WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A $1 trillion infrastructure package that is a top priority for U.S. President Joe Biden secured enough votes to pass in the Senate on Tuesday, a bipartisan victory for the White House as it aims to provide the nation’s biggest investment in decades in roads, bridges, airports and waterways.
Voting was continuing in the 100-seat chamber after the measure secured the 50 votes needed for passage.
Polls show that the drive to upgrade America’s infrastructure, hammered out by a bipartisan group of senators over months of negotiations, is broadly popular with the public.
The bill https://www.reuters.com/world/us/whats-us-senates-bipartisan-1-trillion-infrastructure-bill-2021-08-03 still has to go to the House of Representatives and the spirit of cooperation in Congress that led to its passage on Tuesday will likely prove fleeting.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer aims to follow the bill with a budget resolution laying the groundwork for $3.5 trillion https://www.reuters.com/world/us/paid-leave-clean-energy-preschool-democrats-35-trln-plan-2021-08-09 to be spent on healthcare, climate change and other Biden priorities that Democrats will almost certainly have to pass over Republican objections in a maneuver known as “budget reconciliation https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senates-reconciliation-process-its-not-way-it-sounds-2021-06-16.”
Once the resolution is adopted, Democrats will begin crafting the reconciliation package for a vote on passage after they return from their summer break in September.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said repeatedly that her chamber will not take up either bill until she has both in hand, meaning that months of work remain before Tuesday’s measure would go to Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office on Thursday said the infrastructure bill would increase federal budget deficits by $256 billion over 10 years — an assessment rejected by negotiators who said the CBO was undercounting how much revenue it would generate.
After working for two consecutive weekends on the infrastructure bill, an around-the-clock “vote-a-rama” session could be in store for the Senate starting Tuesday afternoon as it kicks off debate on the larger budget plan.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled that Republicans would try to use the voting sessions to pick off support from moderate Democrats for what he called a “radical” spending package that would create a permanent welfare state and usher in the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history.
“Every single senator will be going on record over and over and over,” McConnell added. “We will debate, and we will vote, and we will stand up, and we will be counted, and the people of this country will know exactly which senators fought for them.”
The budget plan would provide various Senate committees with top-line spending levels for a wide range of federal initiatives, including helping the elderly get home healthcare and more families afford early childhood education.
It also would provide tuition-free community college and foster major investments in programs to significantly reduce carbon emissions blamed for climate change.
Later, Senate committees would have to fill in the details for scores of federal programs.
The budget blueprint was formally unveiled on Monday, the same day a U.N. climate panel warned that global warming was reaching emergency levels, or what U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as a “code red for humanity.”
Senate passage of the infrastructure bill and the budget plan would clear the way for it to begin a month-long summer break.
When Congress returns in September, it will not only debate the large investment measures but have to fund government activities for the fiscal year beginning on Oct. 1, increase Washington’s borrowing authority and possibly try to pass a voting reform bill.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan and David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)
