The House has passed the $1 trillion infrastructure plan, sending it to Biden’s desk

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06 Ноя 2021, 06:39

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President Biden walks into the U.S. Capitol building with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for an Oct. 28 meeting with House Democrats on negotiations over the party’s domestic spending bills.

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Samuel Corum/Getty Images

President Biden walks into the U.S. Capitol building with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for an Oct. 28 meeting with House Democrats on negotiations over the party’s domestic spending bills.

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

After months of tense negotiations, the House of Representatives has passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, 228-206, fulfilling a major priority for President Biden’s domestic agenda and cementing a political victory for Democrats.

It passed Friday night largely along party lines, with 13 Republicans joining 215 Democrats in support of the legislation. But the bill also saw six Democrats vote against it because a larger social spending measure failed to also secure enough support for a floor vote on Friday.

The late night vote on infrastructure followed an agreement between factions of the Democratic Party, as moderate members issued further assurances that they would pass the larger Build Back Better Act when it comes up for a vote.

«We commit to voting for the Build Back Better Act, in its current form … as expeditiously as we receive fiscal information from the Congressional Budget Office – but in no event later than the week of November 15th,» a key group of five moderates — Reps. Ed Case, D-Hawaii, Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., and Kurt Schrader, D-Ore. — said in statement.

Their statement said that if the CBO score is inconsistent with the White House framework, the group says they «remain committed to working to resolve any discrepancies in order to pass Build Back Better legislation.»

A short time later, the chair of the progressive caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., issued a statement saying they had reached agreement with «our colleagues … to advance both pieces of President Biden’s legislative agenda.» She said they would vote for the infrastructure bill and a legislative rule for the Build Back Better bill.

Biden was involved in the final negotiations, issuing a statement Friday night urging all members to back final passage of the infrastructure bill. He added he was «confident that during the week of November 15, the House will pass the Build Back Better Act.»

The infrastructure bill, which passed the Senate in August with strong bipartisan support, includes nearly $550 billion in new spending above what Congress was already planning to allocate for infrastructure over the next eight years. It includes significant investments in roads, bridges, railways and broadband internet.

The plan will be financed in a number of ways, including repurposing unspent emergency relief funds from the COVID-19 pandemic and strengthening tax enforcement for cryptocurrencies. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted the bill will add about $256 billion to projected deficits over the next 10 years.

Pathway to passage

The bill’s journey from the Senate to Biden’s desk has been a long and tumultuous one.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., intended to bring it and the larger bill to the floor for a vote on Friday. But her plans collapsed after a handful of moderate members insisted the spending package receive a score from the CBO.

«Some members want more clarification or validation of numbers that have been put forth … that it is fully paid for, and we honor that request,» Pelosi told reporters late Friday afternoon.

Progressive House Democrats had insisted for months that any vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill be tied to the broader social spending package, for fear that some moderate Democrats would delay or even withhold support for the larger package if the infrastructure bill passed first.

Shortly after Pelosi’s announcement, Jayapal said in a statement: «If our six [holdout] colleagues still want to wait for a CBO score, we would agree to give them that time — after which point we can vote on both bills together.»

Several lawmakers and the president worked to get progressives to agree to an infrastructure vote. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., a member of the progressive caucus, confirmed that Biden called and spoke to members of the caucus. «He’s working very hard to get everybody there and urged us to, to work in that same spirit,» he said. Huffman added Biden worked to get the progressive wing some assurances and commitments.

There appeared to be renewed pressure to pass both bills in tandem after Democrats sustained a major loss in Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in Virginia.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters after the election that Democrats «blew the timing» by not passing the infrastructure legislation sooner, which would have given Democrats a legislative victory to campaign on.

Policy provisions

The Build Back Better spending package originally had a price tag of $3.5 trillion. Democrats chose to use a process called budget reconciliation to pass the package in the Senate without any Republican support. Given the extremely narrow margin in the chamber, every senator that caucuses with Democrats has to be on board in order for the bill to survive.

That proved difficult, with moderate Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona expressing concerns over the size and scope of the package.

Manchin said he could only support a package at $1.5 trillion, prompting Democrats to whittle down the multitrillion-dollar package to about $1.75 trillion.

The slimmed-down spending package includes universal pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds, investments in affordable housing, premium reductions under the Affordable Care Act, major investments aimed at addressing climate change and an additional year of the expanded child tax credit.

Here’s a closer look at what’s in the infrastructure bill that now heads to Biden’s desk.

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