The Senate has voted to start work on a nearly $1 trillion national infrastructure package.
WASHINGTON >> The Senate voted Wednesday night to begin work on a nearly $1 trillion national infrastructure plan, acting with sudden speed after weeks of fits and starts once the White House and a bipartisan group of senators agreed on major provisions of the package that’s key to President Joe Biden’s agenda.
Biden welcomed the accord as one that would show America can “do big things.” It includes the most significant longterm investments in nearly a century, he said, on par with building the transcontinental railroad or the Interstate highway system.
“This deal signals to the world that our democracy can function,” Biden said ahead of the vote. “We will once again transform America and propel us into the future.”
After weeks of stop-andgo negotiations, the rare bipartisan showing on a 67-32 vote to start formal Senate consideration showed the high interest among senators in the infrastructure package. But it’s unclear if enough Republicans will eventually join Democrats.
Senate rules require 60 votes in the evenly split 50-50 chamber to proceed for consideration and ultimately pass this bill.
The outcome will set the stage for the next debate over Biden’s much more ambitious $3.5 trillion spending package, a strictly partisan pursuit of far-reaching programs and services including child care, tax breaks and health care that touch almost every corner of American life. Republicans strongly oppose that bill, which would require a simple majority, and may try to stop both.
That group had labored with the White House to salvage the deal, a first part of Biden’s big infrastructure agenda. Swelling to more than 700 pages, the bill includes $550 billion in new spending for public works projects.
In all, 17 Republican senators joined the Democrats in voting to launch the debate, but most remained skeptical. The GOP senators were given a thick binder of briefing materials during a private lunch.
According to a 57-page GOP summary, the fiveyear spending package would be paid for by tapping $205 billion in unspent COVID-19 relief aid and $53 billion in unemployment insurance aid some states have halted. It also relies on economic growth to bring in $56 billion, and other measures.
Giving Wednesday night’s vote a boost, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell announced late in the day he would vote to proceed, though whether he will support the final bill remains uncertain. Lead GOP negotiator Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio said the leader “all along has been encouraging our efforts.”
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a lead Democratic negotiator who talks often with Republicans also spoke with Biden on Wednesday and said the she hoped the results showed “our government can work.”