WASHINGTON - Despite a long night of frantic negotiations, Democrats were unable to reach an immediate deal to salvage President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion government overhaul, forcing leaders to call off promised votes on a related public works bill. Action is to resume Friday.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi had pushed the House into an evening session and top White House advisers huddled for talks at the Capitol as the Democratic leaders worked late Thursday to negotiate a scaled-back plan that centrist holdouts would accept. Biden had cleared his schedule for calls with lawmakers, but it appeared no deal was within reach, particularly with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.

Manchin refused to budge, the West Virginia centrist holding fast to his earlier declaration that he was willing to meet the president less than halfway - $1.5 trillion.

Deeply at odds, the president and his party are facing a potentially embarrassing setback - if not politically devastating collapse of the whole enterprise - if they cannot resolve the standoff over Biden’s big vision.

At immediate risk was a promised vote on the first piece of Biden’s proposal, a slimmer $1 trillion public works bill that is widely supported but has faltered amid stalled talks on his more ambitious package. Progressives were refusing to back the roads-and-bridges bill they view as insufficient unless there’s progress on Biden’s broader plan that’s the heart of the Democratic agenda. With support, leaders canceled a promised Thursday night vote, and said the House would be back in session Friday.

The political stakes could hardly be higher. Biden and his party are reaching for a giant legislative accomplishment - promising a vast rewrite of the nation’s tax and spending plans - with a so-slim majority in Congress.

The president’s sweeping proposal topped at $3.5 trillion would essentially raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy and plow that money back into government health care, education and other programs, all of it touching the lives of countless Americans. He says the ultimate price tag is zero, because the tax revenue covers the spending costs.

With Biden working the phones and top White House officials shuttling at the Capitol, talk swirled of the Democratic leaders trying to ease off the stalemate by reaching a broader deal, a compromise with Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, two centrist Democrats who are the linchpins to Biden’s goals.

The idea was to produce the contours of an agreement over Biden’s broader package, proceed with the $1 trillion public works bill and negotiate the rest of Biden’s big health care, education and climate change bill in the days to come. Lawmakers were told to stick around for possible late-night votes.

But as the night dragged on, it became clear that Manchin was not on board with a higher figure and chiseling away at that $3.5 trillion topline risked losing progressive leaders who said they have already compromised enough and saw no reason to rush a deal to bring the centrists around to supporting the president’s agenda.

With Republicans opposed in lockstep to the president’s big plan, deriding it as a slide to socialist-style spending, Biden is reaching for a deal with members of his own party for a signature legislative accomplishment.

Biden insists the price tag actually will be zero because the expansion of government programs would be largely paid for with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy - businesses earning more than $5 million a year, and individuals earning more than $400,000 a year, or $450,000 for couples.