Biden Build Back Better bill passes procedural vote in House

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives passed a key procedural vote early Saturday morning to line up eventual passage of the Build Back Better Act, President Joe Biden’s signature social safety net and climate change bill.

The party-line vote came soon after the House late Friday night passed the $1 trillion, Senate-approved bipartisan infrastructure bill, which will now go to Biden’s desk.

The procedural vote on the bigger social services and climate plan represented just a partial victory for the White House and Democratic leaders in the House, who had hoped to pass both the procedural vote and the final bill Friday.

Still, the move showed for the first time that the Democratic caucus could unite behind a vote to advance the Build Back Better legislation, even if they could not come together to vote to pass the final bill.

“The Build Back Better Act will be a once-in-a-generation investment in our people,” Biden said in a statement lauding the passage of the infrastructure plan and the successful procedural vote for his social and climate plan.

The final passage plan fell apart late Friday morning, when it became clear that a small group of House moderates would not vote for the bill until they saw an economic analysis from the Congressional Budget Office of the bill’s long term impacts on the budget deficit, known as a CBO score.

Even the procedural vote looked dicey for several hours on Friday afternoon after progressives balked at the idea of passing a final version of a companion infrastructure bill favored by moderates, without simultaneously passing a final version of the Build Back Better Act.

The impasse was only resolved after Biden personally stepped in and brokered a deal. Moderates agreed to issue a formal pledge to vote for the social spending bill, provided the CBO score showed that it would not add to the budget deficit.

The CBO is unlikely to have that report ready for several days, however, and Congress will be in recess next week. Initially, it had appeared as though House moderates would be satisfied with a report that was released Thursday by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.

That report found that the $1.75 trillion social spending bill would not add to the federal deficit long-term. But the report did not take into consideration several major parts of the bill that were still being negotiated early this week, when the analysis was performed.

The procedural vote sets up the conditions on the final vote, such as how much time each party gets to debate the bill on the House floor, and whether any amendments can be introduced. It also sets into stone what the bill will contain…