House passes bipartisan infrastructure bill

The House on Friday voted 228-206 to pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill after hours of delays and internal debating among Democrats, sending the bipartisan measure to President Biden's desk for his signature.

Thirteen Republicans in the House voted with Democrats to approve the bill. They are:

White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted as the House passed President Biden's infrastructure bill, saying it was “worth all the painful sausage making.”

The legislation will now go to Biden's desk to be signed into law.

 Read her tweet:

The House just passed the $1.2 trillion bipartisna infrastructure bill, a massive part of President Biden's economic agenda. It will now go to his desk to be passed into law.

The final vote was 228-206. Democrats could be heard cheering and clapping on the House floor after the gavel.

GOP Reps. John Katko, Don Bacon, Jeff Van Drew, Don Young, Fred Upton, Adam Kinzinger, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Brian Fitzpatrick, Tom Reed, Andrew Garbarino, Nicole Malliotakis, David McKinley, and Chris Smith of New Jersey, voted with Democrats to pass the bill.

Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib voted against their party in opposition to the bill. 

When Democrats hit the number of 218 votes, which was enough to pass the bill, many Democrats stood up and clapped. A large group of Democrats huddled around House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, giving her fist bumps and high fives. 

The legislation passed the Senate in August, but stalled in the House as Democrats tried to negotiate a deal on a separate $1.9 trillion economic package, another key component of Biden’s agenda that many Democrats had tied to the fate of the infrastructure bill. 

The House is voting now on the infrastructure bill after hours of internal delaying and debating among Democrats.

This bill has already passed the Senate, and if passed, would head to President Biden’s desk.

How we got here: Going into Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was her intention to vote on final passage of the infrastructure bill and the social spending bill known as Build Back Better.

But, Friday morning it was clear that a group of House moderates were not ready to support the final passage of Build Back Better for a variety of reasons. 

To accommodate that group, after hours of inaction, Pelosi decided to schedule a final vote on the infrastructure bill, and stop short of final passage of the Build Back Better bill, by only voting on the rule governing debate, hoping that would be enough to unify Democrats. 

That plan however immediately collided with a significant number of progressives, who have consistently called for both the infrastructure and Build Back Better bills to move together.

Progressives stalled floor action for hours as they deliberated how to move forward.

Then, moments before the final vote, a group of key moderate holdouts released a statement vowing to vote for the social spending package “in its current form other than technical changes, as expeditiously as we receive fiscal information from the Congressional Budget Office-but in no event later than the week of November 15.”

Shortly after this commitment from moderates, Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal released a statement saying that the Progressive Caucus reached a deal with fellow Democrats to vote on the infrastructure bill tonight, abandoning a key tenant of their position, which was to only vote for the infrastructure bill when the social spending bill also would receive a final vote.

Moments before the House began voting on the infrastructure bill, Jayapal wrote on behalf of her caucus that progressives would move forward with the infrastructure vote because they had accepted the commitment from moderates that the social spending bill would get a vote “no later than the week of November 15.”

But in her statement, Jayapal was sure not to say that everyone in her caucus would be joining onto this position. 

The infrastructure bill includes a multitude of measures to pay for the proposal.

But while lawmakers claim the bill pays for itself, the CBO score found it would instead add billions of dollars to the deficit over 10 years and that many of the pay-for provisions would not raise as much money as Democrats said they would.

The bottom line is that the legislation would directly add roughly $350 billion to the deficit, when taking into account $90 billion of spending in new contract authority, said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that tracks federal spending.

According to the bill text and a 57-page summary of the bill, lawmakers leaned heavily on repurposing unused Covid-19 relief funds to pay for the legislation. The CBO found these measures would provide roughly $22 billion in savings, rather than the roughly $263 billion claimed by lawmakers, Goldwein said.

The bill text lists savings from rescinding unobligated appropriations for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program for small businesses and nonprofit groups, the Paycheck Protection Program, the Education Stabilization Fund and relief for airline workers, among others.

Another item in the bill text is $53 billion that stems in part from states opting to terminate the pandemic unemployment benefits early in hopes of pushing the jobless to return to work. Some 24 states stopped at least one of the federal unemployment programs before they officially ended in early September. Also, the CBO reduced its forecast for the unemployment rate because of the improving economy.

Also, the agency found that the Federal Communications Commission's spectrum auctions would generate far less than the $87 billion originally claimed by lawmakers.

The CBO also said that the bill would raise about $50 billion by imposing new Superfund fees and changing the tax reporting requirements for cryptocurrencies, among other measures.

More savings would come from delaying a controversial Trump administration rule that would radically change how drugs are priced and paid for in Medicare and Medicaid until 2026, at the earliest. The measure would effectively ban drug makers from providing rebates to pharmacy benefit managers and insurers. Instead, drug companies would be encouraged to pass the discounts directly to patients at the pharmacy counter. It is currently expected to go into effect in 2023. The summary lists the savings as $49 billion and the CBO report as nearly $51 billion.

Also, the infrastructure proposal relies on generating $56 billion in economic growth resulting from a 33% return on investment on the long-term projects, according to the summary.

President Biden has said that the bill won't raise taxes on people making less than $400,000 a year and does not include a gas tax increase or fee on electric vehicles. He initially called for raising taxes on corporations to fund the infrastructure investments — but that proposal did not make it into the latest package after strong opposition from Republicans.

Progressives say they will vote for infrastructure tonight and accept the just-issued statement from moderates to vote on Build Back Better no later than the week of Nov. 15.

Moderates have issued a statement committing to vote for the Build Back Better bill.

CNN reported earlier that a statement like this was forthcoming to clear the way to vote tonight on infrastructure.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office confirmed that the House will vote on the final passage of the infrastructure bill after a brief recess.

The House will then vote on the rule for the Build Back Better Act that was debated immediately before the recess

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a long floor speech in support of the Build Back Better Act, as the House continues to debate the rule of the bill on the floor this evening.

When Pelosi was done, Republican Rep. Brian Mast stood up and yelled, “you can get an Emmy for that one.”

Pelosi did not respond; she put on her mask and walked away from the podium.

While debate on the Build Back Better Act rule continues, the plan is to still vote on infrastructure when this debate wraps.