CNN
House Democrats pushed back a vote on President Joe Biden’s plan to dramatically expand the social safety net after House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy stalled floor action with a marathon speech that stretched into the early hours of Friday morning.
Democrats had been hoping to pass the legislation Thursday evening, but McCarthy thwarted that plan by delivering a lengthy speech railing against Democrats on the House floor. It’s unclear when McCarthy will finish speaking.
The sweeping $1.9 trillion economic legislation stands as a key pillar of Biden’s domestic agenda and Democrats are still confident they have the votes to pass the bill later Friday morning. The House is slated to reconvene Friday morning at 8 a.m. ET.
The legislation would deliver on long-standing Democratic priorities by dramatically expanding social services for Americans, working to mitigate the climate crisis, increasing access to health care and delivering aid to families and children.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer explained the delay by saying McCarthy wants to force passage of the bill “in the dead of night,” a politically charged description that has been used to criticize legislation in the past.
“We are going to do it in the day,” Hoyer said.
McCarthy was able to hold the floor indefinitely under the procedures of the House, which say the majority leader and the minority leader get what’s called a “Magic Minute” at the end of floor debate, meaning they can speak for as long as they want. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi used a similar tactic as minority leader in 2018, speaking for more than eight hours on the House floor in a speech about young undocumented immigrants, the longest in House history.
Once the legislation passes the House, it will face key hurdles in the Senate, with a fight looming over a controversial tax provision and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia still not on board.
As a result, Democrats are working hard to keep their fragile coalition of moderates and progressives united behind the package. The legislation has already been the subject of intense disputes between warring party factions in the House, and Democrats have no margin for error in the Senate.
The legislation will likely have to be altered, potentially significantly, to get every member of the Senate Democratic caucus to vote for it as key members raise major concerns with the contents of the bill.
What’s in the legislation
The Build Back Better Act represents a central part of Biden’s policy agenda and an attempt by congressional Democrats to go it alone without GOP support to enact a major expansion of the social safety net.
The House and Senate recently passed, and Biden then signed into law, a separate $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, which marked a major legislative achievement for both parties.
The Build Back Better Act is an effort by Democrats to build on that investment in traditional infrastructure by making extensive investments to ramp up social programs and address the climate crisis.
Among its many provisions, the legislation would create a universal pre-K program, extend the enhanced child tax credit and expand access to health care, affordable housing and home care for seniors.
The Congressional Budget Office released its final scoring for the bill early Thursday evening, estimating that the package “would result in a net increase in the deficit totaling $367 billion over the 2022-2031 period…
