After the House voted to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Friday night, they then took up a vote to support President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan. However, that vote was not a vote to pass the bill.
First off, there are two separate bills. There is the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is the one that was actually passed. Then there is the human infrastructure bill, otherwise known again as the build back better plan. The vote on the build back better plan was merely a procedural vote.
This human infrastructure bill would expand the social safety net, and at current estimates, the bill would cost about 1.75 to 1.9 trillion dollars. The procedural vote that took place was a vote on the rule, which is just the first step to getting this bill passed. It still needs to go to a final vote in the house in order to pass.
If the bill does pass the House, it will then go to the Senate. In the Senate there will be a vote-a-rama, followed by a final vote. If the bill is changed in the Senate as compared to the version the House passed, the bill will have to return to the House for further review.
We’ve known for a while now that the Democrats plan to pass this bill on their own, without getting a single Republican vote. In the end this process is far from over, and even things like the final price of the bill are still up in the air.
