Biden Concedes Dems Must Break Up Build Back Better into ‘Chunks’ to Rescue Stalled Agenda
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During his first press briefing of the year on Wednesday, President Biden acknowledged for the first time that the Build Back Better package will likely have to be divided up or downsized due to moderate Senator Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema’s ongoing opposition to its current scope.
“It’s clear to me that we’re gonna have to probably break it up,” he said. “It’s clear that we would be able to get support for the 500 plus billion dollars for energy and environment issues, number one. Number two, I know the two people who’ve opposed on the Democratic side support a number of things that are in there. For example, Joe Manchin strongly supports early education.”
In December, Manchin withdrew from the negotiation table on the massive social spending plan, reduced to $2 trillion from $3.5 trillion, after talks between him and Biden stalled. For months, Manchin had expressed concerns with the bill’s price tag and its implications for mounting inflation. He also objected to the child tax credit provision and wanted it excluded, but Biden did not acquiesce.
While Biden said Wednesday that he believes Congress will be able to pass the energy and environment “chunks,” Manchin, whose vote is pivotal in an evenly-split Senate, cited them as part of the reason why he walked away from the debate. While Manchin considers fighting climate change a major priority, he noted that the rapid escalation toward adopting clean energy in Build Back Better would come at a steep cost for the economy.
“If enacted, the bill will also risk the reliability of our electric grid and increase our dependence on foreign supply chains. The energy transition my colleagues seek is already well underway in the United States of America…we can continue to lead the world in reducing emissions through innovation. But to do so at a rate that is faster than technology or the markets allow will have catastrophic consequences for the American people like we have seen in both Texas and California in the last two years,” he wrote in a statement.
As of January 4, Manchin declined to give an update on Build Back Better, saying there is “no negotiation going on at this time.”
When asked Wednesday if he’d be amenable to putting the child tax credit on the back burner for a while, given Manchin’s resistance to it, Biden replied: “There’s two really big components that I feel strongly about that I’m not sure I can get in the package. One is the childcare tax credit and the other is help for the cost of community colleges.”
