Congress passes $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, delivering an important part of Joe Biden's congressional agenda to Americans

The Democrats who voted no were progressives, mad at moderate democrats for first stalling the bill.

That's a pretty reductive take, making it seem as if it was done out of pettiness, but that's not the case at all. From VOX:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided to keep the infrastructure vote on the books, and delay the vote on the Build Back Better Act until lawmakers could get more information.

This strategy immediately prompted uproar from progressives, making it appear that the infrastructure vote would fail. Because Democrats have such narrow margins in the House, they can’t afford to lose more than three members on any vote. That gives any group of moderates or progressives the power to hold up legislation.

Biden intervened Friday night, and with Pelosi, offered progressives and moderates a deal. In exchange for progressive votes for the infrastructure package, moderates would pledge to vote for the spending bill, so long as the Congressional Budget Office — which will lay out how much the measure adds to spending and the deficit — finds the measure’s fiscal impact is as projected.

The fate of the social spending bill, however, is now uncertain. Moderates are holding out for a score from the Congressional Budget Office before they move forward. And the CBO could find the spending bill would have more than the expected budget deficit impact. In that case, moderates did not say they would commit to voting for the bill, though most of the holdouts did promise to try “to resolve any discrepancies in order to pass the Build Back Better legislation.” Some could conceivably refuse to vote for it at all. In the best-case scenario, a vote on the bill isn’t expected to take place until later this month and then, should it pass, it must still get through the Senate as well.

Of concern to progressives is whether the spending package will stay alive. Without a concurrent vote on the social spending measure, progressives don’t have much leverage to ensure that it won’t be abandoned entirely.

Previously, Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said that progressives trusted Biden to deliver the support of moderate Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for the bill. Both senators have demanded major cuts and reworking to the spending package over the past few weeks, and Manchin, in particular, has expressed concern about the cost.

Now, they’ll get a chance to see if moderates in both the House and the Senate actually come through for the legislation, if they’ll continue to whittle it down, or if they will come to oppose it altogether.

It could take as much as two weeks for the House to get a CBO score on the bill, something the Senate is also waiting on for the budget reconciliation process. The deal struck between progressives and moderates projected CBO data would come by November 15.

Any delays in getting that score could pose a problem for getting the Build Back Better Act passed before the year is over — or even before next spring, when lawmakers will begin to turn their attention to the 2022 midterm elections.

Congress will be on recess for two weeks in November and out again in the second half of December. Should the CBO score come in two weeks, lawmakers would receive it right before leaving Washington for the Thanksgiving recess. After returning from that break, lawmakers would have roughly 10 legislative days left before their winter recess to get the bill through the House and Senate.

Finishing the spending bill is expected to be particularly difficult, given that Democrats haven’t yet agreed on what will be in it. Moderate senators are still pushing back on the size and some provisions in the spending legislation, and have winnowed it down considerably in recent weeks. Progressives in both chambers are working to put provisions that have been stripped out back in, and, as was seen Friday, moderates continue to voice concerns about overall cost.

Even once the social spending bill passes the House, it will still face a long journey through the Senate. The bill is being advanced through the budget reconciliation process, which allows bills to pass the Senate with a simple majority. Democrats have a one-vote majority, but reconciliation also mandates a bill’s provisions affect the budget.

The Senate parliamentarian, who rules on what is and isn’t allowed in a reconciliation bill, will need to make a decision on what can and can’t be included in the bill after Democrats finish their internal negotiations and the CBO score is released. After that, again, as part of the reconciliation process, the bill will also have to go through a step known as “vote-a-rama” in which senators can offer amendments to the legislation and potentially alter it even more.

Once passed in the Senate, it will head back to the House, where lawmakers will need to approve the Senate’s changes.

It’s also important to remember that the spending bill isn’t the only thing lawmakers need to address. On December 3, if Congress doesn’t take action, the government will default on its debts, triggering a potential global economic crisis. If lawmakers don’t pass more funding for the federal government, it could shut down.

And if the House fails to advance the social spending bill, Biden’s full agenda — and all the benefits it hopes to bring — won’t come to fruition, either.

And as AOC tweeted last month:

We cannot advance legislation that makes the climate crisis worse.

The Exxon-designed “bipartisan” infrastructure plan worsens emissions, but pairing it w/clean energy in Build Back Better neutralizes BIF’s harm and lets us tackle the climate crisis.

We cannot afford to gut it.