Chris Talgo: Joy to the world, Build Back Better’s demise has come
On December 19, just days before millions of Americans gather for Christmas festivities, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) delivered a much-needed early present to the nation when he let it be known that he would not vote in favor of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill. While on “Fox News Sunday,” Manchin succinctly stated, “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation.” When pressed if there is any room for future negotiations, Manchin dug in his heels, saying, “I’ve done everything humanly possible … This is a no. I have tried everything I know to do.” Although the possibility exists that portions of Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) bill could be resurrected in 2022, based on Manchin’s comments, it seems it is a fait accompli that the current version of BBB is dead and buried, forever. For most Americans, this is welcome news. Several recent polls show BBB is unpopular with the public. For instance, according to a December 9 poll conducted by NPR/Marist, only 41 percent of Americans support BBB. Unsurprisingly, only 42 percent of those polled said BBB “will help people like themselves,” while just 35 percent said BBB “will help lower inflation.” Apparently, and thankfully, the American people have a better understanding of basic economics than most members of the U.S. Congress, particularly those in the Democratic Party. Without a doubt, BBB would have supercharged the rampant inflation that is already wreaking havoc throughout the U.S. economy. As of this writing, the inflation rate, as measured by the consumer price index, has reached a 39-year high of 6.8 percent, with no sign of abating anytime soon. Even worse, the producer price index, which measures final demand for goods and services and functions as a gauge of future inflationary pressure, just hit an all-time high of 9.8 percent. In other words, the rapidly rising rate of inflation is unlikely to trend downward anytime soon. For all Americans, inflation has become a persistent problem. Per a report from the Penn Wharton Budget Model, “inflation in 2021 will require the average U.S. household to spend around $3,500 more in 2021 to achieve the same level of consumption of goods and services as in recent previous years (2019 or 2020). Moreover, we estimate that lower-income households spend more of their budget on goods and services that have been more impacted by inflation. Lower-income households will have to spend about 7 percent more while higher-income households will have to spend about 6 percent more.” However, despite the alarming signs that inflation is picking up steam and causing significant pain and suffering for American families, the Democratic Party could not care less. Immediately after Manchin put a stake through the heart of BBB, prominent Democrats and much of the mainstream media were in a tizzy. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) went into full-on attack mode, saying, “We all knew that Senator Manchin couldn’t be trusted, the excuses that he just made, I think, are complete bulls***.” Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) chimed in with this quip, “The Senate must return to session immediately and bring this historic and transformational bill to a vote so Senator Manchin – and every Republican who has opposed it from the very beginning—can demonstrate, on the record, the contempt they have for their constituents and for everyone who calls America home.” What Omar, Pressley, and too many other radical leftists fail to understand is that Manchin is representing his constituents, the people of West Virginia, who overwhelmingly oppose BBB. According to a recent poll, 53 percent of West Virginians strongly oppose BBB, and 59 percent of independent voters in West Virginia strongly oppose BBB. What’s more, 64 of West Virginians strongly agree that BBB will make inflation worse while 66 percent strongly agree that “Congress should slow down and reconsider the Build Back Better Act in light of inflation concerns.” Fortunately, for now, at least, Joe Manchin has dealt a devastating blow to President Biden’s Build Back Better bill. It remains to be seen whether or not Manchin caves and votes for BBB-lite. Yet, regardless of what happens in the future, we should celebrate the early Christmas miracle that is the demise of Build Back Better. Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is senior editor at The Heartland Institute.
