US House of Representatives
MPs vote on Biden’s trillion dollar package – and also on his presidency
US President Joe Biden will be watching the House vote with great interest.
© Almond Ngan / AFP
Will Joe Biden’s billion dollar climate and social package make it through the US House of Representatives? If the US president’s investment plan is rejected, his term of office is likely to have almost failed.
US President Joe Biden is under pressure after his Democrats were defeated in the state of Virginia. “What I know is that people want us to do something,” he said after the failure. “People are angry and insecure about many things.” He himself presumably too, because his own party has been blocking its huge investment packages for months in wing battles. The planned social investments do not go far enough for the left wing, but they are too expensive for the right wing. Now is the long-awaited showdown in Washington.
Package valued at $ 1.75 trillion
Because this Friday the US House of Representatives wants to vote on the social and climate protection package. High-ranking Democrats announced that the vote on the $ 1.75 trillion package, known as Build Back Better, has been scheduled for tomorrow. Originally, Biden wanted to spend $ 3.5 trillion on renewable energies, e-car subsidies, childcare and care for the elderly. But after resistance from the influential, more conservative Senator Joe Manchin, Build Back Better was cut in half.
Various plans that Biden had originally included in the package were dropped, including his significant plan to introduce twelve weeks of paid parental leave, as well as other improvements in health promotion. These are things that progressive Democrats hold dear. As leverage, they had threatened to block the large-scale infrastructure package, also initiated by Biden, amounting to around one trillion dollars. The aim is to modernize roads, bridges, water pipes and internet networks. The project has already been decided in the Senate and is now waiting for the final vote in the other Congress Chamber, the House of Representatives.
Joe Biden’s term of office is up for voting
For the US President, the upcoming vote is basically about everything. Should his investment plan fail, the entire project may have died completely, but as good as. Joe Biden would not have gotten through the heart of his tenure despite a Democratic majority. It is currently more than uncertain that it will continue after the mid-term election next year, when parts of the US Congress will be re-elected.