House Democrats Divide on Infrastructure Strategy

The House is set to return to business next week to vote on the Senate passed $3.5 trillion budget resolution. If passed by the House, the budget reconciliation process will formally begin, a critical first step toward congressional consideration of President Biden’s wide-ranging economic and social agenda to create a paid leave program, address climate change, reform taxes, and expand health coverage and education benefits.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving forward with her plan to force a vote on the budget, but not a vote on the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by the Senate last week. In a letter to the Speaker, eight moderate Democrats expressed urgency to vote on the hard infrastructure package as a standalone bill and to be given an opportunity to review spending levels before adopting a budget resolution. Separately, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus shared in a letter to Democratic leaders that their commitment is to ensuring the hard infrastructure bill is enacted on the condition that the “robust package of social, human, and climate infrastructure” is simultaneously passed in Congress through the budget reconciliation process.

Internal divisions present a challenge in moving forward with the budget reconciliation process and ultimately enacting President Biden’s agenda. Speaker Pelosi can lose only a handful of Democratic votes and still prevail against unified Republican opposition in the House.

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