'We've just taken a monumental step forward as a nation': Joe Biden celebrates passage of his $1.2T bipartisan infrastructure bill ahead of a vote on Build Back Better before Thanksgiving: Six Squad members are the only Democrats to oppose it
President Biden said the country 'took a monumental step forward' after the House passed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill with a vote of 228 to 206 on Friday night.
The vote late on Friday night is a substantial triumph for Biden's Democrats, who have bickered for months over the ambitious spending bills that make up the bulk of his domestic agenda.
Six Democrats, part of the progressive 'Squad' wing of the party, voted against it.
The bill had become one of two key pieces of President Joe Biden's and it will now head to his desk for him to sign it into law.
Biden's administration will now oversee the biggest upgrade of America's roads, railways and other transportation infrastructure in a generation, which he has promised will create jobs and boost U.S. competitiveness.
The president called the it 'a once-in-generation bipartisan infrastructure bill that will create millions of jobs, turn the climate crisis into an opportunity, and put us on a path to win the economic competition for the 21st Century.'
President Biden said the country 'took a monumental step forward' after the House passed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill with a vote of 228 to 206 on Friday night
The House passed President Joe Biden's $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package before midnight on Friday night after progressive and moderate Democrats came to a compromise
Once it is signed by Biden, the new law will reach virtually every corner of the country - a historic investment that the president has compared with the building of the transcontinental railroad and Interstate Highway System. The White House is projecting that the investments will add, on average, about 2 million jobs per year over the coming decade.
'It will create good-paying jobs that can't be outsourced. Jobs that will transform our transportation system with the most significant investments in passenger and freight rail, roads, bridges, ports, airports, and public transit in generations,' Biden said.
'This will make it easier for companies to get goods to market more quickly and reduce supply chain bottlenecks now and for decades to come. This will ease inflationary pressures and lower costs for working families.
'Generations from now, people will look back and know this is when America won the economic competition for the 21st Century,' Biden said.
A rule was voted on that will allow for the passage the Build Back Better Act in the House of Representatives the week of November 15.
After hours of closed-door meetings, a group of centrists promised to vote for the bill by November 20 - as long as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that its costs lined up with White House estimates.
'Welcome to my world. This is the Democratic Party,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters earlier in the day. 'We are not a lockstep party.'
Democratic leaders had hoped to pass both bills out of the House on Friday, but postponed the action after centrists demanded a nonpartisan accounting of its costs - a process that could take weeks.
'The Build Back Better Act will be a once-in-a-generation investment in our people,' the president explained.
'It will lower bills for healthcare, child care, elder care, prescription drugs, and preschool. And middle-class families get a tax cut.'
Democrats celebrate on the House floor late on Friday night in Washington D.C. after the House approved a $1 trillion package of road and other infrastructure projects
Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-California, presides and announces the vote total late on Friday
Democrats resolved a months-long standoff between progressives and moderates, notching a victory that President Joe Biden and his party had become increasingly anxious to claim
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