Manchin not cause for Build Back Better collapse

By: 
Lee Pulaski
City Editor

This year, the roles of Ebenezer Scrooge, the Grinch, Jack Frost and Professor Hinkle will all be played by Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

That’s what many Democrats are claiming after Manchin announced on Fox News Sunday he would not vote for President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan. In the last couple of days, the media is claiming, through claims from the White House and Congressional Democrats, that Manchin’s swing vote could destroy the environment, woefully curtail LGBTQ rights, keep a temporary child tax credit from becoming permanent and more.

Build Back Better included a staggering $555 billion in spending to subsidize transitioning the country to electric vehicles and various clean sources of energy. Without approving the plan, experts said in a Yahoo News story, it means the United States won’t be able to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases in half in the next nine years or reach net zero emissions by 2050.

The mammoth bill also had provisions that would allow same-sex couples who were married in 2004 and after in places where same-sex marriage was legalized to amend their tax returns so that they could receive the same tax benefits that heterosexual couples receive when they file their returns. Because Manchin said he would not support Build Back Better, activists are claiming he has demolished LGBTQ civil rights.

Then, of course, there’s the temporary child tax credit that pays $300 per child under 6 and $250 per child under 18, which was started in July and would have been continued under Build Back Better. Besides his vote putting the measure in jeopardy, Manchin has apparently claimed that parents were just going to use the money to buy drugs, sending proponents of the tax credit into a tizzy.

Perhaps, instead of declaring one man to be a reincarnation of the devil, folks in Washington, especially the Democrats, should take a look at reality.

First of all, the fact that these three unrelated measures and many more like them are lumped into a bill that’s expected to cost the American people anywhere from $1.6 trillion to $2.4 trillion, reduced from the original estimate of $3.5 trillion. The fact that the word “trillion” is in this conversation at all is enough to cause hard-working people who will never even see the word “million” in their bank accounts to have shortness of breath and heart palpitations.

How do you solve that problem? Easy. Vote on issues one by one instead of lumping them into one package. Take the environmental plan and see if it will stand on its own. Offer up the marriage tax benefits alone and see if they can get enough votes. Progress will only be made if these items are considered individually, allowing them to win or lose on their own merits.

Washington doesn’t want to do that, though. It’s easier to scapegoat than it is for the politicians to come up with real solutions. For example, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Manchin’s announcement to not support Build Back Better “an egregious breach of the trust of the president” and is recommending that Biden take executive action.

That would be unwise. Congress is the part of government that is supposed to pass laws. Just because the hundreds of politicians can’t get their act together, they shouldn’t be asking Biden to do what they can’t. They should stop fitting a hippo into a pair of pantyhose and realize that smaller is better if they want to end the gridlock and get something — anything — moving forward.

You don’t see this kind of bloated legislation at the municipal and county levels, but folks in Congress assume that the only way to move forward is to lump everything together. They’ve got it in their heads that if they throw everything into a cauldron, stir it all into an inseparable brew, and force the drink down people’s throats, it’ll change people’s minds and hearts and they’ll accept Build Back Better as a friendly giant.

When you take things on one at a time, you get to see them in all their naked glory — their good points and their flaws. When you lump multiple items together, it’s easier for things to get hidden behind other more noticeable items. They could be minor inconveniences, but they could also be something more sinister that doesn’t emerge until after they’re signed into law, and who suffers as a result? We, the people, of course.

If the Democrats really want to build back better, they should do it one block at a time, step by step, putting everything out for people to see. If something fails, it will fail because it sucked and not just because one Democrat stepped forward and said no.

Don’t pin the blame on Joe Manchin. Pin it on the architects for Build Back Better who thought something costing trillions of dollars could be put down America’s throat without cutting off the flow of oxygen. Better yet, skip the blame game and come up with a plan to get the work done. Otherwise, it’ll be a very interesting 2022 election.


Lee Pulaski is the city editor for NEW Media. Readers can contact him at lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com.