Pelosi sets Oct 1 target for infrastructure, Biden spending bill

[August 23, 2021]    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday set an Oct. 1 target date for passing President Joe Biden's multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and social spending agenda.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) walks to her weekly press conference in the United States Capitol in Washington, U.S., August 6, 2021. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

In a "Dear Colleague" letter to her fellow Democrats, Pelosi also warned against delaying next week's expected vote on a $3.5 trillion budget resolution that some party centrists have threatened not to support.

"Any delay to passing the budget resolution threatens the timetable for delivering the historic progress and the transformative vision that Democrats share," the top House Democrat said in the letter.

The Senate has already passed both a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill to rebuild America's roads, bridges, airports and waterways, and the budget resolution, which includes spending instructions for Biden's Build Back Better Plan on education, childcare, healthcare and climate measures.

"The House is hard at work to enact both the Build Back Better Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure bill before October 1st, when the (infrastructure bill) would go into effect," Pelosi said in the letter.

The infrastructure bill and the more sweeping social spending package are top domestic priorities for Biden.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

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