Senate Democrats are bracing for a battle over spending as they look to negotiate a price tag for the $3.5 trillion budget bill intended to greatly expand the social safety net as part of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan.

Progressives and moderates have been at odds as Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has said he will not vote for a bill that costs more than $1.5 trillion and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has maintained the $3.5 trillion figure should be the floor after originally asking for a $6 trillion bill.

The bill would provide paid leave, universal pre-K, free community college while funding childcare, healthcare, combating climate change, and expanding Medicare to include vision, hearing, and dental.

“At the end of the day there will be 50 votes, but I think we’re going to go through a very healthy, loud family discussion at times,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., told The Hill.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has acknowledged the disagreements on the price tag. “Our goal is to have a joint proposal that the president, that the House Dems and the Senate Dems can all pass and support,” Schumer said.

House progressives such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Pramilia Jayapal, D-Wash., and Rashia Talib, D-Mich., insist that $3.5 trillion is the floor and they will be willing to kill the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill to get the reconciliation bill passed. In an interview with CNN's Jim Acosta, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., said the $3.5 trillion is the “ceiling” and that there is a lot of room for people to sit down and negotiate.

Democrats have sought to include immigration reform into the bill, arguing immigrants are essential to the economy. The plan would provide temporary protection status (TPS) to 8 million migrants, many of whom are the Dreamers who were brought to the U.S. as children. The move would then allow them to apply for permanent U.S. residency or green cards. However, it remains unclear whether or not the Senate parliamentarian would allow immigration reform to be included in the bill, according to CBS News.

"We believe that passing this legislation through reconciliation is permissible because the bill's budgetary effects are a substantial, direct, and intended result, and that the non-budgetary effects do not so disproportionately outweigh the budgetary effects as to make them merely incidental," one aide reportedly said.

If migrants are granted permanent residency they will be eligible to receive benefits from the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid, tax credits and food stamps.

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal is set to come to a House vote by Sept. 27.

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