$3.5 trillion plan tops first hurdle in House
Democrat deal pulls back dissenters
WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Tuesday approved a roughly $3.5 trillion budget that stands to enable sweeping changes to the nation’s health care, education and tax laws, overcoming their internal divisions to take the next step toward enacting President Joe Biden’s broader economic agenda.
The 220-212 party-line vote took place after days of delays as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scrambled to stave off opposition from her party’s moderate-leaning lawmakers. With the frenzy resolved, the chamber averted what would have been a political embarrassment for the White House and its allies — even as the debacle foreshadowed much-tougher fights among Democrats on the horizon.
The outcome immediately set in motion a laborious effort to transform the $3.5 trillion blueprint into a fuller legislative product. Much like the proposal the Senate adopted earlier this month, the House budget is essentially an outline that does not require Biden’s signature.
Rather, it is a congressional document that unlocks for Democrats a longer legislative process known as reconciliation — a tactic that allows them to write a tax-and-spending bill that can bypass a Republican filibuster.
As part of the forthcoming package, Democrats have pledged to expand Medicare, invest sizable sums in education and family-focused programs, and devote new funds toward combating climate change — fulfilling many of the party’s 2020 campaign pledges. And they have aimed to finance the tranche of new spending through tax increases targeting wealthy corporations, families and investors, rolling back tax cuts imposed under former President Donald Trump.
“A national budget should be a statement of our national values,” Pelosi said before the House began voting. “And this will be the case.”
But the House approved its plan only after a protracted debate that exposed the fractious and fragile nature of the Democratic caucus. Even Biden and his top aides had to intervene this week to break the stalemate within their party, illustrating the perils they may face in shepherding significant new spending along with tax increases to passage in the weeks ahead.
Outside groups, including Justice Democrats, ran campaign ads, and members of Our Revolution, the organization aligned with Vermont independent Bernie Sanders protested Tuesday outside the New Jersey office of Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a leader of the moderate effort.
“This is a ‘Which side are you on?’ moment,’” said Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese, who promised to “organize like never before to hold Democrats accountable and get this bill over the finish line.”
Pelosi brushed aside the delays. “That’s just part of the legislative process,” she said, according to an aide granted anonymity to discuss a private caucus meeting.
“Not only are we building the physical infrastructure of America, we are building the human infrastructure of America,” Pelosi said on the House floor.
At the center of the recent battle were nine moderate lawmakers led by Gottheimer. The group for weeks had threatened to vote against the budget, arguing the House instead should have started its work on another of Biden’s priorities — a roughly $1.2 trillion bill to improve the nation’s infrastructure that passed the Senate last month.
Pelosi instead proceeded with her original plans to start with the spending blueprint, backing her caucus’s liberal lawmakers, who earlier this year had threatened to mobilize their nearly 100 members if the speaker took an alternate course. The factions’ standoff pushed Democrats to the brink, as Pelosi can afford to lose only three votes in the House and has little room to alienate either influential bloc of lawmakers.
In the end, Democrats reached a compromise that allowed them to bring the matter to a vote — including a commitment that the House would consider the infrastructure proposal by Sept. 27. Gottheimer and his moderate allies hailed that deal as a victory, even as liberal lawmakers signaled initial unease with the arrangement, raising the specter that the fight is far from finished.
“The country has waited far too long for legislation that will actually fix our crumbling roads, bridges, tunnels, rail, and water, and invest in broadband and fighting climate change,” the nine centrist lawmakers said in a statement Tuesday. “This deal ensures the House will pass the bipartisan package by September 27th.”
The resolution for now prevented what would have been a major setback for Democrats’ economic ambitions and a black eye for the Biden administration, which has absorbed its fair share of political blows at a time when the pandemic is worsening and new troubles, such as the country’s imperiled exit from Afghanistan, are harming the president in polls. It also averted a rare defeat for Pelosi, who has labored throughout her career as speaker to ensure Democratic divisions don’t result in defeats on the House floor.
