The unprecedented $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that was passed by the Senate last month may be at risk of failing in the House.
That word comes from several insiders who say an effort is underway to secure passage first of a much larger $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package that funds an array of social and climate initiatives.
Failure of the Senate to pass the $3.5 trillion legislation could peel away the votes needed to pass the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a strong advocate of the reconciliation package, has said that falling short of an agreement on how to fund that legislation, many members of the House will walk away from the infrastructure bill.
“There is a real danger that this bill will lose,” Sanders said in an interview, referencing the $3.5 billion bill now before the Senate. And if that happens, Sanders added, “the infrastructure bill will lose in the House.”
A small group of lawmakers, including West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, have said that they will not support the reconciliation bill given its current price tag.
Manchin further criticized the idea that the fate of both bills should be intertwined: “I’ve never seen this in legislation. I never thought the purposes of the progress we make in legislation was basically to hold one hostage over the other.”
In a column for the Wall Street Journal, Manchin said he would not support funding at “anywhere near that level of additional spending without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effect inflation and debt have on existing government programs.”
A new House proposal designed to secure funding for the larger legislation calls for a new tax rate of 25.5% on corporations.
In a just-released summary released by the House Ways and Means Committee, that proposal would also include a 3% surcharge on individual incomes above the $5 million mark.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that she wants the House to take a vote on both bills by no later than October 1.
By Garry Boulard
