Civic Register
| 8.10.21
Senate Passes Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, Faces Uncertain Fate in the House
Should the House take up the bipartisan infrastructure bill before the Democrats’ reconciliation bill?
What’s the story?
- The Senate on Tuesday passed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act on a 69-30 vote after debating the package for over a week. It now heads to the House, where Democratic leaders hope to use its fate as leverage to ensure the passage of their upcoming $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” plan through reconciliation along party-lines.
- The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act would provide $550 billion in new spending on roads, bridges, water systems, the electric grid, broadband deployment, and more. Total spending in the package is about $1.2 trillion, as it would also reauthorize expiring highway and water resources programs. The bill was negotiated largely by a group of 22 bipartisan senators led by Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). You can read about the bill’s major provisions in a full summary here.
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has repeatedly signaled that she will have the House delay passing the bipartisan bill until it also has the reconciliation bill in hand and said at a June press conference, “There ain’t gonna be no bipartisan bill, unless we are going to have the reconciliation bill.” When asked to clarify, Pelosi confirmed that she is referring to the reconciliation bill, not the budget resolution with reconciliation instructions that the Senate is now considering.
- That means she intends to delay the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill until September at the earliest, given that Democrats in both chambers will have to negotiate and compile the reconciliation bill itself once the budget resolution is approved by both chambers. The process of negotiating the reconciliation bill may be time-consuming and be complicated by the Democrats’ four-vote majority in the House and the evenly divided Senate.
- A group of nine moderate Democrats wrote a letter to Speaker Pelosi urging her to allow the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill to come up for a standalone vote without regard to the reconciliation process. They also expressed concerns about potential components of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that may spur further inflation while increasing the national debt.
- The House is currently on a recess that began on July 30th and is scheduled to continue until Monday, September 20th, although Democratic leaders have indicated they may recall members from the recess to approve the budget resolution.
— Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: Capitol: ttarasiuk via Flickr / Creative Commons | Sinema: Gage Skidmore via Flickr / Creative Commons | Portman: Trump White House Archived via Flickr by Shealah Craighead / Public Domain)
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i fully support the expanded infrastructure plan. the bipartisan bill dies not go far enough. however, with the problems of delta (caused by non-vaxxers) and mis-representation of theAfghanistan withdrawal, the Biden administration needs som e positives.
How can ANY President, especially a dumb f**k, make a law that makes tax breaks for the wealthy a forever thing? This was, and is, unconscionable and MUST BE CORRECTED IMMEDIATELY. HOW CAN WE ALLOW SUCH A PIECE OF💩, LIKE HIM, BE ALLOWED TO, ESSENTIALLY, GIFT HIMSELF? STOP THIS NOW AND MAKE IT ILLEGAL TO DO SUCH A THING EVER AGAIN!
Originally I supported it, but then I read in to it to find too many hidden gems in this 2500 page bill. Why can't these bills be no more than a sensible length so they aren't voting to find out what is in it later?
Horrible bill tons of waste and taxation on poor. Read the 2700 page bill before you comment.
Put Americans to work, save our infrastructure, and help our economy!
We should follow Nancy’s lead on this. She knows best.
They don't to the people they represent so what is the use. Our only hope is to vote the idiots out of office while we still have a country
NO! The House has to hold the bipartisan bill to insure the other bill gets passed! What insensitive does Manchin & Sinema have to stick with the Democrats on the reconciliation bill if the bipartisan bill is done! Nancy is doing the right thing. It’s all or nothing! You want to go back to your state and brag you got something done then get them both done!
