House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is reportedly pushing her colleagues to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, as well as President Joe Biden’s massive social spending package, this week.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal:
The California Democrat told House Democrats in a closed-door meeting on Thursday that she hoped the House would vote on the [spending package] later that day, and then vote on the Senate-passed infrastructure bill on Friday, according to people familiar with her remarks. Progressives have been blocking the roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill until they were satisfied with the language in the social-spending and climate-change bill.
She told the press, “We’re going to pass both bills, but in order to do so we have to have the votes for both bills.”
CNN also reported that Pelosi told Democrats she was planning to have a vote on Biden’s social spending bill Thursday night, with a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure legislation taking place in the morning on Friday, per two of the outlet’s sources.
She reportedly would not mention if she had the votes to bring the measure. “Did you see the whip count? Because I’ll tell you something about Mr. Clyburn, he keeps it close to the vest,” Pelosi said.
Discussions surrounding the measure were still ongoing, however, on Thursday.
The Journal noted, “House Democrats were still discussing how to raise the $10,000 cap on the deduction for state and local taxes and a proposed fee on methane emissions. A trio of House Democrats also threatened to withhold their support for the legislation unless it included more expansive immigration measures.”
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) told the press that he is getting together with his team to check if the Democrats have the votes for the spending package, noting they wouldn’t bring a measure if they hadn’t secured the votes.
It’s unclear as to whether or not Pelosi’s plan will remain unchanged throughout the night.
“As of Thursday afternoon, a vote had not yet been officially scheduled for the House to take up the Build Back Better Act, and it remained unclear if leadership had the votes necessary to pass the sweeping spending bill,” CNN noted.
Progressives have already held up the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill in an attempt to get their radical policies into the spending package.
Discussion about what would be included in the package continued earlier this week as Pelosi requested paid family and medical leave to be included in the hearing on the social spending package.
The legislation has been altered after Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) pushed for the price to be cut down from around $3.5 trillion.
Manchin, a key Democratic vote, had not been in support of including the paid family leave measure in the package, which originally led to the Democrats cutting it from the legislation. The Democrats need all Democratic votes in the Senate to get the bill through.
The White House has repeatedly made the claim that the spending bill would cost nothing to the American people, a line of thinking that was met with mockery.
Fox News host Chris Wallace said last month, “I’ve been in Washington for more than 40 years and this might be the dumbest spin line I’ve ever heard, that a $3 trillion bill costs nothing, because you’re going to pay for it.”