White House taps populist message as Joe Biden pushes $3.5T plan
The White House is preparing an urgent and populist message for selling President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion “build back better” agenda, even as House committee leaders begin churning out pieces of the forthcoming measure. In a memo being sent Tuesday to Capitol Hill and obtained by The Associated Press, the administration warns there is no time to waste in passing the package of corporate tax hikes and domestic initiatives by the end of the month. “We face a fundamental choice in America right now as we rebuild our economy: this time, will everyone get in on the deal?” the memo says. “The time is now. We have to meet the needs in front of us. Not tomorrow, not months from now, not next year. Right now.” The urgent appeal comes at a crucial time, with House and Senate Democrats hoping to assemble the package by a self-imposed Sept. 15 deadline. It also comes as Biden seeks to refocus on his core campaign promises after a brutal summer, punctuated by spiking COVID-19 cases and the deadly evacuations and withdrawal from Afghanistan. Illustrating Democrats’ ambition as well as the challenges they face, House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal released part of his panel’s portion of the bill Tuesday. The Massachusetts Democrat proposed creating a new paid family and medical leave program for workers that is more generous than Biden’s own plan and expanding Medicare to provide dental, vision, and hearing benefits. But Neal also did not immediately unveil tax boosts on the rich and corporations that Democrats say will pay for much of the measure’s cost, saving that for coming days. The tax increases are likely to be among the most contentious items in the package, with some moderate Democrats facing tough reelection fights wary of them. But they are crucial if the party wants to support its claim that those tax boosts and other savings will pay for the entire measure, which they say will cost $3.5 trillion over 10 years. Neal and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., are trying to resolve differences over some items in hopes the measure the House ultimately approves will largely face smooth sailing in the Senate, said Democrats who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the legislation’s status. The bill will need the support of virtually every Democrat to clear the closely divided Congress. The Ways and Means panel has jurisdiction over the biggest chunk of the overall bill, and its members plan to begin voting on their piece of the plan on Thursday and Friday. “This is our historic opportunity to support working families and ensure our economy is stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient for generations to come,” Neal said in a statement. Republicans say Neal’s measure will end up raising taxes on people earning under $400,000, which Biden and Democrats have said will not happen. “They’re hiding the ball,” said J.P. Freire, the panel’s GOP spokesman. The committee’s proposal will pay for up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for workers, beginning in 2023, including for higher earners. Biden’s plan would be phased in over the decade. Neal’s proposal would also phase in Medicare coverage for vision benefits starting in 2022, hearing in 2023, and dental in 2028. Missing in the details, he released Tuesday was a proposal to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 60, which has been considered unlikely to be included because it is expensive. It includes increased spending for child care, long-term care facilities, better benefits for workers laid off due to imports, and training health care workers. It would also require many employers to automatically enroll workers in savings arrangements like IRAs or 401(k) plans. Inside the White House, September is seen as a crucial month to make gains on Biden’s agenda. In speeches and travel, the president is expected to take a more aggressively populist tone as he rallies support for the plan. Congressional approval is not guaranteed as Democrats work to fundamentally reorder aspects of the U.S. economy and its governmental support systems. Democrats are already preparing for an onslaught of attacks over what Republicans call Biden’s big tax and spending plans, as the GOP tries to wrest control of Congress by winning House and Senate seats in next year’s midterm elections. In framing the arguments ahead as a choice, the White House is showing congressional Democrats one way the administration plans to counter those Republican attacks. “Republicans who oppose the Build Back Better agenda have chosen whose side they are on, too,” said the memo from White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield to House Democratic communicators. “The Build Back Better agenda is about tackling those challenges and leveling the playing field to ensure the wealthiest and corporations pay their fair share and working families get a fighting chance to succeed and prosper in this country,” the memo said. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
After unrelenting summer, Joe Biden looks to get agenda on track
