WASHINGTON – Nine moderate Democrats in the House of Representatives intend to tell Spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi on Friday that they will not vote for a budget decision that will pave the way for a $ 3.5 trillion welfare package to be passed later this year is supposed to house until a Senate-approved infrastructure bill is passed and is signed into law.
The pledge, which will be released in a letter expected to be released on Friday, is a major rift that threatens the carefully choreographed, two-pronged efforts of the Democrats in Congress and the Biden administration, both trillion-dollar non-party infrastructure -Deal as well as adopting an even more ambitious – but partisan – social policy measure. The nine members of the House of Representatives are more than enough to block scrutiny of the draft budget in a house where Democrats have a three-seat majority.
The Senate passed the infrastructure bill on Tuesday with 69 votes, including 19 Republicans. It then approved a $ 3.5 trillion budget resolution in a party line vote early Wednesday that would allow Democrats in both houses to pass the social policy bill this fall without fear of a Republican Senate filibuster say goodbye.
To reassure more liberal Democrats who are more interested in the social policy law, Ms. Pelosi promised that she would not put the infrastructure law to the vote in the House of Representatives until the Senate passes the social policy law.
Given the 50-50 partisan split in the Senate, this may not happen well into the fall. And moderate Democrats in the House of Representatives say delaying an infrastructure vote runs the risk of unforeseen events derailing them.
“With the livelihoods of hard-working American families at stake, we simply cannot afford months of unnecessary delays and risk wasting this century’s bipartisan infrastructure package,” the letter submitted to and submitted to the New York Times reads Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey, as lead author. “It’s time to shovel shovels in the ground and get people to work.”
Complicating the situation is that more than half of the nearly 100-strong Progressive Caucus in Congress take the opposite position, saying they won’t vote for the Infrastructure Bill until they have a sociopolitical measure that funds their priorities: climate change , Education, healthcare, family vacations, childcare and elderly care.
With the promised defectors from the Progressive Caucus, it appears that Ms. Pelosi is facing a stalemate as she does not have the votes to either get the infrastructure bill to President Biden’s desk or move forward the budgetary resolution needed to bring final Republican legislation forward Protect disability.
So far, most Democrats in Congress have been optimistic that both measures will find enough support.
“This is President Biden’s agenda, this is the Democrats’ agenda, this is what we walked on and what we need to deliver,” Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Progressive Caucus leader, said of the social policy bill. “It is important for us not to miss the target and I see no conflict.”
But their moderate counterparts do. “We will not consider voting for a budget decision until the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Bill is passed by the House of Representatives and comes into effect,” they wrote.
The draft letter was signed by Mr. Gottheimer and representatives Filemon Vela from Texas, Henry Cuellar from Texas, Ed Case from Hawaii, Kurt Schrader from Oregon, Carolyn Bourdeaux from Georgia, Jared Golden from Maine, Vicente Gonzalez from Texas and Jim Costa from California.
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