The House passed the rule providing for the consideration of the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act, President Joe Biden’s signature legislation, late Friday night.
The House passed H. Res. 774, the resolution that provides the rule for the consideration of the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act.
The resolution passed 221-213, featuring all Democrats in favor of the bill and Republicans unanimously against the resolution.
Democrats hope to pass the mammoth legislation using budgetary reconciliation. Reconciliation would only require 51 votes in the Senate to pass. Republicans used reconciliation to pass the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Progressive and moderate Democrats have sparred over the last many months over how to pass President Joe Biden’s dual infrastructure bills – the Build Back Better Act, and the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill, or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Leftists and moderates struck an accord late Friday night.
Moderates pledged to vote to pass the Build Back Better Act after they see a Congressional Budget (CBO) score the week of November 15. Subsequently, progressives voted to pass the bipartisan bill Friday night.
This would likely set a vote for the Build Back Better Act within the next couple of weeks.
The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) found that, even though the Build Back Better Act would raise $1.48 trillion in taxes, it would still add to the national debt.
This runs counter to Biden’s claim that the bill would be fully paid for.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn-Wharton budget model said that the bill could actually cost $3.9 trillion.
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) said on the House floor Friday night before the vote:
Let’s start with a natural gas tax. President Biden promised that anyone who makes less than $400,000 a year won’t spend a dime, will not pay a dime in new taxes. He even whispers it into the microphone. The only problem is he breaks the promise right here in the bill. A tax that, according to the American Gas Association, will increase household electricity rates by 30 percent. And, by the way, that’s low-income families that pay that tax the hardest. [A] broken promise by President Biden right there.
“Then, you go down, and you look at amnesty. It’s been talked about. Millions of additional people will get amnesty in this bill. And it comes at a time where President Biden is negotiating – initially, he said he wasn’t and then the White House had to go back up and say the Justice Department is negotiating – half a million-dollar checks to people who came across our border illegally, and then they’re going to give amnesty to millions [of] more people. Estimates are seven million more people. Can you imagine the flood that will come over when they hear that you can get half a million dollars a person if President Biden gets his way?
“Then you go down the line. There’s more, unfortunately. Let’s look at, we’ll comb through, IRS agents! How many of us have our phones ringing off the hooks with people calling, saying, ‘Please add 87,000 more IRS agents to the rolls’? Not one of us has probably gotten that call. Yet, they put it in the bill. They call this ‘infrastructure.’ They call this ‘equity.’ Whatever they want to call it, it’s an army of IRS agents that are going to come for your bank account.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
Comments are closed.