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(Trends Wide) — The US House of Representatives will vote Friday on President Joe Biden’s comprehensive social safety net plan and bipartisan infrastructure bill.
House Democratic leaders expected a vote on the economic package Thursday night, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the Rules Commission would meet to handle an amendment to the US bill. social spending.
Earlier in the day, in a closed-door meeting with Democrats, she had said her plan was to vote that night and then hold a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Friday morning, according to two sources. However, it was unclear if Democrats had the votes to go ahead with that schedule. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced Thursday night that the House would reconvene on Friday morning.
But in a sign that a spending package deal is approaching, House Democrats have resolved one of the sticking points: how to deal with state and local tax deductions, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Democrats in the Northeast and West Coast have been pushing to ease the limits imposed by the 2017 tax law.
The last two remaining issues are immigration and the resolution of concerns from five moderates who want an accounting from the Congressional Budget Office, which could take days or weeks.
Biden made multiple calls to House Democrats Thursday as the leadership pushed to block votes for the economic and climate package, according to several people familiar with the calls. Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives have already had to push back their deadline for passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill twice before.
Biden making calls
One of the legislators Biden called was Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, asking her to support the $ 1.9 trillion economic and climate package, according to several well-known sources.
The call comes as the House Democratic leadership works to shore up enough votes to pass the bill and after Democrats suffered a painful electoral defeat in Spanberger’s home state earlier this week when they lost the governorship. .
A source familiar with Biden’s calls said he was not explicitly advocating a vote Thursday night in his calls to members, but was instead asking them to vote yes whenever a vote was set. Biden, throughout the process, has made it clear that he has full confidence in Pelosi to set the schedule and knows that nothing will be scheduled until the votes are assured.
The Spanberger call underscored the awareness within the White House that moderates in particular are frustrated – and in many cases suspicious – of the process up to this point. Spanberger had reacted to the tough night of the Democrats on Tuesday, telling The New York Times of Biden: “Nobody cast him to be FD Roosevelt, they cast him to be normal and stop the chaos.”
Many moderates have wanted a vote on the infrastructure bill for weeks, and have been exasperated that progressives kept that bill on demands to go ahead with the larger social safety net bill altogether.
House leaders push for a vote
Pelosi’s comments to her committee on Thursday night’s vote were the latest sign of how the House leadership wants to act quickly to get Biden’s two key priorities approved in the House before the week is out.
In her weekly press conference later Thursday, Pelosi said: “We are going to pass both bills, but to do so, we have to have votes for both bills, and that’s where we are at.”
She did not say that she already has the votes to bring the bills into the room. “Did you see the count? Because I’ll tell you something about Mr. Clyburn, he keeps it close to the vest,” Pelosi said.
House Majority Leader Jim Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, told reporters that he will meet with his staff to see if Democrats have the votes for the economic bill.
He said they wouldn’t put a bill in the room if he didn’t have the votes.
The economic agenda bill, often referred to as the Build Back Bette legislation, is a broad social safety net expansion plan that would address climate change, provide aid to families, expand access to health care and would enact other liberal items on the agenda. It would then have to be scrutinized and approved in the Senate.
The $ 1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed the Senate in August and is still awaiting a vote in the House. Passage of that bill has previously been delayed as progressives insisted the two measures move in tandem, but now progressives are signaling that they are ready to vote for both laws this week.
It is not yet clear if the Democrats have the votes.
In a possible sign of the challenge to secure votes, Democratic Rep. Ed Case of Hawaii, leader of the Blue Dogs moderates, told Trends Wide Thursday that he had not changed positions: There must be an official tally from the U.S. Budget Office. Nonpartisan Congress before it can vote for the package.
“It’s all in the letter,” he said, referring to a letter he and other moderates signed setting out their demands before considering whether to vote on the bill.
When asked if he had changed positions, Case replied, “No.”
Problem-solving group co-chair Josh Gottheimer told Trends Wide they “don’t have a final bill yet” when asked if he was ready to vote on the broader economic package Thursday night.
“There are still pieces in the works, as you know, in different areas,” he said.
When asked if he still wanted a budget count, Gottheimer told reporters: “We have asked for certain tables from the Budget Office. We are waiting for that. We think that is information that is owed to us. That is the kind of thing that we believe. which they are is very important to make sure we get through. “
The New Jersey Democrat also said his party should learn from Tuesday’s election that “people expect us to act. They expect action.”
He added: “We could vote this week on the bipartisan infrastructure package that was approved by the Senate there in August. It has been here waiting for action. That would be a great place where we can start acting.”
Contribuyeron Jessica Dean, Lauren Fox, Phil Mattingly, Manu Raju, Kristin Wilson, Annie Grayer y Morgan Rimmer de Trends Wide.
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