Update (11/19/21): After an 8 1/2 filibuster from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) pushed the vote on President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act back from Thursday night, the House passed the bill Friday morning. The final vote tally was 220-213, a nearly party line vote. The video above shows clips from the vote, as well a news conference from House Democratic leaders after the vote.
“We have a Build Back Better bill that is historic, transformative and larger than anything we have ever done before.” Rep. Pelosi said on the House floor. “If you are a parent, a senior, a child, a worker, if you are an American, this bill is for you.”
Rep. McCarthy used his time to rail on the Biden administration for things like inflation, China’s rise in influence on a global stage, and the situation at the border.
“Millions of Americans are struggling with higher energy costs, higher grocery prices and higher crime,” McCarthy said. “This isn’t politics, as the Democrats claim, this is real life in America today under one party rule in one year.”
The bill now heads to the Senate, where cost cutting measures may still be needed in order to please centrist Democrats like Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). The Senate hopes to vote on the bill by the end of the year.
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Original Story (11/18/21): Just under two weeks after the House agreed to table a vote on President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act, SAN Political Producer Annie Andersen reports a vote on the act is expected to happen Thursday night. Debate on the act got underway Thursday.
“We’re ready for the passage of Build Back Better,” House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said at a news conference Thursday.
The vote had been tabled after centrist Democrats refused to support it until the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office conducted a cost estimate on the bill. CBO completed that cost estimate Thursday afternoon.
“This afternoon, we will publish estimates for the remaining titles: title XIII, Committee on Ways and Means; and title VI, Committee on the Judiciary,” the CBO said in a blog post.
The CBO said enacting Title VI of the Build Back Better Act “would result in a net increase in the unified deficit totaling $115.1 billion over the 2022-2031 period”. However, enacting Title XIII “would result in a net decrease in the unified deficit totaling $797.7 billion over the 2022-2031 period.”
The CBO’s full cost estimate was expected to show a modestly higher price tag and deficits of perhaps $200 billion over the coming decade. Early signs were that those differences were unlikely to derail the legislation.
“Each of these investments on its own will make an extraordinary impact on the lives of American families,” House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) said. Rep. Yarmuth noted savings would come from higher levies on the rich and corporations.
Meanwhile Republicans have maintained that the Build Back Better Act would damage an economy already racked by inflation, give tax breaks to some wealthy taxpayers and make government bigger and more intrusive. The Budget Committee’s top Republican, Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) said the bill “Bankrupts the economy, benefits the wealthy, and it builds the Washington machine.”
With uniform Republican opposition, Democrats can lose no more than three votes for the Build Back Better Act to prevail in the House.
