Democrats 'need to recognize the old Build Back Better is dead and come back with a narrower bill with a smaller number of permanent programs,' writes JonathanChait
When historians record the Biden presidency, the aspect they will struggle to capture is just how much of it was spent attempting to divine the objectives and motivation of Joe Manchin. The West Virginia Senator once again threw Washington into chaos by appearing on Fox News Sunday to deliver what may, or may not, be a death blow to the centerpiece of Biden’s domestic agenda.
“They’re just trying to make the adjustment for the time to fit the money or the money to fit the time. Not changing our approach, not targeting things we should be doing,” he added. But instead of choosing which programs to keep, they mainly gamed the budget score instead. The House plan phases in and phases out several of the programs to shrink their headline cost. Manchin is attacking this as a gimmick that minimizes the realistic cost.
So, it is possible to imagine that Manchin is simply playing hardball in order to achieve this better outcome. He is complaining about the national debt, and he is opposing this bill, but that wouldn’t rule out him supporting a different bill that did not increase the national debt and met his demand to remove the phased-out programs.
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. In the last two years. As Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and with bipartisan support, we have invested billions of dollars into clean energy technologies so we can continue to lead the world in reducing emissions through innovation.
There is no one true, secret interpretation of Manchin’s comments. Even the most inside insiders are scratching their heads:
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