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Joe Manchin could have made BBB a better bill

Joe Manchin allegedly torpedoed BBB because he was worried about inflation, but that's never really made much sense. Even inflation hawks agreed that BBB would have little effect, and the Fed had just announced a tougher stance on inflation. If anything, inflation fears should have subsided a little by yesterday, when Manchin took to the airwaves to announce his opposition to BBB.

I suspect the real catalyst behind Manchin's decision was the CBO's response to a Republican request for a new cost analysis that assumes all the programs in the bill are permanent rather than temporary. That analysis suggested that BBB could blow a $3 trillion hole in the deficit.

Republicans claimed—and Manchin agreed—that the BBB bill as it stands is basically just an effort to game the CBO scoring system. And they're right. Everyone does this, including Republicans in their 2017 tax cut, but it's nonetheless true that the rat's nest of programs that start and stop, along with funding that's backloaded, is designed to give the impression of low cost even though Democrats clearly want to try to make all of the programs permanent at some future point.

Manchin wanted a "clean" bill. That is, a bill that included a smaller number of program but funded them permanently. The irony is that this is literally what every single liberal analyst wanted too. Lefties and centrists all agreed that this would be best, since permanent programs can be designed better and are much harder for Republicans to cancel down the line.

And yet that was apparently never on the table. Why? Because analysts may have loved the idea but politicians hated it. It would have meant killing all but two or three programs, and it was impossible to get agreement within the Democratic caucus about which ones to keep. Everyone had their own pet program.

So there you have it. If we had done it Manchin's way, we would have kept his vote and we probably would have gotten a better bill out of it. I wonder why this was so impossible?

39 thoughts on “Joe Manchin could have made BBB a better bill

  1. colbatguano

    Well, they could have funded more of the programs if Manchin and Sinema hadn't taken a bunch of the tax increases off the table. It's the perfect means of sabotage.

  2. Ken Rhodes

    You wonder why it was impossible???

    It's because Democrats are just like everybody else--willing to compromise on other people's wish-lists, but not on their own. "If I can't get what I want, the rest of you can go pound sand."

    Joe Manchin was one of the few who wasn't "asking" for anything; he didn't have any pet project he was demanding. He was just "demanding" that his compatriots swallow a bitter dose of reality.

    1. peterlorre

      That's not really true. He demanded and received a ton of climate concessions so that WV can still pretend that coal is the future, and he was asking (well, demanding) that rich people not see their taxes go up very much.

      Those are pretty substantial demands!

  3. Brett

    It would have meant killing all but two or three programs, and it was impossible to get agreement within the Democratic caucus about which ones to keep. Everyone had their own pet program.

    Part of that is because the Reconciliation Bill is the only way to pass this stuff short of abolishing the filibuster, and that means you only get one shot per year to do it. It's no wonder that they're all scrambling to get their priorities on it.

  4. Spadesofgrey

    The "climate warriors" were never going to allow that to happen. Sadly for them, some potential new Dem Senators may not be for their liking either.

    1. Salamander

      The real "climate warriors" are the fossil fuel corporations and other heavy carbon-emitting indfustries. Agriculture. Autos. Etc. They'll defeat that climate yet!

  5. tdbach

    "If we had done it Manchin's way, we would have kept his vote and we probably would have gotten a better bill out of it."

    That's not true, unless the pared down bill had nothing to address the climate crises, and no supports for poor families - both of which he adamantly opposed. And without that, what do you have?

    1. ddoubleday

      He just said himself he was ALWAYS a No. He moved the goalposts every time they addressed his "concerns".

      But Kredulous Kevin thinks THIS is the promise Manchin would have kept.

  6. haddockbranzini

    The only happy Democratic senator at this point is Sinema. The bill's dead and she won't get hassled at public bathrooms because of it.

  7. cld

    Joe Manchin privately said low-income parents would use the child tax credit to buy drugs,

    https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/joe-manchin-2656076371/

    . . .
    The centrist senator cited the cost of the bill and worries about inflation as reasons why he isn’t supporting the bill, but according to HuffPost reporters Tara Golshan and Arthur Delaney, he has privately said that he doesn’t trust poor people to use money wisely.

    “In recent months,” Golshan and Delaney report, “Manchin has told several of his fellow Democrats that he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children, according to two sources familiar with the senator’s comments. Continuing the child tax credit for another year is a core part of the Build Back Better legislation that Democrats had hoped to pass by the end of the year. The policy has already cut child poverty by nearly 30%.”

