Goodbye Build Back Better
Senator Manchin blows up any chance Dems had at passing the Build Back Better act
Hello all,
Christmas came early this year. Build Back Better (BBB) (Not to be confused with the Big Baller Brand) appears to have finally been killed by the king of the Senate, Joe Manchin. On Sunday, Manchin went on Fox and officially declared that he wouldn’t vote for the Biden administration’s number one priority legislation. In a 50-50 split Senate, Manchin’s opposition essentially eliminates any chance of the bill passing, even when using budget reconciliation.
In his official statement, Manchin declared:
My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country even more vulnerable to the threats we face. I cannot take that risk with a staggering debt of more than $29 trillion and inflation taxes that are real and harmful to every hard-working American at the gasoline pumps, grocery stores and utility bills with no end in sight.
And with that, BBB met its demise. Even if the Biden administration negotiated down to something Manchin is more comfortable with, there is no guarantee that the progressive wing of the Democratic party would go along. And with midterms coming around the corner, time is about up. As far as I’m concerned, Build Back Better, and its transformational liberalism is dead.
As I’ve said before, the Build Back Better act is a massive boondoggle of federal spending that only serves to increase our already skyrocketing debt and inflation. In November, inflation soared to 6.8% and, as of today, shows no signs of stopping. Furthermore, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the BBB legislation would increase the national debt by about 3 trillion dollars over the next ten years.
Voting for the legislation would be political suicide for Manchin, a Democrat representing West Virginia. A state where Donald Trump won 68.6% of the vote in 2020. Manchin is also surely aware that a staggering 74% of West Virginians want him to oppose Build Back Better. It’s simple politics. There is no desire from the people of West Virginia for the passage of the Democratic goody bag; thus, there is no desire from Senator Manchin to vote “yay.”
After Manchin expressed his opposition, Jen Psaki took to blasting the Senator with an official White House Press statement saying, “Senator Manchin will have to explain to those families paying $1,000 a month for insulin why they need to keep paying that.” For some unexplained reason, the Press Secretary seems to believe that high drug prices are the fault of a lone senator. Moreover, Psaki implied that Manchin is a liar and a flake for not going along with the whims of the Biden administration. Does she really think shaming and using emotional blackmail will persuade Manchin to change his mind?
No matter how much whining progressives engage in, it won't change the fact there simply isn't a mandate from the American people for a New Deal part two. If the Democrats hope to not get absolutely crushed in 2022, they need to accept some hard truths. Joe Biden is not Franklin Roosevelt. The Democrats don't have a great enough majority in Congress to pass big controversial bills. And the average voting American is not enthralled by massive government programs.
In my opinion, putting the lid on Build Back Better is good for the country. However, it does outline a problem with the way that Congress operates. Mainly, that bills are crafted in a top-down fashion instead of bottom-up. Justin Amash pointed this out on Twitter after the Manchin drama.
Think back to the old School House Rock Video, "I'm Just a Bill." The lawmaking process starts when a member of Congress writes a bill that, if passed, would benefit his constituents. The bill then gets assigned to different committees to revise and edit its contents. Then after numerous committee debates, the bill might make it to the floor of Congress for a vote. If the bill passes one house of Congress, it goes to the next, where the process begins again. Then only if the bill passes both the House and the Senate, then it goes to the president's desk to be signed into law.
Under this system, each bill goes through a long and hard deliberation process to certify that the bill would make a decent law. Think of it like waiting a day to send that nasty email to your boss. The longer you wait, the more you cool off; consequently, your email becomes more refined as opposed to the ramblings of someone who has had one too many drinks. It’s the same thing with legislating. A piece of legislation is supposed to start at the bottom and slowly work its way to the top. This ensures that the bill gets the proper amount of attention and revision before it reaches a final vote.
Unfortunately, that's not the way Congress works anymore. If you watched the "I'm Just a Bill" video and then looked at how Build Back Better was created (and many other pieces of legislation), you would be very confused.
Build Back Better started out as the brain baby of the Biden administration and top-ranking Democrats. They then agreed upon a general price tag and back-filled it with enough expensive projects to reach said price. Once that was done, the bill was essentially thrust upon Congress with a simple message "vote for this or suffer the political consequences." Obviously, this isn't how the lawmaking process was designed to work. This sort of top-down political process only contributes to the sad disfunction of what is supposed to be the greatest legislative body in the world.
If Democrats were smart, they would have engaged in a robust debate and amendment process and broken up the bill into smaller chunks to vote on separately. That way, the portions that could get bipartisan support would pass, and the Dems would at least get a fraction of what they want instead of nothing. But I suppose that would just make way too much sense.
I know I'm somewhat of a toddler banging my spoon on my high chair when it comes to this type of stuff. But seriously. It's ridiculous that our political system has been so perverted that politicians have given up on getting into the nitty-gritty process of legislation in favor of relying on the court of public opinion to bludgeon lawmakers to go along. Kudos to Manchin for standing firm.
Ultimately, I'm happy that Build Back Better isn't going to pass. The idea that adding trillions of dollars to our national debt when inflation is steadily increasing is, of course, a laughable idea. However, the problem of Congress's dysfunction isn't going away anytime soon. Until lawmaking begins as bottom-up affairs, we should expect more of these dramatic drawn-out slugfests to continue plaguing American life.