President Joe Biden has canceled a planned trip to Chicago to promote his vaccination mandate for businesses as ongoing negotiations over his legislative agenda in Washington intensify, White House officials confirmed Tuesday.

       Biden was to have been accompanied by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker during a brief visit Wednesday. But the president is dealing with both congressional Democrats split on the size and scope of proposals to enact his economic recovery package, and with Republicans who have sought to block an extension of the federal debt ceiling that authorizes payment for spending under the Trump administration.

       Despite internal disputes among moderate and progressive Democrats who control Congress, Biden has said he is confident that both a comprehensive recovery plan and an infrastructure passage will eventually pass.

       President Joe Biden receives a booster vaccination shot for COVID-19 in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Complex on Sept. 27, 2021, in Washington, D.C.. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

       Biden has expressed frustration that his Build Back Better plan has not gained larger acceptance from a public whose attention has been focused on issues such as the delta variant to hurricanes in the south and wildfires in the west.

       “I’d be out making the case about what my plan contained and it’s been very much curtailed by a whole range of things,” Biden said earlier this month.

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       “The problem is, with everything happening, not everybody knows what’s in that plan,” he said. “For example, all those women out there who are not able to go back to work because they have a dependent grandparent or a parent or a dependent child who needs help, or they can’t find day care … There’s a solution in the proposal that I put forward.”

       Wednesday’s scheduled trip to Chicago would have been Biden’s second to the Chicago area since he assumed the presidency, following a July stop in Crystal Lake to promote community colleges.

       This trip would have been made just two days after the 78-year-old chief executive received a booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine, which has been authorized for people 65 and older and those adults age 50 to 64 with underlying medical conditions.

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