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There’s a reason they wanted the social spending bill tied to infrastructure.

For members of “the Squad,” a group of staunch progressives in the House, Sen. Joe Manchin’s statement opposing the Build Back Better Act didn’t come as a surprise. They’d long warned it was just a matter of time before Manchin derailed the bill if a vote on infrastructure legislation, which he supported, was held first.

It turns out they were right.

Manchin has previously voiced a variety of concerns about the massive climate and social spending bill, and has repeatedly demanded it be trimmed down. In an attempt to pressure the moderate senator to support the measure, progressives lobbied Democratic leaders to keep it linked to a vote on a massive infrastructure package known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework, as that latter bill was seen as a priority for Manchin.

The bills were coupled for weeks but were eventually separated due to pressure from House moderates and an assurance from President Joe Biden that he’d secure a yes vote from Manchin on the Build Back Better Act. Most House progressives voted in favor of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework; in the end, the six House members in “the Squad” were the only ones within the Congressional Progressive Caucus who voted against it. At the time, they reiterated fears that passing the infrastructure bill first would give up any leverage they had to pressure moderate lawmakers like Manchin to consider the Build Back Better Act.

Just over a month after that vote, Manchin has told Fox News he’s “a no” on Build Back Better.

“We have been saying this for weeks that this would happen,” Squad member Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) said in an MSNBC interview on Sunday. “Having [the infrastructure bill and Build Back Better] coupled together was the only leverage we had. And what did the caucus do? We tossed it.”

Bush’s stance was echoed by other Squad members, like Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and it’s now clear these progressives were correct to be worried. Although it’s uncertain how open Manchin might be to a different version of the Build Back Better Act, his stance has effectively doomed the current version.

Democrats are attempting to pass Build Back Better via a process known as budget reconciliation, which allows legislation to pass the Senate with a simple majority. They need all 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus on board to approve it — a fragile unity that’s impossible to achieve without Manchin’s vote. That fact has given Manchin, the bill’s largest detractor in the Senate, a lot of say over its fate. Over the past few months, he’s shown he’s more than willing to make full use of that influence. He did so again Sunday, shaking what little faith many progressives had left in him.

“Maybe they’ll believe us next time. Or maybe people will just keep calling us naive,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tweeted on Sunday.

When a handful of us in the House warned this would happen if Dem leaders gave Manchin everything he wanted 1st by moving BIF before BBB instead of passing together, many ridiculed our position.

Maybe they’ll believe us next time. Or maybe people will just keep calling us naïve. https://t.co/TtKW6VOOCF

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 19, 2021

Progressives have long feared that moderates would abandon Build Back Better without the infrastructure bill

For months, the Congressional Progressive Caucus emphasized that it wouldn’t move along the bipartisan infrastructure bill without a concurrent vote on the Build Back Better Act. Members worried that moderates including Manchin would potentially abandon the social spending legislation once infrastructure passed. They were able to issue this ultimatum because the House also has a thin Democratic majority and the Congressional Progressive Caucus has the numbers to keep any bill without Republican support from passing.

At the start of November, however, as pressure to pass the infrastructure bill grew from both the White House and impatient moderates, most members in the progressive caucus agreed to a compromise. Armed with a written agreement from House moderates agreeing to consider the Build Back Better Act once the Congressional Budget Office released a cost estimate, as well as Biden’s promise that he would get Manchin’s support, progressives allowed the infrastructure vote to move forward.

“The president’s word is on the line here, and I do still believe that he is going to do what he told me and what he told our caucus and what he told the country he would do,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chair of the Progressive Caucus, said in an MSNBC interview last week. Manchin “made a commitment to the president, the president made a commitment to us, and I believe we’re going to get it done.”

The White House said that Manchin was still participating in negotiations as recently as Tuesday, and that Manchin had brought the president a more limited version of the bill he could support. (As Vox’s Andrew Prokop has explained, Manchin’s statements do not explicitly indicate whether he’s closed the door to negotiating on a different version of the Build Back Better plan.)

“If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki wrote in a statement Sunday.

Jayapal, in the MSNBC interview last week, said she did not regret the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s decision to vote for the infrastructure bill when it did.

“I don’t regret it because I think our leverage was at the maximum point,” Jayapal said. “Had we not done that, I think we would have lost even more on Build Back Better.”

Me: “Do you feel Joe Biden let you down? And do you feel you got played by Joe Manchin?”@RepJayapal: “No and no.”

I pushed @RepJayapal on whether she and the progressives gave up leverage too soon by voting for BIF before BBB.