BIDEN PRAISE, GOP PANS
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Biden hailed the development in the House as a critical milestone “toward making a historic investment that’s going to transform America, cut taxes for working families and position the American economy for longterm, long-term growth.”
“What is important is that we came together to advance our agenda,” he said.
Republicans, meanwhile, lined up unanimously against the budget in the House. Taking to the chamber floor before casting his vote, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., the House minority whip, alleged the spending Democrats envisioned would result in significant inflation and a severe worsening of the federal deficit.
“It really should be called the ‘Mountains of Debt For the Children Act’ because that’s what it does,” Scalise said.
Republicans plan to reject the the $3.5 trillion effort as big-government spending, and GOP support for the slimmer $1 trillion bipartisan measure is now uncertain.
The conservative House Freedom Caucus said it opposes both the Biden budget and the bipartisan bill.
Republicans blasted Democrats for pursuing their priorities at a time when they said all focus should be on Afghanistan, as thousands of people including Americans are trying to flee the country as the U.S. withdraws its forces.
“We should be doing nothing else on this floor until every single American is home,” said Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday on Fox News that he was rooting for the House moderates.
“I wish the moderates in the House success,” McConnell said. “I’m pulling for them.”
FIGHTS IN FUTURE
The budget is a centerpiece of Biden’s economic agenda, opening the door for Democrats to pursue spending that the president endorsed as part of the jobs and families plans he unveiled earlier this year.
Along with expanding Medicare, these plans aim to lower prescription drug costs for millions of older Americans and expand other federal safety-net programs, including those that benefit low-income families. Democrats also seek to reform the country’s immigration system, ensure housing is more affordable and make it easier for Americans to obtain sick leave and child care.
The House vote followed weeks after the Senate adopted the same blueprint, chiefly written by Sanders, leader of the chamber’s budget committee. Sanders and other lawmakers have described the spending they have proposed as historic, likening it to the Great Society and New Deal programs that helped jumpstart the American economy.
Democrats across the Capitol broadly support the goals of the package. But serious schisms separate the party’s liberal and moderate wings over how much to spend and the extent to which they should finance it through tax increases. Those long-simmering tensions flashed almost immediately after the chamber approved its budget Tuesday, as Democrats sparred with each other over their next steps.
The roughly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, which represents the House’s liberal members, has urged Biden and Democratic leaders to pursue as ambitious of an agenda as possible given Democrats slim but potent majorities in both chambers of Congress. In a sign of the haggling still to come, the bloc fired a fresh warning shot: It praised the adoption of the budget even as it reissued its threat to withhold its support on new public-works spending until the House approves a robust reconciliation bill.
“Our position remains unchanged: We will work to first pass the Build Back Better reconciliation bill so we can deliver these once-in-a-generation, popular, and urgently needed investments to poor and working families, and then pass the infrastructure bill to invest in our roads, bridges, and waterways,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chairwoman of the caucus.
Moderates, however, exited the vote believing they had successfully decoupled the two priorities, perhaps giving them additional flexibility to negotiate the scope of the final reconciliation package. Some centrist Democrats have been fearful of adding to the deficit and skeptical about the size of the tax increases Biden has proposed.
In doing so, the nine centrists led by Gottheimer pointed to an additional commitment from Pelosi that she would not force the House to vote on a reconciliation package that had no chance to pass the Senate. Some House Democrats saw the move as another hedge against liberals, who face steep opposition in the chamber from moderates including Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who already have signaled they won’t support a final proposal with a $3.5 trillion price tag.
“We want to see it done in a common-sense way that reflects the reality of what the Senate is willing to agree to, and what the House is willing to agree to, and we know that that’s different than some of the aspirational levers that some of our colleagues have,” said Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., one of the nine who initially threatened to oppose the budget. “We’re not going to vote on a measure that doesn’t have 51 votes in the Senate.”