A Breakthrough On The Build Back Better Agenda? Possible House Vote Tonight

After all we have seen to date, I would urge caution, and to take this latest reporting with a grain of salt. I’ll believe it when a vote is actually scheduled (Nancy Pelosi does not schedule votes unless she is confident that she has the votes).

The Hill reports, House Democrats aim for Thursday vote on social spending package:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Democrats are aiming to vote on their social spending package later Thursday, with a Friday vote on the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill, as they race to break an impasse on President Biden’s stalled domestic agenda.

It’s not yet clear if Democratic leaders will be able to round up the votes in their caucus, since some centrists obstructionists want more time to review the legislative text and wait for a cost analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.

Note:  This is dilatory tactics by obstructionists. A new report from the House Joint Committee On Taxation found that Build Back Better is fully paid for and reduces the deficit. Joe Manchin Is Out Of Excuses As Report Shows Build Back Better Reduces Deficit:

Speaker Pelosi wrote in a dear colleague letter provided to PoliticusUSA:

Also this morning, the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation issued their report which shows that Build Back Better is solidly paid for.  Specifically, the report finds that the tax-increase provisions in the bill would raise $1.5 trillion over 10 years.  This analysis does not include the legislation’s other pay-fors, including prescription drug pricing savings and IRS enforcement.  Estimates suggest that these two pay-fors together will raise approximately $650 billion, putting the total revenue above $2 trillion.  It is essential that the legislation is fully paid for and reduces the debt.

Previous reports, including from the nonpartisan Moody’s Analytics and 17 Nobel Prize-winning economists, have affirmed that Build Back Better will grow the economy without increasing inflation because it is fully paid for.  As the Moody’s report concluded, “Concerns that the plan will ignite undesirably high inflation and an overheating economy are overdone.” The Nobel economists similarly found, “Because this agenda invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease longer-term inflationary pressures.”

Democrats have made changes to the bill that make it both paid for and deficit-friendly. There is no reason for Sen. Manchin to keep dragging his feet on supporting the bill. Sen. Manchin will likely want to see more data, but if the CBO score matches up with the Taxation Committee’s report, there will be no reason for Manchin to continue to hold up Build Back Better (BBB).

It looks like the BBB train is leaving the station, and it is time for Manchin to decide if he is going to get on board.

But Democrats emerged from a closed-door whip meeting in the Capitol saying the divisions that have prevented an agreement were falling away, and lawmakers were “un-circling the firing squad,” in the words of Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.).

“Hopefully we’ll see if we have votes for [Build Back Better] tonight and [the bipartisan infrastructure bill] tomorrow morning,” Pelosi said during a closed-door meeting with her vote-counting operations, according to a source familiar with her remarks.

The votes would come just two days after Democrats lost the race for governor in Virginia, where the party hadn’t come up short in a statewide race since 2009. Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy also only narrowly hung onto his seat in a race that wasn’t expected to be as competitive.

[T]he Speaker, who had sought a vote on the infrastructure legislation last week only to be rebuffed by her liberal wing, softly chided those progressives on Thursday, saying passage of that bill likely would have helped Democrats in state races across the country.

“It would have been better if we’d had it,” she said.

Putting Biden’s roughly $1.75 trillion social and climate spending package on the floor without support from key Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) represents a change in tactics for Pelosi and her team. She and the White House have been furiously working for weeks to strike a deal with Manchin on Build Back Better, but this week the centrist senator slammed Biden’s framework as full of “budget gimmicks” and urged his party to pump the brakes after Tuesday’s election drubbing in Virginia.

Many House Democrats now believe Manchin will never verbally voice support for a package [demonstrating bad faith] and that voting on their own House bill is the only way to put pressure on Manchin and break the intraparty stalemate.

“Manchin’s not going to give a blood oath, so let’s just put it out there,” House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), a member of Pelosi’s leadership team, told The Hill on Thursday. “Everyday we delay, we empower Manchin more.”

In bringing the vote without Manchin’s public endorsement, House Democrats have also challenged the West Virginia moderate with new policies he’s previously rejected: paid family leave and hearing coverage under Medicare are both included in an amended version of the package unveiled by the House Rules Committee on Wednesday.

“We hope that he will see the light of day,” Pelosi said of Manchin.

Other provisions in House Democrats’ bill are also at risk of reversal in the Senate. The latest House version would raise the state and local tax [SALT] deduction cap to $72,500, and keep that limit in place through 2031. But Sens. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are proposing to leave the cap at $10,000 but create an exemption for taxpayers with income under around $400,000.

Democratic leaders are hoping that the analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) showing that the revenue provisions in the social spending package would raise nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years will satisfy at least five centrist budget hawks demanding a detailed cost analysis before they cast any votes.

