Ahead of President Joe Biden signing an infrastructure bill into law on Monday, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “Now, this bill, as significant as it is, as historic as it is, is part one of two.”
This is wishful thinking. Progressives have gotten played on supporting the bill, known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework. They reneged on their vow to not vote for the BIF unless the larger social spending bill came up for a vote at the same time.
I predict that while BIF is now law, the Build Back Better Act will fail to pass Congress.
With BIF enacted, neither Sen. Manchin nor Sen. Sinema has any incentive to support the $1.75 trillion bill that would drastically expand the welfare state. The progressives gave up the leverage they had in terms of votes in the House of Representatives. Manchin or Sinema can now safely come out in opposition to BBB.
Even before BIF passed the House, months after the Senate had done so, Manchin already expressed reservations about the BBB. His concerns included paid family leave provisions and how the BBB would affect inflation. And, right now, inflationary concerns are only growing. Meanwhile, Sinema has come out in opposition to certain tax increases, limiting how revenue could be raised under BBB.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has vowed to bring up BBB for a vote before Thanksgiving. However, the support of many centrist House Democrats is likely contingent on the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office score of the bill. That’s a problem for Democrats because the CBO reportedly won’t favor the White House narrative of cost neutrality. Centrist Democrats are warier of supporting policies further to the left after the GOP gubernatorial upset in Virginia and the unexpectedly close Democratic gubernatorial victory in New Jersey.
Put another way, BBB is in trouble, and Democrats have a problem.
Jackson Richman is a journalist in Washington, D.C. Follow him @jacksonrichman.