Watch our full exchange:pic.twitter.com/52NVcoSP5n

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) December 16, 2021

It’s impossible to say exactly what would have happened had progressives not chosen to put their trust in the president’s ability to seal a deal.

On one hand, questions have been raised about how much leverage progressives actually had throughout this process. Although Manchin helped negotiate the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework, it was never clear whether he wanted it to pass so badly that he’d be willing to overlook his concerns about the size of the Build Back Better Act and many of its programs. It’s possible he would have been willing to vote down the social spending legislation even if that meant jeopardizing infrastructure legislation, too.

On the other hand, it did appear that the infrastructure legislation was a proposal that Manchin was invested in. He has long emphasized his support of bipartisanship and commitment to a measure addressing much-needed funding for roads and bridges that could garner both Democratic and Republican support. For that reason, the Squad is among those who now believe Democrats made a major miscalculation — one that didn’t just potentially squander a chance to pass Build Back Better quickly but that has put Democrats in a position in which further negotiation will be exponentially more difficult.

Manchin’s statement has damaged trust

Democrats are where they are now because of trust.

Progressives made a number of concessions on the Build Back Better Act, agreeing to a $3.5 trillion framework after initially proposing a $6 trillion option. Then they agreed to winnow it down further to $1.75 trillion, cutting some of their key priorities, including Medicare expansion of dental and vision coverage.

Throughout this process, willingness to move forward has relied on a sense that Manchin was participating in talks in good faith. And there was a sense that Biden, who has often touted the power of his personal relationship with Manchin, could find a way to get the senator to yes. For the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Manchin’s new statement seems to have shattered that trust.

“Today, Senator Manchin has betrayed his commitment not only to the President and Democrats in Congress but most importantly, to the American people,” caucus chair Jayapal said in a Sunday statement. “He routinely touts that he is a man of his word, but he can no longer say that.”

Now it will be more difficult to move forward. Progressives may feel less willing to compromise on provisions that remain outstanding in the bill, like drug pricing and Medicaid expansion, feeling that further compromise won’t net them anything from Manchin.

Manchin has also created confusion about what he wants, making it difficult for Democratic leaders to know where they should restart negotiations. It’s unclear if he simply doesn’t like the current shape of the Build Back Better Act and would be willing to vote for the proposal he brought to Biden recently, or if he’s now a no on any more spending.

The senator has placed Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a tough position as well. Schumer is under increasing pressure from his caucus to simply bring a vote on the Build Back Better Act to the floor of the Senate, in hopes of forcing Manchin to vote yes.

The weeks to come will reveal if Manchin is willing to consider a version of the legislation that takes his concerns into consideration, or if he’s willing to walk away from it altogether. In both respects, however, his statement has made it tougher for progressives to trust that he’s willing to engage with this legislation seriously moving forward.

The bill would also literally save lives. For example, its clean energy funding would help close the nation’s last coal plants, eliminating an energy source that releases particulate matter that contributes to asthma, heart attacks, and other diseases. One Harvard estimate found that reaching 80 percent clean electricity by 2030 would save 9,200 lives in 2030 alone, and another 317,500 through 2050.

Finally, the bill would dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars to helping communities prepare for worsening floods, heat, and fires in the name of climate justice. One program would help tribes relocate away from areas threatened by climate change, and other investments would help disadvantaged communities improve their water and physical infrastructure.

By the time the bill passed the House of Representatives, progressive Democrats had already made some concessions that weakened some of the key provisions. They scaled down the overall cost of the bill and cut some proposals, including setting a national standard to reach 80 percent clean energy by 2030. All of that was to appease Manchin. It just didn’t work.

“Utter nonsense,” a “catastrophic failure”: The climate community reacts

Manchin released a statement after his Fox appearance elaborating on why he said “I just can’t” vote for the legislation. Several of his complaints targeted the climate provisions in the bill. He said the Build Back Better Act would harm the electric grid and increase dependence on foreign supply chains. He worried a faster energy transition “will have catastrophic consequences for the American people like we have seen in both Texas and California in the last two years”— likely a reference to power outages and volatile energy rates from extreme weather the past few years. (In fact, a major reason his West Virginia constituents have faced higher utility rates in recent years is coal is getting more expensive.)

Climate advocates who helped Democrats design the Build Back Better plan were grieving Sunday over what the loss would mean for both the planet and public health. Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton expert on the electricity sector and adviser to the White House on the Build Back Better plan, called Manchin’s news “devastating” and his excuses “utter nonsense.”

