A top aide to the late former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Politico that the path forward for President Joe Biden’s signature domestic agenda — Build Back Better — was murky, at best.
“Given how dysfunctional Congress is right now, someone is taking too many edibles if they think they can deal with a slimmed-down [Build Back Better] in July or August,” Reid’s former aide Jim Manley told the outlet. “Congress simply can’t deal with it. It’s now or never and leaning towards never.”
The Biden administration hit a major roadblock in mid-December when Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) told Fox News anchor Bret Baier that he could not in good faith move forward with a bill that he worried would only add to the current inflation problem.
“With my family, I know everyone is concerned, so when you have these things coming at you the way they are right now, I’ve always said this, Bret: if I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can’t vote for it, and I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t. I’ve tried everything humanly possible, I can’t get there,” he said.
“If I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can’t vote for it … this is a no.”@Sen_JoeManchin announced on Fox News Sunday that he will not vote for the Build Back Better bill.
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) December 19, 2021
In the weeks since, Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) blocked a White House-backed move to change Senate rules — marking a carveout in the filibuster — in an effort to pass two bills overhauling the election process at the federal level.
The problem, as Politico noted, is that as the 2022 midterm elections loom ever closer, Democrats could easily move from the very slim majority to the minority on Capitol Hill — and that could spell the end of Biden’s Build Back Better altogether. But to get that legislation moving again before the midterms means negotiating with Manchin, Sinema, or both.
Despite prior statements from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki — who accused Manchin of negotiating in bad faith when he effectively killed Build Back Better last year — the White House says there is no bad blood moving forward.
“Anyone expressing those sentiments is not speaking for the White House,” spokesman Andrew Bates said, asserting that all conversations with Manchin have been “clear and in good faith.”
Manchin told reporters earlier in the week that he believed the Senate should be focused on a much smaller package that was specifically targeted to get record-breaking inflation levels under control.
“Reconciliation to me is about getting inflation under control, paying down this debt, getting a handle on what’s going on,” he said, adding, “There’s nothing formal. There’s no false hopes here. There’s nothing. As far as Build Back Better, there’s no talk about any of that. Just saying, how do we get a handle on inflation?”