On Sunday the news came out that Joe Manchin would not support the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill. “I am a no on this legislation.” He made the announcement on Fox, after refusing to take a phone call from the White House.
I found this to be awful news on its face, largely because of my enthusiasm for the child tax credit, which I wrote about last week. This all but guarantees that 62 million Americans won’t get their check in January, and jeopardizes it for the months afterwards. The most successful anti-poverty program in years might be discontinued in less than a year after lifting 3.8 million children out of poverty – many families will slide back into difficult circumstances.
It’s my hope that the enhanced Child Tax Credit is brought back to the floor as soon as the Senate comes back in January – the best case scenario is that it passes in some form and is back in February. The team at Humanity Forward will be working non-stop to make this happen.
But this episode also indicates that the dysfunction within the Democratic Party is even higher than I would have thought.
Joe Biden’s strength is meant to be his relationships on Capitol Hill. Joe Biden and Joe Manchin were colleagues in the Senate for decades as Democrats. They worked together countless times. They had a call last week that was meant to usher Build Back Better forward after months of negotiation.
Whatever happened, the meeting didn’t have the desired effect. After Manchin’s announcement on Fox, the Biden White House issued a public statement accusing Joe Manchin of going back on his word and said that he should change his mind again.
The Biden White House’s statement struck me as counterproductive – if you need a guy to come back to the table, characterizing him as dishonest publicly doesn’t seem like the right approach, regardless of what you might feel. Keep in mind that Trump won West Virginia by 39 points, so Manchin is in a position where the politics are complicated at best.
Joe Manchin said on Monday, “It’s staff driven” of the White House on a radio interview, which could easily be seen as a dig at the President.
Again, these guys were colleagues for years. Massive legislation was proposed along party lines via reconciliation because bipartisanship is nearly nonexistent. That legislation is on life support –at best - because the Democrats didn’t have the unanimity they needed. Families home for the holidays are unsure of whether the check they just received in December was the last.
I hope that the Child Tax Credit emerges again early next year and will be doing all I can to assist. But it’s clear to all that a new dynamic is necessary in Washington D.C. The people don’t care so much as to who said what in what meeting. They just want help that isn’t tied to the back and forth of politics in the Beltway. That, right now, is too much to ask.
Right now is the perfect time to contribute to the Forward Party to fix our broken politics –
donate $5 ([link removed]) today to let people know that we can do better than this! And Happy Holidays!
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