The Democratic House Speaker is under pressure to NOT stall thinks by an increasing number of her party members….
President Biden is also anxious to move ahead and change the daily media focus….
One would assume for several reasons including his Afghan dilemma , the pandemic and his falling polling numbers….
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Saturday that the lower chamber is “hard at work” to pass both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a larger, Democrat-backed spending package by Oct. 1.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter distributed Saturday night, the Speaker stated that the “Build Back Better” plan laid out by President Biden enjoys “a broad and bipartisan level of public support throughout the country.”
Pelosi stated that the $3.5 trillion price tag for the larger infrastructure package, a legislative priority for the Biden administration, will remain the topline number for the bill.
The bill would include child care, home health care, and paid family and medical leave.
“The President has been clear: this is the number that will honor his vision to Build Back Better,” she said.
“This is the number that has been agreed to in the Senate and is now before us in the House. Accordingly, we will write a reconciliation bill with the Senate that is consistent with that topline,” she added.
Earlier this month, the Senate passed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure measure with support from both sides of the aisle. This piece of legislation allocated money for more traditional infrastructure such as updates to electrical grids, water systems, public transit and airports.
Following the bill’s passage in the upper chamber, the Senate also passed the $3.5 trillion budget resolution, a move that paves that way for Democrats to pass their larger spending package without GOP support, bypassing the legislative filibuster. The resolution now awaits a decision in the House.
“Any delay to passing the budget resolution threatens the timetable for delivering the historic progress and the transformative vision that Democrats share,” Pelosi said….
Breaking……
The House has approved the Biden $3.5 Trillion budget plan framework….
Moving closer to a Infrastructure /Budget Mega
Victory for President Biden and Democrats and especially for Americans….
Straight party-line vote.
219 Dem yea
212 GOP nay
(Jim Costa, D-Calif. not voting)
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2021260
Democrats Not In Disarray
Jonathan Bernstein: “Standard reports of Democratic disarray turned out to be off the mark. Only 10 moderate liberals made any trouble at this stage of the process. One reason why is that there just aren’t that many policy differences within the House Democratic caucus. Another reason is that pundits keep expecting the Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wing of the party to ruin things for everyone else, and it keeps not happening.”
“That’s mainly because the most liberal Democrats, who are in fact ideological outliers, appear to be generally pragmatic, not radical, in their approach to politics. That is, they’re willing to bargain for the best deal rather than insisting on getting their way no matter what the consequences… By contrast, House Freedom Caucus Republicans and many others in both chambers are radicals without necessarily being policy outliers, at least within their party.”