Pelosi on Thursday touted the JCT report as “validating” evidence that the package “is solidly paid for.” The Speaker also noted that party leaders have been keeping the CBO abreast of all updates and amendments to the legislation, saying the official cost estimate should arrive quickly since the new language “is not new to them.”

“This shouldn’t take long to get,” she said.

Despite the optimistic front, a number of policy sticking points remain even among House Democrats. Centrist obstructionist Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) emerged from Thursday’s meeting voicing concerns with provisions designed to rein in methane emissions — a key part of Biden’s effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent, relative to 2005 levels, by 2030.

He is protecting the oil and gas industry in Texas as the planet burns.

A handful of members of the Hispanic Caucus have also balked at the idea of supporting a final package without the inclusion of broader immigration benefits.

Pelosi on Thursday acknowledged the importance of getting immigration language into the legislation, but said it would be limited to the so-called parole option included in the last draft of the House bill. That provision would offer undocumented immigrants the potential to receive two, five-year passes to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation.

But it does not offer permanent residency, and immigration reformers have pushed for that option by including the so-called registry proposal. Pelosi offered support for the registry policy, but said she won’t include that language in the House bill without iron-clad assurances that it could pass through the Senate.

“It doesn’t seem to have a big prospect in the Senate,” she said. “So we don’t want to ask members to vote for something that wouldn’t have a good prospect on the Senate [side] that is controversial.”

Democrats cautioned that the plans to vote on both bills this week are still tentative.

“Nothing’s firm right now,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), the leader of the New Democrat Coalition. “[Pelosi] just said she’s still going to try to get both of them this week.”

Progressives are declaring victory ahead of a possible vote Thursday on President Biden’s social spending and climate package. Progressives declare victory in spending bill fight:

Liberals in the House for weeks have refused to allow a vote on a bipartisan infrastructure bill approved by the Senate without also getting one on the larger budget package.

Now it appears the House is inching toward a vote on that legislation, with another on the infrastructure bill to follow on Friday.

Progressives led by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) have seen the bill get whittled down from $3.5 trillion amid opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and House centrists obstructionists, and they’ve had to agree to concessions on priority policies.

But the bill headed toward getting a vote includes once again four weeks of family leave, making it stronger from their perspective than the framework deal announced last week.

It’s possible that the family leave provision will be cut before a Senate vote, but the action by the House is intended to make it more difficult to remove it completely from the package.

After Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signaled the possible vote, progressives inside and outside of Congress expressed their pleasure.

Asked if a vote would be possible tonight if left-wing members didn’t remain firm in their position, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), a progressive, said “no.”

“Oh, no,” Bush said. “This would have been a different situation if we would have kept going the way we were asked to go last week.”

Grassroots leaders also took note of the progress.

“I have definitely been encouraged to see just over the last 24 hours that there does seem to be a continued sense of excitement or momentum for actually passing the full — or as close as possible — to the Build Back Better agenda,” said Lucy Solomon, national political director at Indivisible, a grassroots network.

“There would be a universe in which we would wake up after the losses in Virginia and we’d see lawmakers moving away from passing legislation,” she added, “and I’m very encouraged to see that legislators seem to be cognizant of the fact that voters want them to take action.”

* * *

Progressives are arguing there are other reasons for McAuliffe’s defeat, and that the degree to which inaction in Congress contributed is not just because the left demanded movement on Biden’s social spending agenda.

They note Manchin and other moderates obstructionists were slow to negotiate on that more expansive legislation, which held up a deal. If anyone is to blame for the gridlock, it is these centrists obstructionists, they argue.

“Psychologically, it’s moderates in denial. That’s what they have to do to defend their inaction in Congress,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution.

“I think there’s always a lot of excuses and it’s never one thing,” added Kelly Dietrich, who runs the National Democratic Training Committee.

“People can say, ‘oh the progressives didn’t allow this.’ It’s not progressives holding up things in the Senate,” said Dietrich. “If we had 50 votes in the Senate to pass these things, this shit would be done.”

[E]ither way, both sides in the debate think it is smart to act swiftly now.

“If Democrats don’t want the past to be prologue, then they need to deliver on an economic plan that lowers costs so working people feel some real breathing room in their lives,” said Jesse Ferrguson, a longtime Democratic strategist. “That’s how you turn the environment around.”

* * *

“We’re just half-way through the cycle,” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) told The Hill.

“We have time to earn victory next November, but we need to spend the next year playing sharper, playing smarter.”

“That means passing bills that will meaningfully improve people’s everyday lives, and delivering real tax cuts for working families,” Schneider said. “That’s how we put the results in Virginia behind us and set Democrats up for success next year.”