The collapse of the Afghan government, a surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the delta variant, devastating weather events, a disappointing jobs report. What next? After a torrent of crises, President Joe Biden is hoping to turn the page on an unrelenting summer and refocus his presidency this fall around his core economic agenda. But the recent cascade of troubles is a sobering reminder of the unpredictable weight of the office and fresh evidence that presidents rarely have the luxury of focusing on just one crisis at a time. Biden’s unyielding summer knocked his White House onto emergency footing and sent his own poll numbers tumbling. “The presidency is not a job for a monomaniac,” said presidential historian Michael Beschloss. “You have to be multitasking 24 hours a day.” Never has that been more true than summer 2021, which began with the White House proclamation of the nation’s “independence” from the coronavirus and defying-the-odds bipartisanship on a massive infrastructure package. Then COVID-19 came roaring back, the Afghanistan pullout devolved into chaos, and hiring slowed. Biden now hopes for a post-Labor Day reframing of the national conversation toward his twin domestic goals of passing a bipartisan infrastructure bill and pushing through a Democrats-only expansion of the social safety net. White House officials are eager to shift Biden’s public calendar toward issues that are important to his agenda and that they believe are top of mind for the American people. “I think you can expect the president to be communicating over the coming weeks on a range of issues that are front and center on the minds of the American people,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “Certainly, you can expect to hear from him more on his Build Back Better agenda, on COVID and his commitment to getting the virus under control, to speak to parents and those who have kids going back to school.” During the chaotic Afghanistan evacuation, the White House was central in explaining the consequences of Biden’s withdrawal decision and the effort to evacuate Americans and allies from the country. Now, officials want to put the State Department and other agencies out front on the efforts to assist stranded Americans and support evacuees, while Biden moves on to other topics. It’s in part a reflection of an unspoken belief inside the White House that for all the scenes of chaos in Afghanistan, the public backs his decision, and it will fade from memory by the midterm elections. Instead, the White House is gearing up for a legislative sprint to pass more than $4 trillion in domestic funding that will make up much of what Biden hopes will be his first-term legacy before the prospects of major lawmaking seize up in advance of the 2022 races. On Friday, in remarks on August’s disappointing jobs report, Biden tried to return to the role of public salesman for his domestic agenda and claim the mantle of warrior for the middle class. “For those big corporations that don’t want things to change, my message is this: It’s time for working families — the folks who built this country — to have their taxes cut,” Biden said. He renewed his calls for raising corporate rates to pay for free community college, paid family leave, and an expansion of the child tax credit. “I’m going to take them on,” Biden said of corporate interests. While Biden may want to turn the page, though, aides are mindful that the crises are not done with him. Biden is planning to speak this week on new efforts to contain the delta variant and protect kids in schools from COVID-19. And his administration continues to face criticism for his decision to pull American troops from Afghanistan before all U.S. citizens and allies could get out. “President Biden desperately wants to talk about anything but Afghanistan, but Americans who are hiding from the Taliban, ISIS, and the Haqqani network don’t give a damn about news cycles, long weekends, and polling — they want out,” said Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska. He called on the Biden White House on Friday to provide a public accounting of the number of Americans and their allies still stuck inside Afghanistan. Biden also will soon be grappling with the fallout from the windup of two anchors of the government’s COVID-19 protection package: The federal moratorium on evictions recently expired, and starting Monday, an estimated 8.9 million people will lose all unemployment benefits. The president also is still contending with the sweeping aftereffects of Hurricane Ida, which battered the Gulf states and then swamped the Northeast. After visiting Louisiana last week, he’ll get a firsthand look at some of the damage in New York and New Jersey on Tuesday. Already, he is trying to turn the destruction wrought by the hurricane into a fresh argument for the infrastructure spending he’s been pushing all along, telling local officials in Louisiana, “It seems to me we can save a whole lot of money and a whole lot of pain for our constituents — if when we build back, we build it back in a better way.” According to White House officials, even as other issues dominated headlines, Biden and his team have maintained regular conversations with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., about the president’s legislative agenda. His legislative team held more than 130 calls and meetings with members of Congress, their chiefs of staff, and aides on the infrastructure bill and spending package, and his administration has held over 90 meetings with legislative staff on crafting the reconciliation bill. Responding to concerns raised by pivotal Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., over the price tag on the roughly $3.5 trillion social spending package, White House chief of staff Ron Klain told CNN on Sunday that he was convinced that the Democrat was “very persuadable” on the legislation. Cabinet officials have also been engaged with lawmakers, officials said, and traveled to 80 congressional districts to promote the agenda across the country while Biden was kept in Washington. Biden, said Beschloss, may have
Big win for $1T infrastructure bill: Dems, GOP come together
