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WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” Bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday in what Jamestown’s local rep says is a “reckless” move.
The House approved the legislation by a near party-line 220-213 vote, sending the measure to a Senate where cost-cutting demands by moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and that chamber’s strict rules seem certain to force significant changes.
Republican Congressman Tom Reed, who represents New York’s 23rd Congressional District, called the spending plan reckless after voting against the legislation.
“We need to work together to solve the problems facing this country, but instead the extremists in the Democrat party made no attempt to find common ground and reach across the aisle,” said Reed in a statement. “The American people, who will suffer the consequences of this bill, deserve better from Washington.”
Friday’s vote came after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the package would worsen federal deficits by $160 billion over the coming decade.
The agency also recalculated the measure’s 10-year price tag at $1.68 trillion, though that figure wasn’t directly comparable to a $1.85 trillion figure Democrats have been using.
The 2,100-page bill’s initiatives include bolstering child care assistance, creating free preschool, curbing seniors’ prescription drug costs and increasing efforts to slow climate change.
Also included are tax credits to spur clean energy development, bolstered child care assistance and extended tax breaks for millions of families with children, lower-earning workers and people buying private health insurance.
This Associated Press contributed to this report.
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