House Democrats clear path toward passing $3.5 trillion budget bill and infrastructure plan after breaking stalemate

House Democrats forged ahead with President Joe Biden’s economic plans Tuesday after they broke a stalemate that threatened to unravel the party’s sprawling agenda.

In a 220-212 party-line vote, the chamber passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution and advanced a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. The vote allows Democrats to write and approve a massive spending package without Republicans and puts the Senate-passed infrastructure plan on a path to final passage in the House.

The measure includes a nonbinding commitment to vote on the infrastructure bill by Sept. 27, which aims to appease nine centrist Democrats who pushed the House to consider the bipartisan plan before it took up the Democratic budget resolution. The vote also advances a sweeping voting rights bill, which Democrats aim to pass as soon as Tuesday.

In a statement Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she is “committing to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill by September 27” and would “rally” her caucus to pass it. She also stressed that she aims to pass a budget reconciliation bill that could get through the Senate — meaning it may prove smaller than House progressives want.

The opposition from the nine holdout Democrats threatened an agenda that supporters say will boost the economy and provide a lifeline to working-class households. Democratic leaders have cast the budget plan as the biggest expansion of the American social safety net in decades and the infrastructure bill as an overdue refresh of transportation and utilities.

“The bottom line is, in my view, we are a step closer to truly investing in the American people, positioning our economy for long-term growth and building an America that outcompetes the rest of the world,” Biden said Tuesday after the vote. “My goal is to build an economy from the bottom up and middle out, not just the top down.”

Pelosi has pushed to pass the bipartisan and Democratic plans at the same time in order to ensure centrists and progressives back both measures. The nine Democrats withheld their support, leaving Pelosi and her top deputies scrambling to find a path forward to salvage the party’s economic plans.