With a robust vote after weeks of fits and starts, the Senate approved a $1 trillion infrastructure plan for states coast to coast on Tuesday, as a rare coalition of Democrats and Republicans joined together to overcome skeptics and deliver a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s agenda. “Today, we proved that democracy can still work,” Biden declared at the White House, noting that the 69-30 vote included even Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. “We can still come together to do big things, important things, for the American people,” Biden said. The overwhelming tally provided fresh momentum for the first phase of Biden’s “Build Back Better” priorities, now heading to the House. A sizable number of lawmakers showed they were willing to set aside partisan pressures, at least for a moment, eager to send billions to their states for rebuilding roads, broadband internet, water pipes, and the public works systems that underpin much of American life. The vote also set the stage for a much more contentious fight over Biden’s bigger $3.5 trillion package that is next up in the Senate — a more liberal undertaking of child care, elder care, and other programs that is much more partisan and expected to draw only Democratic support. That debate is expected to extend into the fall. With the Republicans lockstep against the next big package, many of them reached for the current compromise with the White House because they, too, wanted to show they could deliver and the government could function. “Today’s kind of a good news, bad news day,” said Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of the negotiators. “The good news is that today we really did something historic in the United States Senate; we moved out an infrastructure package, something that we have talked about doing for years.” The bad news, she said, is what’s coming next. Infrastructure was once a mainstay of lawmaking, but the weeks-long slog to strike a compromise showed how hard it has become for Congress to tackle routine legislating, even on shared priorities. Tuesday’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act started with a group of 10 senators who seized on Biden’s campaign promise to draft a scaled-down version of his initial $2.3 trillion proposal, one that could more broadly appeal to both parties in the narrowly divided Congress, especially the 50-50 Senate. It swelled to a 2,700-page bill backed by the president and also business, labor, and farm interests. Over time, it drew an expansive alliance of senators and a bipartisan group in the House. In all, 19 Republicans joined all Democrats in voting for Senate passage. Vice President Kamala Harris, as presiding officer, announced the final tally. While liberal lawmakers said the package doesn’t go far enough as a down-payment on Biden’s priorities and conservatives said it is too costly and should be more fully paid for, the coalition of centrist senators was able to hold. Even broadsides from former President Donald Trump could not bring the bill down. The measure proposes nearly $550 billion in new spending over five years in addition to current federal authorizations for public works that will reach virtually every corner of the country — a potentially historic expenditure Biden has put on par with the building of the transcontinental railroad and Interstate highway system. There’s money to rebuild roads and bridges and also to shore up coastlines against climate change, protect public utility systems from cyberattacks and modernize the electric grid. Public transit gets a boost, as do airports and freight rail. Most lead drinking water pipes in America could be replaced. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, the lead Republican negotiator, said the work “demonstrates to the American people that we can get our act together on a bipartisan basis to get something done.” The top Democratic negotiator, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, said rarely will a piece of legislation affect so many Americans. She gave a nod to the late fellow Arizona Sen. John McCain and said she was trying to follow his example to “reach bipartisan agreements that try to bring the country together.” Drafted during the COVID-19 crisis, the bill would provide $65 billion for broadband, a provision Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, negotiated because she said the coronavirus pandemic showed that such service “is no longer a luxury; it is a necessity.” States will receive money to expand broadband and make it more affordable. Despite the momentum, action slowed last weekend when Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Tennessee Republican allied with Trump, refused to speed up the process. Trump had called his one-time Japan ambassador and cheered him on, but it’s unclear if the former president’s views still carry as much sway with most senators. Trump issued fresh complaints hours before Tuesday’s vote. He had tried and failed to pass his own infrastructure bill during his time in the White House. Other Republican senators objected to the size, scope, and financing of the package, particularly concerned after the Congressional Budget Office said it would add $256 billion to deficits over the decade. Rather than pressure his colleagues, Senate Republican leader McConnell of Kentucky stayed behind the scenes for much of the bipartisan work. He allowed the voting to proceed and may benefit from enabling this package in a stroke of bipartisanship while trying to stop Biden’s next big effort. Unlike the $3.5 trillion second package, which would be paid for by higher tax rates for corporations and the wealthy, the bipartisan measure is to be funded by repurposing other money, including some COVID-19 aid. The bill’s backers argue that the budget office’s analysis was unable to take into account certain revenue streams that will help offset its costs — including from future economic growth. Senators have spent the past week processing nearly two dozen amendments, but none substantially changed the framework. The House is expected to consider both Biden infrastructure packages together, but centrist lawmakers urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring the bipartisan plan forward quickly, and they raised concerns about the bigger bill in a sign of the complicated politics still ahead. After the Senate vote, she declared, “Today is a day of progress … a once in a century opportunity.”
