Democrats Succeeding in Keeping Republicans from Budget Process

House Democrats approved a $3.5 trillion budget resolution by embedding it in a House rule that tied the spending package's advancement to the passage of a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a voting rights bill.

The move means Congressional Republicans will have very little, if any, impact on the budget process going forward.

Newhouse called the record budget a conglomeration of a long list of priorities that the Democratic Party has had for years.

"Any one of them would be major pieces of legislation that should go through the committee process." stated Newhouse, "Have the ability for amendments, be open to debate and go through the regular order of the legislative process."

Democrats are aiming to include hundreds of billions of dollars in what they call 'human infrastructure' in the budget, such as child care, clean energy, and public housing.

House Speaker Nanci Pelosi also announced a non-binding deadline of September 27th for a vote on the Senate's $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package.

Newhouse said he largely supports the bill on its own because it has a lot items that would benefit Central Washington. However, he and other Republicans are rejecting attempts by Democrats to try to link the legislation with the much larger proposed budget.

"We are weighing that right now." explained Newhouse, "Going through the many pages of the bill, making sure that the 'pay fors' are real and not just accounting gimmicks."

Congressional Progressives like Progressive Caucus Chair and Washington Representative Pramila Jayapal have said they will only vote for the infrastructure bill after the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation is passed.