Biden’s massive spending bill set to collide with debt ceiling, funding fights after CBO score delay

After months of trying to force their massive social spending bill onto President Biden'sdesk, congressional Democrats are confronting the reality that the effort will drag past Thanksgiving and collide with other major issues that could put its passage in doubt.

A major reason for this is that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is likely to take at least a few more days, and potentially into next week, to produce a score for the nearly $2 trillion bill. 

House moderates say they won't vote on the bill without enough information from the CBO on it – it is not clear how much is enough, though they said they intend to vote on the bill this week. And the Senate cannot even take up the bill without a CBO score because of its rules under budget reconciliation, the process Democrats are using to circumvent a GOP filibuster. 

"Timing of consideration of the [Build Back Better Act] in the Senate will largely depend on when the House sends us the bill and when CBO finalizes their scores for all of the committees, which are needed to complete the ‘Byrd Bath’ process," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told Senate Democrats Sunday.