Today, the House is expected to vote on the Build Back Better (BBB) bill, a spending package that is a signature piece of President Biden's legislative agenda that contains significant social infrastructure spending on health care and child care, as well as large investments to tackle climate change. The vote comes in the wake of a vote earlier this month on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework, which was a bill that passed by a wide bipartisan margin in the Senate (including the vote of GOP Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell) and with a dozen or so House Republicans backing it as well.
Moderate Democrats in the House had declined to vote for BBB until the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) completed its assessment on the expected cost of the bill. Citing inflation concerns, moderate Democrats such as Oregon Congressman Kurt Schrader and New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer made a push to ensure that the bill would not add to the deficit over its 10 year period. CBO announced earlier this morning that its assessment would be completed later this afternoon, at which point Democrats expect to begin the process of voting on the bill. Unlike the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework, BBB is not expected to attract any Republican votes, meaning Democrats, who hold the House by a narrow 221-213 margin (one vacancy), cannot afford to suffer many defections, and will require the support of all wings of the party to pass the bill.
From there, the bill will head to the Senate, which is expected to continue the process. BBB was passed under reconciliation instructions, meaning that certain pieces of the legislation, particularly immigration reform, may be further removed from the final bill that passes the upper chamber. Democrats cannot afford defections at all in the Senate, which they hold by virtue of Vice President Harris' tiebreaking vote, and negotiations are still under way with centrist members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate to secure support, particularly from West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema.
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