President Joe Biden made a campaign pledge to build back better.
Biden's alliterative phrase was a variation of Donald Trump's "Make America Great" and provoked some criticism over what it really meant. Ian Martin wrote in the Guardian that it was "catchy, unoriginal and spectacularly meaningless."
After he won the election, it was clear that Biden wanted to build America back up to a point that was better than it has been. That has been a difficult sell.
In the spring, Biden laid out a pair of plans to remake the economy with new investments in roads and bridges along with another package to expand the social safety net and combat the climate emergency.
The first plan became law with the support of some Republicans in late summer, but drawn-out negotiations on the second plan resulted in a blow-up with a member from Democrats' own ranks on Sunday: Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He was put in league with 50 Republican senators who were against the package when he rejected it in a national interview. It set off a scramble among Democrats to save the $2 trillion centerpiece of their agenda that many of them view as critical investments to level the playing field for Americans.
51 members of the senate want to leave the country and what might be possible to save from Biden's agenda.
We are going to get something done.
The legislation would be the largest expansion of the American safety net in a generation. Universal pre-K, a monthly child tax credit for American families for another year, federal subsidies for child care, a national paid leave program, and more are all things it would do. It would be financed with new taxes on rich Americans and corporations.
Biden wanted to reverse the widening inequality between the richest Americans and everyone else. According to a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, wages for the top 1% grew ten times faster than the bottom 90%.
Ben Ritz, a budget expert at the centrist Progressive Policy Institute, wrote in the New York Times that Democrats have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve American society. "Doing so would give them some clear victories they can point to with voters that lay the groundwork for future success."
Biden staked the success of his presidency into the plan. "For too long, the working people of this nation and the middle class of this country have been dealt out of the American deal, and it's time to deal them back in," he said in October.
GOP lawmakers say the package would saddle businesses with job-killing tax hikes and lead to a bloated federal government.
McConnell praised Manchin for torpedoing the social and climate legislation. McConnell said in a Fox News interview that he gave the American people a Christmas gift. He killed the bill in its current form, which would have been bad for America.
Manchin supports some climate change initiatives that are tech neutral. He included an extension of the health care law in his pitch to the White House.
Manchin's vote is crucial because he can't lose a single Democratic vote in the Senate due to the wall of GOP opposition.
Biden isn't throwing up his hands yet. Democrats want to get a newer, slimmer version of the legislation over the finish line. Democrats want to demonstrate to voters that they can deliver improvements to people's lives, even if it takes months to get Manchin's concerns about excessive government spending heard.
Biden told reporters that he and Manchin would get something done.
