How Democrats are laying the groundwork now for a potential reconciliation bill

As the bipartisan group continues to educate their respective members on their $1.2 trillion infrastructure proposal, Democratic leadership and key chairs will crank up the work on a potential Democratic-only infrastructure bill this week, paving the way for Democrats to go it alone if they choose to do so.

This week, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will meet with key members of the Senate Budget Committee including Chairman Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent senator who caucuses with the Democrats, to begin discussions about how to effectively write and pass a budget that can pass a diverse swath of the caucus in committee. The budget document is the first step in the reconciliation process and sets the guardrails of what any infrastructure bill can include. The budget would provide a dollar amount for each committee to spend and those targets would give instructions to key committees to rewrite the tax code and reimagine the country's social safety net in an infrastructure bill.