U.S. President Joe Biden called the adoption of the social spending bill a “giant step forward.”
The House of Representatives on Friday approved the bill “Restore better than it was,” worth $ 1.75 trillion, designed to strengthen the social protection system and combat climate change. The bill, which is a priority for the Joe Biden administration, has been sent to the Senate, where negotiations on its adoption will continue, Reuters reports.
The bill was passed by a small margin: 220 legislators voted for its adoption, 213 votes were cast “against.” Although it was previously assumed that the bill would be passed on Thursday, the vote was postponed after an hour-long speech by the head of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, who opposed the adoption of the law.
The fate of the package of social and climate investments, which must be approved in the Senate, remains unclear: centrist Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema continue to express concern about the volume of investments and some provisions of the bill. The volume of investments has been significantly reduced compared to the Democrats’ original plan of $3.5 trillion, but the bill still provides for investing billions of dollars in education, health care, and the fight against climate change.
The vote took place after the leader of the Republican minority in the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy made a speech, breaking all records for the length of the speech, which lasted for 8 and a half hours. McCarthy listed all the claims of Republicans to the bill, which, according to him, will contribute to an increase in the rate of inflation.
President Joe Biden spoke highly of the bill’s passage on Friday morning.
Biden called the results of the vote in the House of Representatives “another giant step forward in the implementation of my economic plan to create jobs, reduce costs, increase the competitiveness of our country and give workers and the middle class a chance to win.”
