Civic Register
| 12.18.21
Senate Adjourns for the Year With Democrats’ Social Spending Plan Stalled
How do you feel about Democrats’ social spending plan stalling in the Senate?
What’s the story?
- The Senate’s 2021 session drew to a close early Saturday morning with the Democratic majority still unable to reach a consensus on their party’s multi-trillion spending package, known as the Build Back Better Act. It’s unclear whether Democrats will be able to get the package back on track in the new year after the Christmas recess concludes.
- Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had planned to hold a vote on the Build Back Better Act before Christmas, but Democrats haven’t coalesced around the final legislative text for the package.
- Support from all 50 Democratic senators and Vice President Kamala Harris will be necessary to pass the package using the budget reconciliation process, which is exempt from the Senate’s 60 vote threshold to overcome the legislative filibuster. Democrats have struggled to reach a compromise that will satisfy both the moderate and progressive wings of the party.
- The House passed its version of the Build Back Better Act on a strictly party-line vote on November 19th, but a number of provisions in that legislation were non-starters for some senators in the Democratic caucus, so their negotiations with the Biden White House have focused on crafting a bill that’s acceptable to all of their senators.
- Moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has expressed concern with the impact of increased spending on inflation, which reached a 39-year high in November. He has also taken issue with the use of “budget gimmicks” like sunsetting programs after a few years to keep the bill’s cost estimate lower even though there will be an effort to extend those programs at a much higher cost. Other issues between moderates and progressives include the size of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, corporate tax rates, and more.
- President Joe Biden released a statement Thursday to explain that he will continue to negotiate details of the Build Back Better Act with Manchin:
“It takes to finalize these agreements, prepare the legislative changes, and finish all the parliamentary and procedural steps needed to enable a Senate vote. We will advance this work together over the days and weeks ahead; Leader Schumer and I are determined to see the bill successfully on the floor as early as possible.”
- If Senate Democrats are able to reach an agreement amongst themselves on the bill and pass it sometime in 2022, the bill will have to go to the House for another vote. House Democrats may face similar difficulties in passing the bill given that they hold a narrow majority and can only lose three votes from their members and still pass legislation amid unified Republican opposition.
— Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: brunosan via Flickr / Creative Commons)
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Manchin is a Republican agent!!!! Open your eyes, he’s working for the Republicans
Too much money
Ok dummy where’s the money for this are we going to rob the wealthy Democratic district
And I hope they get none of it past. It’s all about controlling the American people. And it’s all about them retaining power.
Once again Republicans fail to have a better plan or help the American people. All they want is to vote NO on everything and gain total and complete power over the American people. They have no loyalty to our democracy. We must vote them out if we want a better America that works for the people not against them.
Your contempt for us and America is below acknowledgment at this point.
I have never read such hubris that BBB(social spending) is going to save this country and the world from climate change amongst other things. This legislation and the so called voting rights bill will do nothing but move the country sharply toward a socialist communist form of government. I keep reading articles in such publications as Newsweek that civil war is smoldering just below the surface. They claim there are 30 million people ready to take up arms against the Federal government. This type of legislation could be the match that could set off a national tragedy. One of the Russian dictators predicted America will lower its own flag. Not yet. Thank God for Senator Manchin and all the republican senators.
Pass the BBB through reconciliation! NOW!
Democrats need to focus on the Fifty GOP Senators who refuse to even discuss the BBB Bill, the Voter Protection Bill, or the John Lewis Voter Bill. The GOP needs to be shamed even more than Joe Manchin should be. Importantly, Joe Manchin has said he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs or going hunting instead of providing for their children. Are just too absurd to even consider. Poorly thought-out cop-out.
Joe Manchin should be ashamed of himself, and the entire country should be disappointed. We NEED that bill to pass!
F@ckin Republic party.
Senator Schumer call back the Senate now period.
