WASHINGTON — For weeks, Joe Manchin has expressed serious concerns with the shape and timing of Democrats’ Build Back Better bill, and Democrats have brushed aside many of his gripes while finalizing the social spending and climate legislation.
But now, with a self-imposed Christmas deadline around the corner, Democrats must either strike a deal with Manchin or call his bluff and dare him to vote against the bill.
“It comes at a time when you’ve got to say, ‘Alright, we’ve done the negotiating, we’ve made the accommodations, it’s time to put up or shut up,’” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Tuesday.
Manchin held a “productive” phone call with President Joe Biden on Monday, and more negotiations are expected to take place in the coming days, according to his office.
The problem for Democrats is that they may never be able to meet Manchin’s demands, if he’s truly serious about them. On Monday, the senator repeated his complaint that Democrats should not enact temporary programs with the intention of extending them later, a time-honored budget gimmick Democrats have embraced for reducing the cost of their bill.
“If it’s whatever plan it will be, pre-K, child care and in-home care, then it should be 10 years, it shouldn’t just be one year here, three years here, five years there,” Manchin told reporters. “And I think it’d be very transparent for the public to see exactly what they’d be getting for what we’re spending for 10 years.”
The bill includes funding for child care subsidies and universal pre-kindergarten through 2027, enhanced health care subsidies through 2025, and a continuation of monthly child tax credit payments only through 2022.
Manchin has previously said that he doesn’t like short-term policies in the bill, complaining about “shell games and budget gimmicks” early last month, but Democrats have shrugged off his complaints and stuck with their plan. Manchin’s comments this week suggest that Democrats might have more of a problem than they realized, though it’s possible he simply wants to be seen as the party’s most reluctant “yes” vote.
“Waiting until the 59th minute of the 11th hour to argue for a completely different funding scheme creates real problems,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told HuffPost on Tuesday.
Warren dismissed Manchin’s complaints, pointing out that the infrastructure bill Manchin helped author earlier this year was financed partly by budget gimmicks and that it still added to the deficit.
Manchin himself is partly responsible for the short duration of various Build Back Better initiatives, since he insisted the bill cost no more than $1.5 trillion and be fully paid for at the same time. Democrats shortened programs in the bill to reduce their budget impact instead of jettisoning entire provisions.
On the child tax credit, in particular, Democrats are continuing the monthly benefits only for one year thanks to a deal with Manchin, who agreed to drop his demand for a “work requirement,” according to two sources with knowledge of the negotiations. An income requirement would disallow the poorest Americans from receiving the benefits and would drastically reduce the policy’s impact on poverty.
Making the child tax credit permanent would cost more than $1 trillion, since its annual cost exceeds $100 billion. Democrats initially wanted the child tax credit payments to continue through 2025 so they would expire at the same time as Republican tax cuts, setting the stage for an easy deal.
The House passed a version of Build Back Better last month, with Democrats knowing they would need to make some changes to get Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) on board with the legislation.
But House Democrats recoil at the idea of changing the child tax credit, which has cut child poverty by nearly 30% since payments started in July.
“The child tax credit has been effective. It’s working. It has been probably one of the most successful pieces of legislation,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told HuffPost. “It has decreased poverty and it’s decreased hunger in this country. It should continue, and that’s my goal.”
Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), chair of the moderate New Democrat Coalition, said the debate over Build Back Better has gone on for months and that the final child tax credit payment will go out this week. If Congress doesn’t act, there won’t be a payment in January.
“Enough talk. It’s time to decide,” DelBene said in a statement to HuffPost. “This is the last monthly CTC check and we’ve made incredible progress in just a few months since this historic middle-class tax cut began. We cannot go backward and lose all this progress.”
The broader worry for Democrats is that putting off the passage of Build Back Better until next year may doom the bill entirely. The party is eager to move on from months of drama and dysfunction to focus on defending its narrow congressional majorities in the 2022 midterm elections.
Blowing past another deadline could mean even more agonizing in the months ahead, especially if rising inflation continues to accelerate, giving Manchin even more reason to hit the brakes on the bill.
But Democrats sounded confident about getting the job done no matter how long it takes.
“If this is not done in the next two weeks, we’ll come back in January and get it done,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) told reporters on Tuesday. “I believe in Christmas miracles, but it’s a very tight timeline.”