The chances the Senate will pass Biden’s signature piece of legislation — his “Build Back Better” bill — are now close to zero. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has “punted” the bill into March of next year, all but assuring its demise.
As NBC News commented after speaking with “four sources familiar with planning by … Schumer’s office,” “simple math” precludes the bill from reaching Biden’s desk.
It’s all Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-W.V.) fault: Talks between him and Biden were going “very poorly,” so poorly in fact that they “have broken down” over the size, scope, and cost of the monstrosity. Part of the problem is that sections of the bill haven’t even been written yet in hopes that Manchin and the White House could come to some sort of compromise, allowing him to vote for it.
At the moment, however, Manchin remains firm: It’s too costly and will further increase inflation, which is now the No. 1 concern of voters. The death knell was rung by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which reported on Friday that the BBB would increase the national debt by more than $3 trillion over the next 10 years, putting the lie to the claim by Biden that his plan would be “totally paid for” by generating additional taxes on the wealthy and the tax-avoiders. CBO didn’t buy it, and after its analysis reported the discrepancy.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said last rites at Fox News:
The [Congressional Budget Office] and the inflation number last Friday, I think, killed Build Back Better. They were trying to pass a lie. And God Bless Joe Manchin for sticking to his guns.
I think Build Back Better is dead forever and let me tell you why: Because Joe Manchin has said he’s not going to vote for a bill that will add to the deficit….
If you do away with the budget gimmicks, Build Back Better, according to the CBO adds $3 trillion to the deficit.
Build Back Better was the signature issue of the radical left. It died in the Senate because [of] the CBO….
[The CBO looks] at the bill as if all of the programs, like the child tax credit, go for 10 years, not one year. The child tax credit over 10 years is $1.6 trillion over 10 years.
The bill written in the Senate is a lie. The CBO exposed that lie, and when it comes to deficit spending, it’s [adding] $3 trillion to the deficit.
The BBB legislation runs thousands of pages long, and would overhaul the country’s healthcare system and public education, fund climate-change “investments,” increase taxes on everyone, and extend numerous COVID-19 programs even after the virus has been neutralized.
In a word, it would erase the last vestige of the free-enterprise system upon which the country was built, replacing it with a welfare state where people are forced to become dependent not on themselves but upon the government for permission and subsistence.
The death of BBB has political consequences. It might actually slightly reduce the Democratic Party’s chances of being totally annihilated in next November’s midterms, as most taxpayers would have viewed its passage as generating additional price increases on everything they buy.
It also improves the chances that the Senate might pass the odious and unconstitutional Freedom to Vote Act (FVA) as it moves its focus away from Biden’s bill and on to the FVA as the way to ensure voter fraud in favor of Democrats forever.
For the moment, the death of Biden’s Build Back America bill is to be celebrated. But the freedom fight continues.
Related article:
Biden’s “Build Back Better” Agenda Is Dead, Say House Republicans
