Biden calls on House to pass Build Back Better spending plan - NPR

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President Joe Biden calls for the U.S. House of Representatives to pass his Build Back Better bill and the infrastructure bill on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. Evan Vucci/AP

Evan Vucci/AP

President Biden is calling on House Democrats to support two bills that represent the bulk of his legislative agenda ahead of an expected vote on Friday, following months of tense-in party negotiations among Democrats.

"Right now, we stand on the cusp of historic economic progress: two bills that together will create millions of jobs, grow the economy, invest in our nation and our people, lower costs for families, and turn the climate crisis into an opportunity," he said.

The Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill in August, but that stalled as the House has tried to pass a social spending package focused on much of Biden's domestic agenda. It includes measures to help with child care, health care and efforts to combat climate change.

"Passing these bills will say clearly to the American people: 'We hear your voices,'" Biden said, asking House members to vote yes on both the infrastructure bill and the 'Build Back Better' package, which also includes climate measures.

House leadership poised to bring both bills to the floor

House leaders said they would vote on the Build Back Better bill Friday and, once that passes, the infrastructure bill. But so far, the House has not begun debate on the Build Back Better bill.

This latest iteration of the social spending package is $1.75 trillion, far slimmer than the original $3.5 trillion proposal.

Negotiations have been constant; just this week, a compromise was finally reached on lowering prescription drug costs for seniors.

Paid family leave has been slashed to four weeks from an earlier pitch of three months (at one point, it appeared to be off the table altogether, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was urged to add it back in in some form on Wednesday).

Whether these concessions will be enough in the House where Democrats can only afford to lose three votes remains to be seen.

While the party's progressive wing had hoped to pass historic spending on the nation's social safety nets, moderates have argued against the proposal's lofty price tag.

Moderate Democrats in the House and Senate have been reluctant to vote for the bill unless the Congressional Budget Office can show it will be fully paid for. It can take weeks to get that figure once a bill is finally written.

Democratic leaders in the House got some support, though, from the Joint Committee on Taxation. The JCT released a preliminary estimate Thursday morning that about $1.47 trillion of the bill would be covered by the funding sources in the package. House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., said the bill would be fully paid if revenue from better IRS enforcement and prescription drug price savings were included in the analysis.

But even if the bill does pass the House, hurdles in the Senate remain. Originally, Pelosi wanted a negotiated spending package that would pass through the Senate unchanged. That seems unlikely to happen.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has said he opposes including paid leave in this bill. He has argued that kind of policy change should be done in a bipartisan manner.

In addition, the Senate parliamentarian will have to review the bill to ensure all the elements meet the rules for reconciliation, the budget tool Democrats are using to pass the bill by a simple majority in the evenly divided Senate.

The parliamentarian has ruled against previous attempts to include immigration reform provision in the package. Democrats have included an immigration measure they hope clears the parliamentarian this time.

Passage of the spending bill would set up a path for the Senate-passed $1 trillion infrastructure bill to come to the floor for a vote. Progressives have been holding up that bill until the spending bill is passed.

And after a tense Tuesday election night that brought a Republican governor to Virginia and a surprisingly tight gubernatorial race in New Jersey, Democrats face new pressures to coordinate a strategy and pass meaningful legislation.

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Biden calls on House to pass Build Back Better spending plan - NPR
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