Sam Ricketts, co-director of the advocacy group Evergreen Action, who has advised Democrats on the bill, called Manchin “duplicitous” for leaving “the important needs of the country unfulfilled.” He countered Manchin’s claims, saying, “The Build Back Better act would reduce Americans’ energy costs, not increase [them]. It would enhance American economic competitiveness, not decrease it. It would increase the reliability and resiliency of the electric grid, not the opposite.”

Ricketts suspected Manchin had it backward because, he said, the senator was more informed “by corporate donors or by ignorance.” Manchin’s son is a leader in the coal industry, and Manchin himself has made $4.5 million from his investments in coal over the course of his Senate career. Over the past year, Manchin has reaped more campaign donations from the oil, gas, and coal industries than any other senator.

Climate activists are also dismayed because Congress has promised action for years, but failed to deliver. And they point to a larger pattern of how obstructionists — both in the Republican and Democratic parties — have sunk the US’s best chances of action again and again. Longtime climate activist and writer Bill McKibben noted that Manchin’s obstruction fits the long legacy of a Congress that can’t pass climate legislation to meet the scale of the crisis.

Joe Manchin preserves Congress’s perfect record: no real climate legislation in the 33 years they’ve been debating the issue.

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) December 19, 2021

There are still plenty of unanswered questions after Manchin’s announcement.

Will Congress be able to salvage a smaller deal that still delivers on climate cuts? In a statement Sunday, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) advocated for that path. “Major climate and clean energy provisions of the Build Back Better Act have largely been negotiated, scored for ten years, and financed,” he said. “Let’s pass these provisions now. We cannot let this moment pass.”

Another question: Could Democrats find another legislative vehicle that will finally win Manchin’s support? Progressive lawmakers have already pointed fingers at the White House and Democratic leadership for their political failure, but some have hinted there may still be a path forward.

We are facing unprecedented challenges and #BuildBackBetter is about tackling them head on: addressing the climate crisis, fighting inflation and giving hard working Americans a shot at prosperity. To walk away from those challenges is the height of irresponsibility and betrayal.

— Rep. Veronica Escobar (@RepEscobar) December 19, 2021

Grieving climate activists also echoed that this isn’t a moment to give up. “This is the last best shot we’re really going to have to enact national policy that deals with the climate crisis in the scope and scale that’s necessary,” said Ricketts. “We still have a Democratic president in the White House who has claimed that climate is a top priority for his administration. Now let’s see them deliver.”

Manchin has repeatedly claimed that Build Back Better spending would increase and entrench inflation, although the White House and many economists have pushed back on this. A letter from 17 Nobel Prize-winning economists in support of the bill’s policies argues that, in the long term, it will actually slow inflation:

While we all have different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we believe that key components of this broader agenda are critical—including tax reforms that make our tax system more equitable and that enable our system to raise the additional funds required to facilitate necessary public investments and achieve our collective goals. Because this agenda invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease longer-term inflationary pressures.

At a Wall Street Journal event in December, when November’s Consumer Price Index numbers showed inflation rose 6.8 percent over the past year — the fastest increase and highest rate in nearly 40 years — Manchin claimed the new data proved the economists’ arguments wrong, although they were referring to longer-term trends. “We had people at that time saying inflation would be transitory,” Manchin said. “We had 17 Nobel laureates saying it’s going to be no problem. Well, 17 Nobel laureates were wrong.”

It remains possible Manchin may support a different social spending package, though it’s not clear what that might look like.

Biden’s domestic agenda has suffered a serious setback

Any one senator has the power to derail Build Back Better, because Democrats have the narrowest possible majority in Congress and hoped to pass the bill through the budget reconciliation process. That allows legislation to be passed by a simple majority in both chambers of Congress so long as its provisions are related to budgetary matters, circumventing the filibuster in the Senate.

As the most conservative member of Democrats’ slim Senate majority, Manchin has used that fact to exercise outsized influence on the bill from the start — both its costs and its contents. Largely due to Manchin’s priorities, what began as a $3.5 trillion piece of legislation dwindled to about $1.85 trillion by the time it passed the House, and was facing further cuts in the Senate.

Last week, Manchin quashed Democratic hopes that the bill might pass the Senate ahead of the chamber’s holiday break, again due to cost and scope concerns. That forced Congress to end its 2021 session early Saturday morning after a run of ambassadorial and judicial confirmations.

The White House had tried for months, and particularly over the past week, to get Manchin on board with the legislation. Congressional Democrats see Manchin’s about-face as a betrayal, given that they passed Biden’s infrastructure bill with the understanding that the White House and Senate would reciprocate and pass the social spending bill.

