's big plans. The $3.5 trillion package is being chiseled back to around $2 trillion and final approval of the Senate-passed $1 trillion public works bill is on hold, for now.Attention remains squarely focused on two key holdouts, Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who along with a small band of conservative House Democrats are the linchpins to any deal.Biden is expected to be in touch as the senators return Monday to Washington. Pelosi has been in conversations with both West Virginia's Manchin and Arizona's Sinema."The president wants both bills and he expects to get both bills," Biden adviser Cedric Richmond said on "Fox News Sunday." "We're going to continue to work on both."The inability to win over Manchin and Sinema to support Biden's broader vision contributed to the collapse last week of a promised House vote on their preferred $1 trillion public works bill, which they had negotiated with Biden.Tempers flared and accusations flew over who was to blame. Progressives lashed out at the two senators for holding up Biden's big agenda; the centrists blamed Pelosi for reneging on the promised vote; and progressives were both celebrated and scolded for playing hardball, withholding their votes on the public works bill to force a broader agreement.Ultimately Biden arrived on Capitol Hill late Friday afternoon to deliver a tough-love message to all of them — telling centrists they would not get their vote on the bipartisan deal he helped broker until the progressives had a commitment on the broader package and warning progressives the big bill's price tag would likely come down to around $2 trillion.In many ways, the weeks ahead are reminiscent of the last big legislative undertaking by Democrats pushing the Affordable Care Act toward the finish line during the Obama administration.No one doubts Pelosi — and Biden — can do it again. But the fight ahead is certain to be politically painful.With no support from Republicans who deride Biden's vision as socialist-style big government, Democrats must decide among themselves what size package can win over support in the 50-50 Senate and narrowly held House.Paid for by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, those individuals earning more than $400,000 a year, or $450,000 for couples, the measure, Biden insists, will carry an overall price tag of "zero."Still, private discussions about trimming back various programs have now delved deeper into conversations over wholesale cuts that may need to be made. It's all on the table.For example, will the push from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to expand Medicare to include dental, vision and other health care benefits survive? Or will those benefits have to be scrapped or reduced?What about the new child care subsidies or COVID-19-related tax credits for families with children — will those be able to run for several years or have to be scaled back to just a few? Will free community college be available to all, or only those of lower incomes, as Manchin proposes?Can Biden's effort to tackle climate change be extended beyond the money already approved for electric vehicles and weather-resilient buildings in the public works bill? "What we have said from the beginning is, it's never been about the price tag. It's about what we want to deliver," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in a Sunday interview on CNN."The president said this to us, too. He said don't start with the number. Start with what you're for," she said. Pelosi has been working the phones to win over Manchin and Sinema, who in many ways are outliers among Democrats in the House and Senate who lean more progressive. The two senators' prominence has morphed beyond the beltway into popular culture — Sinema was lampooned on "Saturday Night Live" over the weekend, while a flotilla of kayak-activists recently swarmed Manchin's D.C. houseboat.Pelosi and Sinema had a prickly relationship when the Arizonan first joined Congress, but they now share a common interest in tackling climate change.Manchin and Pelosi have a warmer alliance, and she showered the senator with praise as someone with whom she shared values as Italian Americans and Roman Catholics. "We're friends," she said. But Pelosi has made it clear she is prepared to fight to the finish for a bill she called the "culmination of my service in Congress." At a private caucus meeting last week, when one lawmaker suggested she had gone back on her word to have the infrastructure vote, she said that was before some among them were joining with the senators to reject Biden's broader plan, according to a person who requested anonymity to recount her private remarks."Let's try to at least stick together," Pelosi implored the Democrats.