Joe Manchin, your slow walking and supposed ‘fiscal’ responsibility arguments are in effect, a ‘penny-wise, hundreds of trillion dollar foolish’ position. Changes are coming that none of us like or want, but no-one currently has the means to stop. The Build Back Better program did all of the things needed for a unified, healthy, educated and empowered public to find needed solutions to minimize the coming ravages of the increasingly out of control Climate Crisis - and still does the things promised in the original package at an albeit slower pace. … … … No one currently knows all that it will take to slow the acceleration of climate change nor ways to restore our climate - and there has been no fully coordinated effort or needed funding to prevent the massive human suffering and quite literally, hundreds of trillions in long term economic loss. Slowing and controlling climate change is our Country’s and the world’s only hope for ANY long term future. Our Country has always been able to meet ‘impossible’ challenges when our government and our people work together with common cause. It will take the equivalent effort of concurrently fighting several world wars at once to meet this challenge, yet you feel compelled to not even let us begin the process. Had we not entered an uncertain and very costly World War 2 in order to protect our very profitable German war-machine manufacturing contracts, we would all be be speaking German today and the world would be a much darker place. Here are some very recent facts for you: … … … The Antarctic 1,260 square mile 700 feet thick Larson B ice shelf has suddenly shattered into peices surprising both glaciaolgists and climatologists alike. They knew it was melting but did not expect it to break away for many years, let alone shatter into pieces. The rise in sea levels from the Larson B collapse will accelerate the the rate of climate change and increase the severity of storms faster than anticiapted. … … … Behind Larson B, the Thwaites glacier, 100 times bigger than Larson B, has been rapidly melting for years with large fissures and cracks both on the surface and at it’s base. It is one of the largest Glaciers on the planet and has been dubbed the ‘doomsday’ glacier. With a surface area the size of Great Briton and an average 1,000 foot depth, there is enough melt water within the Thwaites glacier alone to raise sea levels by 20 inches. When the Thwaites glacier collapses as the Larson B ice shelve did, much of the rest of the West Antarctic glacial ice will no longer be held in place and is anticipated to melt much faster than prior estimates - raising sea levels somewhere between 60 and 90 feet. … … … The miles deep ice pack covering Greenland in the Arctic is also melting much faster than anticipated due to soot deposits from world wide wild fires in draught stricken areas (soot deposits may be affecting the Antarctic ice melt as well) - and when it alone melts, it will raise sea levels by 23 feet. … … … Forgetting about all of the other stuff associated with the Climate Crisis, an increase in sea levels of over 100 feet will destroy all coastal cities, most island economies and devastate surface life with extreme heat, drought, flooding and intense weather severity. … … … Yet, we do little to nothing because of people like yourself who want to protect ‘what was’ instead of protecting our country from what is assuredly coming. … … … I am reminded of the story of the man who uncontrollably farted all of the time. He was not too worried because his farts did not smell bad nor make much noise. During a visit to his doctor, he mentioned the problem. His doctor gave him some medicine and told him to see him again in a week. Suddenly his farts smelled horribly bad and he went angrily back to his doctor demanding an explanation. His doctor calmly stated that since his olfactory problem was now fixed he would next begin to work on his hearing. … … … The point is that no one should think that they are getting away with anything because of decorum or people being polite and not calling out the farting man who thought he was getting away with something that no one noticed. They did. I believe that someone should tell you that you are raising quite a stench while presuming that no-one notices or cares about your recent $1.5 Million donation from big-oil or your profits from selling dirty coal to power plants. We do. It stinks! Now, if we can just get you hear about the problems whose solutions you are preventing …
We need climate action NOW, not next year!
Frank-001: to say that I am pissed is a gross understatement. I think it is time for Manchin to start studying insurance so he can sell bloated useless policies to the gullible. Last time I checked he has no expertise in inflation, what causes it and how to manage it. People in charge of such things in the government do. It is just a scare tactic as an excuse to justify a foregone conclusion. Just who the f@¢k does he think he is. He is literally putting democracy at risk by submarining Biden’s presidency in this manner, and he knows it. Most people will only see that the promised program did not happen and not realize it was just due to one paid off lackey protecting big-oil by squashing any effort to even start addressing the Climate Crisis. The world will not trust our country to do the things we are encouraging them to do to address the Climate Crisis- all because private interests can buy this Senator from West Virginia. … … … We have got to get money out of politics, it corrupts our legislators who are willing to sacrifice our country’s future for anyone willing to line their pockets. … … . So I am beyond pissed. The consequences of this numb-nut’s sabotage go far beyond just not passing this bill - and he has been around long enough to realize what he is doing.
A pox on the rascals.
All progressives need to broadcast the lies and betrayal of Mansion & Cinema!
FUCK Manchin! I can’t wait until he becomes just another senator again. This fucking guy thinks he runs the country! 🖕🏻🤬🖕🏻
When the CBO scoring of a bill was the "gold standard" and comes out with numbers two trillion dollars higher than what the President claims it will cost, the Democrats want to ignore the "gold standard" and say look over here not there to get their bill passed. Good for Joe Manchin for saying he will not vote for this bill!
Of course, they are!