“You may recall that the agreement from the beginning was that there was one package: Part of it would be the bipartisan infrastructure, but the other part would be all these things that are now in Build Back Better,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said Sunday.

In a scathing statement Sunday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Manchin had reneged on previous promises with the White House to support the bill and continue with negotiations.

“If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate,” Psaki wrote.

The implications of the bill’s potential demise are massive.

It contained a measure extending the expanded child tax credit Democrats passed in response to the pandemic. That credit sent monthly payments to nearly all US parents, and cut child poverty substantially in its first year of existence, but its last payment went out Wednesday, and the program will now lapse. If extended by the Build Back Better Act, it could reduce poverty by 40 percent going forward, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Additionally, as Vox’s Rebecca Leber pointed out, the end of the Build Back Better Act could be the end of a once-in-a-decade chance to fight climate change.

While Manchin had previously expressed a desire to make a deal with Biden and progressive Democrats on the bill, he’s also been clear that he wants to limit any new spending. He sent a proposal to Democrats in the Senate back in July stating he wanted to keep costs for the reconciliation bill to $1.5 trillion, Politico reported at the time.

That proposal included a tax plan to help cover the cost of the bill, with any additional revenue going to paying down the deficit, one of Manchin’s persistent concerns. At the time, he also requested that the Federal Reserve begin its tapering plan to combat inflation, something it’s now committed to doing.

“My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country even more vulnerable to the threats we face,” Manchin said in his statement. “I cannot take that risk with a staggering debt of more than $29 trillion and inflation taxes that are real and harmful to every hard-working American at the gasoline pumps, grocery stores and utility bills with no end in sight.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reacted to the news on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, telling host Jake Tapper, “Well, I think he’s gonna have a lot of explaining to do to the people of West Virginia,” chiding Manchin for refusing to pass the legislation, which would also lower prescription drug costs, expand Medicaid, and provide funding for increased home health care.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) responds to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) coming out against President Biden’s Build Back Better plan:

“Well, I think he’s gonna have a lot of explaining to do to the people of West Virginia.” pic.twitter.com/448VFowzPC

— The Recount (@therecount) December 19, 2021

A number of lawmakers, including Sanders and Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), said Sunday that the bill should be brought to a vote in January despite Manchin’s statement, essentially daring him to vote against a bill that’s a Democratic and presidential priority.

“If Sen. Joe Manchin wants to vote against the Build Back Better Act, he should have the opportunity to do so with a floor vote as soon as the Senate returns,” Sanders wrote in a statement Sunday, adding he found it “amusing” that Manchin would approve the National Defense Authorization Act at nearly $780 billion in military spending while eschewing the Build Back Better Act’s social programs.

Many progressives in the House echoed this statement, while also sharply criticizing Manchin; Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) called Manchin’s claim that he had “done all he can” to reconcile his priorities with Build Back Better “bullshit” in a tweet on Sunday, while her colleagues in the Congressional Progressive Caucus issued a critical statement, calling Manchin’s comments a betrayal. “He routinely touts that he is a man of his word, but he can no longer say that,” the CPC wrote in the statement. “West Virginians, and the country, see clearly who he is.”

New statement from the CPC: “Senator Manchin has betrayed his commitment not only to the President and Democrats in Congress but most importantly, to the American people” pic.twitter.com/U22KamW7bb

— Hanna Trudo (@HCTrudo) December 19, 2021

Republicans, for their part, have praised Manchin’s decision to waylay the bill, which was universally opposed by the GOP from the start.

“President Biden’s mega-spending bill is dead and Joe Manchin put the nail in the coffin,” Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse said in a statement. “This should be a reality check to wild-eyed progressives that they are not the mainstream: With a divided country, a 50-50 Senate, and blowout inflation, the American people don’t want to upend this country with nakedly-partisan legislation.”

While Manchin’s statement sounds quite final, and has been interpreted that way in some cases, it’s not clear whether this is actually the end for Biden’s domestic policy agenda.

As Vox’s Andrew Prokop explained on Sunday, it’s possible Manchin is “fully dug in against any form of Build Back Better.” However, his Sunday Fox News appearance could also be a negotiating tactic — a strategy Manchin has used previously to extract changes to the Democrats’ voting rights bill, the For the People Act.

In his statement Sunday, Manchin didn’t close the door to future negotiations entirely, and it’s ultimately unclear what will come next for Build Back Better.

“I will continue working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to address the needs of all Americans and do so in a way that does not risk our nation’s independence, security and way of life,” Manchin said.

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