Biden admits that his “Build Back Better” proposal will miss the December deadline.
Joe Biden has admitted that his $1.75 trillion economic and climate legislation will miss the Senate's Christmas deadline and will not be passed before the end of the year.
Joe Biden has admitted that his $1.75 trillion economic and climate legislation will miss the Senate’s Christmas deadline and will not be passed before the end of the year.
Negotiations for the president’s Build Back Better bill, for which Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer set a Christmas deadline, have stalled because West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat, has refused to support the bill in its current form, making him a key vote in the Senate’s evenly split chamber.
In a statement released Thursday evening, Biden stated, “My team and I am having ongoing discussions with Senator Manchin; that effort will continue next week.”
“It takes time to ratify these agreements, create legislative revisions, and complete all of the parliamentary and procedural formalities required for a Senate vote.” “In the days and weeks ahead, we’ll work together to progress this effort,” he added.
Despite the stalled negotiations, Biden expressed optimism in the bill’s passage, noting that Manchin has shown support for the proposal’s main outlines in recent meetings.
“Senator Manchin has reaffirmed his support for Build Back Better financing at the level I outlined in December,” Biden said.
Manchin has spoken out against the Build Back Better Act’s idea to keep the enlarged child tax credit program going.
While Democrats want to extend the enlarged program for another year as part of the $1.75 trillion budget bill, Manchin is reportedly concerned about the cost. Even if several of the bill’s initiatives expire after only a year or a few years, he feels costing analysis should be done on a 10-year basis.
If the enhanced child tax credit is extended for another ten years, it will require far more money than the plan provides.
“The president considers Senator Manchin a friend,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a press conference on Friday when questioned about Biden and Manchin’s current relationship. He’s someone with whom he’s had numerous open and honest discussions. It doesn’t mean they always agree on everything, but it’s not the standard the president sets for his relationships with members of Congress.”
Psaki stated, “He is determined to going forward through ups and downs, and that is where we are right now.”
She also stated that Biden would make a “passionate case” for voting rights legislation, which has been blocked in Congress due to Republican opposition.
“It’s a terrible combination of voter suppression and election subversion, which is un-American, un-Democratic, but not unusual,” Psaki said of voter suppression efforts in numerous states.
Later that morning, when delivering the commencement address at South Carolina State University, a historically Black university, Biden touched on the subject.
He was introduced by Congressman Jim Clyburn, who helped Biden win the Democratic presidential nomination last year by endorsing him when he was down in the polls and swaying support in the south and among Black voters.
“We have to defend that vital right to vote, for God’s sake,” Biden told the graduating students. “I’ve never witnessed anything like the continuous assault on voting rights.”
The president’s remarks came as Senate Democrats debate whether the filibuster should be changed in order to pass voting rights legislation through the chamber’s evenly divided chamber.
Because Democrats lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, Senate Republicans have utilized the filibuster to block voting rights legislation.
“This fight isn’t over yet. The Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act must both be passed. “We have to,” Biden told the historically Black university’s grads.
“We’re going to keep fighting until we get it done, and you’re going to keep fighting, and we desperately need your aid.”