WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Tuesday adopted a budget resolution needed to unlock a filibuster-proof $3.5 trillion package of domestic spending and tax breaks and teed up a vote on a separate bipartisan infrastructure bill next month.
The 220-212 vote capped off an eventful 24 hours of negotiating between Democratic leaders and a group of 10 party moderates who had planned to vote against the budget unless the infrastructure vote came first. While they didn’t get that demand met, they did get leadership to agree to holding the infrastructure vote no later than Sept. 27, a few days before surface transportation authorizations are set to expire Oct. 1.
The budget was “deemed” adopted when the House adopted a rule setting debate parameters for the Senate-passed infrastructure bill and voting rights legislation. The rule also included language that ensures the infrastructure bill will be brought to the floor by Sept. 27. The final rule the House adopted was the third iteration reported out of the Rules Committee during the flurry of negotiations.
The House was set to vote on the voting rights measure later Tuesday before recessing until Sept. 20. Leadership is hoping to have the reconciliation package, which committees have a Sept. 15 deadline to assemble, ready for floor action around the same time.
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer told reporters on a press call Tuesday afternoon shortly before the rule vote that leadership’s goal is to hold floor votes on the reconciliation package and the infrastructure bill by the end of September.
How soon the reconciliation package is ready "will dictate to some degree the flow of legislation," the Maryland Democrat said. "We have not got a hard view on sequencing."
The tight timeline, however, indicates leadership has backed off its previous strategy. Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been saying for months that the House would not vote on the infrastructure bill until the Senate passed the reconciliation package. But the House is expected to vote on reconciliation first and it’s unclear if the Senate would be able to weigh in before the Sept. 27 deadline for the infrastructure vote.
Hoyer, when asked if that dynamic proves moderates effectively won the negotiations, said he thinks "everybody won." He said he’s talked to both moderates and progressives, and both sides are on board with the new plan.
"I have assured people, in my view, both are going to pass. Whatever the sequence, both are going to pass," Hoyer said.
The end of September will be action-packed as Congress will also need to pass appropriations legislation to keep the government funded before the fiscal year ends Sept. 30, as well as a measure to raise or suspend the debt limit.
The statutory debt limit was reinstated Aug. 1 and Treasury has said the extraordinary measures it is using to continue paying government debt obligations will run out this fall, although it’s been difficult to nail down a more exact estimate.
Leaders have signaled they are likely to use a stopgap measure known as a continuing resolution that would extend fiscal 2021 funding levels and policy until agreement can be reached on the fiscal 2022 appropriations bills and attach a debt limit suspension to that. Both are expected to be short-term measures kicking the deadline for action into December.
The Senate adopted the budget resolution earlier this month, so the House's action Tuesday is the last step before committees in that chamber can start marking up their sections of the reconciliation package.
Committees have a Sept. 15 deadline to have their legislation ready for the Budget Committee to assemble in the reconciliation package. Hoyer said he set aside the first two weeks of September as committee work weeks, which should provide the panels with plenty of time to complete their markups.
The combined instructions to House committees add up to no more than $1.75 trillion in deficit-spending, but wiggle room is provided so that the tax-writing Ways and Means panel can include offsets for more if they can agree.
House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth, D-Ky., said Tuesday that his colleagues want to pay for as much as possible.
"The president wants to offset all of it, the speaker wants to offset all of it," Yarmuth told reporters. "I would love to see more spending, but that's the number the Senate agreed upon. Hopefully we can do what they agreed upon.”
During floor debate on the rule, Republicans attacked the measure as as tax-and-spend budget and accused Democrats of internal disarray.
"What we just witnessed is a circus," Budget ranking member Jason Smith, R-Mo., said during his floor remarks. “This is the people’s house, this is not Pelosi’s palace.”
Smith said Democrats wrote the rule to deem the budget resolution adopted “because they can’t pass (Senate Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders') budget.”
“Bernie Sanders may have lost the presidential primary but his policies have won,” Smith said of the Vermont independent. “Bernie Sanders controls this chamber along with the liberal squad," he added, a reference to a group of Democrats including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
The $3.5 trillion figure is expected to include enhanced child care subsidies; a new paid family leave program, clean energy incentives; affordable housing funds; an expansion of Medicare to cover dental, hearing and vision benefits; a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants and more.
Democrats have proposed offsetting some or all of the cost with tax increases on households earning more than $400,000 annually and on corporations, as well as with savings from lower prescription drug costs. Moderates in both chambers have expressed concern with the scope of the package as well as the offsets, and it wasn't yet clear party leaders will have the unity needed in both chambers to pass the measure next month.
As part of the negotiations to adopt the budget on Tuesday, some House Democratic centrists said Pelosi would outline a commitment to ensure the Senate can pass whatever the House ends up taking up in its reconciliation bill. They don't want to take a tough vote only to have it blocked in the Senate, similar to what happened in 2010 when the House passed climate change legislation expected to raise consumer energy costs, which the Senate never took up.
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(Paul M. Krawzak and Jessica Wehrman contributed to this report.)
