President Joe Biden; Sen. Joe Manchin
Nina Riggio/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images; Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
- Democrats are trying to resurrect their social legislation after Manchin dealt it a near-fatal blow.
- They’re eyeing child tax credit changes that he wants — for instance to grandparents who have grandkids as dependents.
- Michael Bennet, a child tax credit architect, said “I just don’t know” about getting Manchin’s vote.
President Joe Biden staked the vast majority of his agenda on his $2 trillion Build Back Better legislation expanding the nation’s safety net and combating the climate emergency. It was always going to be a perilous endeavor to muscle the package through with only Democratic votes and narrow majorities in the House and Senate.
Reality came crashing down on the White House on Sunday, when Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia went on Fox News to put a dagger into the sprawling social and climate measure. “I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there,” he said, adding, “This is a no on this legislation.”
Manchin’s opposition effectively put him on the same side as the Republican Party that unanimously opposes it — and fed speculation Manchin will leave the Democratic Party altogether. Democrats are now scrambling to revive the legislation and take a new shot at getting the West Virginia Democrat’s vote.
“I think there’s a lot of good work that’s been put in this bill,” Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado said in an interview. “But there are things that can be changed and things that can be improved.”
“It is also the case when you’re trying to pass the reconciliation bill with 50 votes plus one that everybody’s going to have a say about that,” he said, referring to the party-line process Democrats are using. Without Manchin’s vote, Democrats can’t approve the bill in the 50-50 Senate.
At the center of the festering dispute is the expanded child tax credit, which provides up to $300 monthly per child to most families. It represents the cornerstone of Democrats’s efforts to slash child poverty, and they want to expand it another year, with the last checks having already been sent out.
Manchin has hammered the benefit, arguing in a Monday radio interview that only families with taxable incomes should qualify for the program. He also wants to make it easier for grandparents to tap into the benefit, saying Democrats “won’t even talk” about smoothening the process for those taking care of grandkids.
Under current law, grandparents are eligible to receive a monthly check if they’ve claimed grandchildren as dependents for at least six months. To assuage Manchin’s concerns, a key Democrat says he’s in the early stages of designing a grandparent fix so it’s easier for them to access the credit without having to claim any dependents.
“I think we can include that,” Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an interview. “What we’re doing is kind of streamlining the way forward that would include grandparents playing a bigger kind of role.”
Experts say it would probably take a year to implement. “With a longer-term CTC expansion back on the table, it’s not crazy to put the eligibility adjustments back in the mix as well,” Andy Boardman, a research assistant at the Urban Institute, told Insider.
‘We’re obviously gonna have to rewrite the bill’
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a news briefing after the weekly Senate Democratic Policy Luncheon at the U.S. Capitol June 22, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Democrats have an enormous challenge ahead. Getting a bill to Biden’s desk will require what many in the party view as painful sacrifices to satisfy Manchin’s $1.75 trillion ceiling on fresh government spending with all planned programs running 10 years, compelling them to pick and choose only a few of their priorities and ditch others.
“I think we’re all at least over the initial shock,” one Democratic aide granted anonymity to speak candidly said, adding, “We’re obviously going to have to rewrite the bill. This isn’t just changes around the edges. This is restructuring.”
The legislation would have also set up universal pre-K, established federal subsidies for childcare, combated the climate emergency, and more. Democrats want to finance it with new taxes on rich Americans and large corporations currently paying little or no federal taxes.
Some Democrats are starting to float difficult cuts. Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky, the House Budget Committee chair, said in a Bloomberg interview on Monday that $175 billion in affordable housing may be on the chopping block.
Many Democrats are squirming at the thought of negotiations slowing to a crawl, particularly as the 2022 midterms start heating up and their focus shifts to campaigning in their home states and districts.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York says he’s bulldozing ahead with a plan to put the House bill to a vote in the upper chamber, unless they assemble another package capable of getting 50 votes first. It’s meant to be a pressure tactic to force Senate Democrats to quickly straighten out disagreements on the size and scope of the plan.
“I know we are all frustrated at this outcome,” Schumer told Democratic senators on a virtual caucus call, per a Democratic official familiar. “However, we are not giving up on BBB. Period. We won’t stop working on it until we pass a bill.”
At one point, Manchin addressed his fellow Senate Democrats and raised his familiar litany of concerns about the legislation. He argued he’d long been consistent on his views and doesn’t want any legislation to contribute to inflation or add to the national debt, per CNN’s Manu Raju.
Democrats, though, just still don’t know what they’re dealing with in Manchin.
“I think Senator Manchin changes his mind from time to time on this, which is his prerogative,” Bennet told Insider. Bennet added he wasn’t going to give up in his efforts to try to persuade Manchin to back a renewal of the child benefit.
Bennet pitched Manchin on extending the child tax credit on the Senate floor late last week, bringing charts to illustrate its impact on slashing hunger and child poverty. But it appeared to land with a thud given the conservative Democrat only stepped up his criticism of it afterward.
Asked if he thought the West Virginia Democrat could be brought onboard on renewing the child tax credit expansion, Bennet replied: “I just don’t know.”
Read the original article on Business Insider 
