“A giant step”
After months of dispute: Congress passes Biden’s infrastructure package
Visible relief on the president’s face: with his infrastructure program he has at least achieved a partial victory.
© Alex Brandon / AP / DPA
The billions package Joe Biden wanted made it through Congress. A partial victory for the US President, who is under massive pressure.
Success for US President Joe Biden: His billion dollar infrastructure package has been finally passed by the US Congress. After months of tough negotiations, this is “a huge step forward,” Biden said in the White House on Saturday. Previously, a majority of the House of Representatives voted in favor of the $ 1.2 trillion project. This provides for billions to be invested in roads, bridges, tunnels, water pipes and broadband internet.
The Senate had already approved the law in August. In the House of Representatives vote on Friday evening, Biden’s Democrats needed 218 votes to pass; in the end they even got 228 votes. So more than a dozen Republicans joined the Democrats in supporting the bill. 206 MPs voted against.
“I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that we have made a huge step forward as a nation,” said Biden on Saturday. The infrastructure plan is an investment of the kind “once per generation”. He will create “millions of jobs”.
Dispute over infrastructure program
The Democrats had argued over the infrastructure package for months. The left wing of the party has been blocking a vote on it for weeks because it first wanted to wrap up the social and climate protection package. The vote in the House of Representatives on this $ 1.75 trillion package called “Build Back Better” was postponed on Friday due to internal party disputes.
Some Democratic MPs have called for further “clarifications” on how the package will be financed. Such an assessment should take around a week. The party wings therefore only agreed on a procedural vote to initiate the parliamentary process.
On Friday morning, the president urged his party’s MPs to vote in favor of the two investment packages. “I call on every MP to vote yes to both laws now,” he said. Although the vote on the Build-Back-Better Act was initially postponed, Biden continued to be optimistic on Saturday that this too would ultimately be passed by Congress.
The social and climate protection package includes an expansion of childcare, care for the elderly and statutory health insurance, tax cuts for families and $ 555 billion for climate policy.
Biden under pressure
Biden had already cut the $ 3.5 trillion build-back-better package in half in the face of opposition from influential Senator Joe Manchin. The center politician Manchin still has reservations and warns that the measures could lead to new debt and fuel inflation. The White House rejects this, stating that the opposite is the case.
Biden is currently under massive domestic political pressure. Most recently, his Democrats suffered a severe setback in the gubernatorial election in Virginia on Tuesday: their candidate Terry McAuliffe was defeated by Republican Glenn Youngkin. Observers also blamed the pinning of Biden’s reform agenda.