The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed the House of Representatives tonight. Here's what's in the package.
The New York Times:
The House passed a $1 trillion bill on Friday night to rebuild the country’s aging public works system, fund new climate resilience initiatives and expand access to high-speed internet service, giving final approval to a central plank of President Biden’s economic agenda after a daylong drama that pitted moderate Democrats against progressives.
But an even larger social safety net and climate change bill was back on hold, with a half-dozen moderate-to-conservative Democrats withholding their votes until a nonpartisan analysis could tally its price tag.
For Mr. Biden, passage of the infrastructure bill fulfilled a marquee legislative goal that he had promised to deliver since the early days of his presidency: the largest single investment of federal resources into infrastructure projects in more than a decade, including a substantial effort to fortify the nation’s response to the warming of the planet. The drubbing Democrats took in off-year elections on Tuesday gave new urgency to the president’s demand for legislative action.
The Washington Post:
The bipartisan 228-206 vote marked the final milestone for the first of two pieces in the president’s sprawling economic agenda. The outcome sends to Biden’s desk a sprawling initiative that promises to deliver its benefits to all 50 states, a manifestation of the president’s 2020 campaign pledge to rejuvenate the economy in the aftermath of the coronavirus and “build back better.”
The path to passage proved littered with political conflict, pushing to the limits a fractious party with still-widening ideological fissures. Democrats initially hoped to approve the infrastructure bill on Friday along with a separate, roughly $2 trillion proposal to overhaul the nation’s health care, education, immigration, climate and tax laws. Doing so would have advanced two spending initiatives that have been stalled on Capitol Hill for months.
Instead, House Democrats started only to debate, but did not finalize, the $2 trillion tax-and-spending package. Facing new delays, that bill remained bogged down in the broader war between liberals, who are eager to spend now that they are in the majority, and moderates, who continue to question the fiscal impacts of the bill.
The Wall Street Journal:
A major piece of Mr. Biden’s economic agenda and his vision for making the U.S. more competitive internationally, its passage in the House hands him a bipartisan achievement that presidents of both parties have tried, and failed, to achieve for years. His sagging poll numbers and Democrats’ recent loss in the gubernatorial race in Virginia had pushed Democrats to muscle the legislation through the finish line this week. […
But the effort was circuitous and tortured for House Democrats, whose paper-thin majority repeatedly complicated leadership’s plans for the legislation.
Democrats began Friday planning to approve the infrastructure bill after passing the rest of the party’s priorities in a separate, roughly $2 trillion education, healthcare and climate package. Progressive Democrats had demanded that the social-spending legislation first receive a vote in the House, hoping to ensure that centrists who support the public works bill would also vote for the broader education, healthcare and climate measures.
That design fell apart on Friday, though, as centrist Democrats demanded more time to analyze the cost of the social-spending bill, prompting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) to change tack and bring up the infrastructure bill for a vote.
Reuters:
The 228-to-206 vote is a substantial triumph for Biden's Democrats, who have bickered for months over the ambitious spending bills that make up the bulk of his domestic agenda.
Biden's administration will now oversee the biggest upgrade of America's roads, railways and other transportation infrastructure in a generation, which he has promised will create jobs and boost U.S. competitiveness.
Democrats still have much work to do on the second pillar of Biden's domestic program: a sweeping expansion of the social safety net and programs to fight climate change. At a price tag of $1.75 trillion, that package would be the biggest expansion of the U.S. safety net since the 1960s, but the party has struggled to unite behind it.
The Associated Press:
Approval of the legislation, which would create legions of jobs and improve broadband, water supplies and other public works, whisked it to the desk of a president whose approval ratings have dropped and whose nervous party got a cold shoulder from voters in this week’s off-year elections.
Democratic gubernatorial candidates were defeated in Virginia and squeaked through in New Jersey, two blue-leaning states. Those setbacks made party leaders — and moderates and progressives alike — impatient to produce impactful legislation and demonstrate they know how to govern. Democrats can also ill afford to seem in disarray a year before midterm elections that could result in Republicans regaining congressional control.
Simply freeing up the infrastructure measure for final congressional approval was a like a burst of adrenaline for Democrats. Yet despite the win, Democrats endured a setback when they postponed a vote on a second, even larger measure until later this month.