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- The US House of Representatives passed the Build Back Better Act, the $1.85 trillion social spending bill that is the centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda. It now goes to an evenly divided Senate, where it faces an uphill battle to please both centrist and progressive members. [NBC/ Christina Wilkie]
- The bill passed narrowly, 220-213, and includes provisions for universal pre-K, tax increases on corporations and the wealthy, and $555 billion to mitigate climate change. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the only Democrat to vote against the bill, saying he was hoping to see edits to the bill in the Senate. [WSJ / Andrew Duehren and Richard Rubin]
- Other moderate Democrats expressed anxiety over the bill’s impact on the nation’s deficit and how it would be paid for, saying they wanted to wait on the Congressional Budget Office’s report to decide whether to vote for the bill. The CBO estimate, released Thursday, said the legislation would cost $1.63 trillion, while raising more than $1.26 trillion in revenue due to tax code changes and other measures; an additional $207 billion in revenue would come from increased IRS enforcement. [CBS / Sarah Ewall-Wice, Kathryn Watson, Caroline Linton, and Melissa Quinn]
- House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy held up the vote on the bill with a speech that lasted more than eight hours — the longest continuous speech in modern House history. While the House doesn’t have an equivalent of the Senate’s filibuster, McCarthy took advantage of the so-called “magic minute,” which lets House leaders talk as long as they want in debate. [NYT / Emily Cochrane and Jonathan Weisman]
- But the bill passed anyway, just before 10 am Washington time on Friday. Many of the measures, however, have been greatly reduced or, like a provision for free community college, eliminated due to major disagreements within the Democratic Party. [Politico / Heather Caygle, Sarah Ferris, and Nicholas Wu]
- The bill still awaits Senate revisions, although those won’t happen until after the Thanksgiving recess. Then, if it passes the Senate, it will likely go back to the House for approval of the changes before it goes to Biden’s desk for a signature. [Axios / Andrew Solender and Sarah Mucha]