Historically, no matter what the Republican Faction agrees to do in partnership with the Democrats, they will loudly proclaim that what has been done is enough and start reverting to their comments about avoiding socialism and government intrusion with respect to to human infrastructure needed to improve the productivity of all our people by giving them new opportunities and the ability to take advantage of these opportunities by removing those things that may interfere, like quality day care for working parents and generally a better life. These steps are vitally important to prepare our country for the future changes that are assuredly ahead in terms of shifting industries as the fossil fuel industry is dramatically downsized and we shift to cleaner renewable energy resources. … … … The Climate Crisis is very real and the impact of the earliest stages of the evolving crisis are clearly visible to anyone who looks around or follows the news. If we can rapidly restore our productivity and ingenuity that our empowered workforce has historically provided in times of great geo-political change. Biden’s initiatives taken together are remarkably strategic and complementary, and position our country to assume it’s legacy role of taking on huge and complex problems and lead the way to successfully resolve them. We will need this desperately to tackle the complex geo-political issues that will arise from the Climate Crisis, to develop strong diplomatic ties with both allies and adversaries, find new ways to make, distribute and manage a clean energy infrastructure, find new technological solutions, and agricultural practices. … … … If the world today reached Net-Zero emissions we would be stuck with the Climate as bad as it has become today because it will take at least a thousand years for natural processes to remove the excess CO2 we have put into the atmosphere. If we reach net-zero twenty years from now the Climate that exists then will persist. If the global average temperate increases by roughly 1.4 degrees C, there will be nothing that mankind knows how safely do to stop the self-powered global chemical reaction that will make major portions of our land mass uninhabitable. … … … Of all of the issues that our country faces the Climate Crisis is the biggest BFD that we will have to face. To skrimp on funding the needed to prepare our country and our people to deal with this crisis is profoundly stupid and cost-ineffective. It will cost much more to protect people from the ravages that the Climate Crisis will bring and the changes to life as we know it that assuredly would occur if we do not adequately prepare. The beauty of Biden’s initiatives are that that they not only give us the tools to face it head on but also to profit from deploying technological solutions worldwide. … … … It is imperative that Biden’s initiatives pass, all of them for many reasons but especially for a coordinated strategic program to bring the Climate Crisis under control and hopefully develop methods that can be deployed in scale to remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere (There are several groups researching this but none, so far, that are suitable for large scale deployment). So YES, hold the bipartisan bill until the reconciliation bill can be completed and voted in. Time for political hardball to convince the Senators holding back that it is OK to lose their dark money benefactors for the sake of our country’s future. … … …
The Reconciliation Bill is the One we really, really need - rush it ahead so that we can finalize the Infrastructure Bill quickly.
Need both !!!!!!
Get it done
Total waste of money sold down the tubes screw the American Tax Payers
Portman and the other Republicans are sell-outs.. Joined the Mao Se Tung party eh...
Ref AlterNet article today.. IRS secret files reveal just to what lengths the ultra wealthy went with the Trump tax reform gift to the 1%. NOW let’s talk about the infrastructure bill, expanding medicare, SS etc. There is more than enough money to support this bill. First course of action is to reform the tax code, close the loop holes and get all the parasitic blood suckers who are the true welfare Queens destroying the middle class to pay their 70% share
ENOUGH is ENOUGH!!! Stop these bills that do NOTHING but increase the debt for our children and grandchildren. They can NEVER be repaid! It's like our money is inside bubble gum wrappers and can be discarded on anything. Bipartisan????? Really? I must say a big THANK YOU to Sen. Ted Cruz for blocking a late night/early morning attempt by Sen. Schumer to swindle Americans. I'm thankful you were paying attention Sen. Cruz!
I say no, it’s time for the Democrats to step up and play fire with fire. As we have seen bipartisan does not mean the bill is beneficiary to those who need it. History has shown that bipartisan, especially when dealing with the GOP, usually mean more perks for corporations. Honestly I hope the house vote it down!! Start reconciliation and get a little more leverage. Manchin and Sienma appeasing their corporate donors have held the Democratic Party hostage far too long.
Get something done All this bullshit is getting old
It is a good start. Anything not in this "bill" that needs to be included therein can be worked into the reconstruction bill. Damn it! The people must come first----NOT big corporations, NOT the wealthiest, definitely NOT the LEECHES that congress tries to pacify with subsidies and other freebies. It must end YESTERDAY!
Let's not miss that the Senate GOP also blocked an attempt to revive the "For the People Act" to protect voting rights. The GOP isn't even willing to debate the bill, let alone pass it. Once again Senator Toomey and his cronies have shown they do not support the rights of the poor and communities of color to vote and have equality. We must vote them all out.