Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to hold a vote on both the Build Back Better Act and the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill today. A vote sometime in the next two days on legislation calling for nearly $3 trillion in federal spending that’s been delayed for weeks. Predicting congressional votes is a short-term career but House leadership, especially after fallout from this Tuesday’s elections, are being pressured to Build Back Better fast!
But over the last few weeks, Pelosi was reminded that the Senate is not only the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” but it’s the world’s slowest, most torturous and illogical body. Pelosi decided in recent days that she can’t wait for the Senate anymore, and the only way to pressure Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s senators is to actually present them with a bill that they have to make a decision on.
Pelosi’s biggest hurdle right now is the moderates. Five Democratic moderates have publicly declared that they want a budgetary score before they vote for the BBB, which isn’t going to happen. They’re also worried about changes to prescription drug pricing and immigration. In sum, moderates really want to just slow this whole thing down in order to extract more changes to the legislation. That’s what the demand for CBO score is, in part -- a stalling tactic. That helps them vis-a-vis Pelosi and the leadership.
There is mounting confusion in what is in and out of the bill and gaining more attention is how to pay for all the proposed federal spending. The White House claims the bill is fully paid for by offsets. Here is how the White House gets to $2.1 trillion in offsets for the crown jewel of Biden’s agenda.