    The reporters add, “Manchin’s private comments shocked several senators, who saw it as an unfair assault on his own constituents and those struggling to raise children in poverty. Manchin has also told colleagues he believes that Americans would fraudulently use the proposed paid sick leave policy, specifically saying people would feign being sick and go on hunting trips, a source familiar with his comments told HuffPost.”
    . . . .

    Like all social conservatives he projects exactly the kind of thing he'd do onto others to deny and distract from his own corrupt and failed character.

    1. Spadesofgrey

      Manchin is a globalist neoliberal. Social Conservatives are in the eye of the beholder. But your too stupid to understand the issue.

  8. RZM

    This is kind of disappointing coming from Kevin. Manchin's public statements have been all over the map and as you note include inflation concerns which are powerful evidence that Manchin is not serious. Also, who says two or three programs that only Manchin gets to sign off on would have been better ?
    BTW, it's not just the Republican tax cuts that supposedly "game the CBO score", there's lots of legislation that uses the same technique. And it's not true that you cannot vote for a program now and then choose to not renew it a few years down the road if it's not successful. In fact it's exactly the opposite : these are likely to be successful AND popular programs which is exactly why no one in the GOP is in favor of them it's quite plausible to believe, indeed likely, that that's why Manchin isn't either. More importantly if Manchin were serious about a significant bill instead of some personally approved and much smaller programs, deciding to announce his decision to not support BBB on Fox News with no warning - indeed without even taking Biden's call, suggests this is much more about politics than some principled stand. Judging from the stock market and the analysis of such wild lefties as Goldman Sachs, Manchin and you Kevin have the economics wrong.

  9. Salamander

    That bill would NEVER have been "clean" enough for Dino Joe. Every change made at his demand was met by yet another demand within days. He loves both the attention it gives him in the media, and the power to control the entire Democratic agenda, which impresses the simple folk back home in West Backwoods.

      1. KawSunflower

        I'd bet that Salamander knows the difference between "your" & "you're," as well as the difference between a sophomoric insult & an actual rational argument using something other than racism & rudeness.

  10. skeptonomist

    "If we had done it Manchin's way ... we probably would have gotten a better bill out of it."

    No, we would have gotten a smaller bill without many of the things that most Democrats wanted - not just some pet projects. There is no reason that programs have to extend into the infinite future or even 10 years. Actually the bill would have been better only from Republicans' point of view. Kevin seems to accept that point of view.

    1. spatrick

      Remember Bernie Sanders wanted six trillion initially. $3.5 trill was supposed to be a compromise before Manchin and Synema got to it.

      As Dave Dayen so well put it "This bill has been grounded into paste" and with its convoluted funding measures and regulations for various programs to keep the cost under two trillion, stuff insisted on by Manchin by the way because he doesn't trust poor people to spend their money wisely, the realty is, maybe it was a good thing he was the one to blow up was becoming a very bad piece of legislation and as I said before, good thing its now instead of six months from now.

      Wake me when Synema and Manchin actually agree on something, okay? Until then, there is no "hard" news, just speculation.

  11. rick_jones

    I suspect the real catalyst behind Manchin's decision was the CBO's response to a Republican request for a new cost analysis that assumes all the programs in the bill are permanent rather than temporary.

    Well, until a way is found to un-ring a bell, camels' noses are quite intertial once underneath the tent flap...

  12. KenSchulz

    It could have been a ‘clean’ bill, with programs fully funded, if fifty Democratic Senators would have agreed that rich people shouldn’t enjoy generous tax loopholes, and that wealthy Americans should finally pay a reasonable tax rate which would still be far less than they paid in earlier periods, even up to Reagan’s term.

  13. kenalovell

    “I will never forget the warning from then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, that he delivered during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing during my first year in the Senate. He testified that the greatest threat facing our nation was our national debt and since that time our debt has doubled."

    I'm not sure we should place much reliance on the word of a guy who takes his economic advice from the navy.

  14. pjcamp1905

    " it was impossible to get agreement within the Democratic caucus about which ones to keep. "

    Isn't this what presidents are for?

    1. KenSchulz

      Even in Westminster systems, in which party discipline is enforced more stringently than in our Presidential system, governments fall on votes of no-confidence.

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