House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is staring down the nine centrist lawmakers demanding an immediate vote on the bipartisan infrastructure package — all but daring them to sink President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.
Driving the news: White House officials and congressional leaders have been pressing the nine throughout the weekend to withdraw their threat to vote against consideration of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package but the lawmakers aren’t budging.
“Right now, the position of the nine is we are not going to vote for the budget resolution until we get the BIF done,” Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.) told Axios, referring to the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
“When you eat an apple, you eat it one bite at the time,” she said. “We need to take the first bite, chew it and digest it and get to the next bite.”
White House and congressional officials are confident they’ll eventually force the nine to back down on this week’s procedural vote, though some of the nine have substantive objectives to spending an additional $3.5 trillion.
