Now that House Democrats have passed President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better reconciliation bill, when, if ever, will the Senate begin voting on the legislation?
The Senate is on Thanksgiving break now, and they are due to come back Monday. They will not immediately take up BBB next week because they are still working on the National Defense Authorization Act, legislation Democrats wanted to wrap up before Thanksgiving but failed.
Punting NDAA past Thanksgiving was a surprise, so it is difficult to tell when the Senate will finish that business. Senate leadership has not released the final text of the bill, and there is no agreement on how many amendment votes there will be — or if there will be any amendment votes at all. The NDAA could wrap up by midweek next week, or it could drag on and take up the whole week again.
After the Senate finishes with NDAA, they then have to pass a continuing resolution to replace the existing CR that expires Dec. 3. This will probably be another short-term measure that punts to right around Christmas.
After punting again on the CR, the Senate will then have to do something about the debt limit. Senate Republicans have twice passed short-term debt limit hikes, both of which already enabled Democrats to keep working on BBB.
Will Senate Republicans again enable Democrats to work on BBB by passing another short-term debt limit hike? Or will they finally force Democrats to go through the process of reconciliation and raise the debt limit by themselves?
It is hard to see how any vote to help the Democrats pass another temporary debt limit hike isn’t also a vote to help pass Biden’s BBB agenda.
