Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that in order to revive President Biden’s stalled Build Back Better proposal, Democrats may have to rebrand and tone back the enormous climate and social spending package they have proposed.
A day earlier, Biden had suggested that the House-passed Build Back Better Act might need to be broken up into “chunks” and then pieced back together to see what might garner support from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), whose opposition to the $2.2 trillion packages had caused it to be halted earlier this month.
Biden’s use of the term “chunks” was criticized by Pelosi, but she mainly agreed with his assessment that the package needed to be reduced.
Read More: IRS Indicates Two $3,600 Payments to Be Made in February
In a news conference marking the one-year anniversary of President Joe Biden’s inauguration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “‘Chunks’ is an unusual word.” What the president refers to as ‘chunks,’ I expect to be a significant piece of legislation moving forward.” Despite the fact that it is relatively limited, it is nonetheless significant.”
Representative Nancy Pelosi ran off a list of primary components that she would like to see kept in a reworked spending bill, which she said Democrats would have to “rename.”
The first item on her to-do list is hundreds of billions of dollars in climate-change provisions, which President Biden said Wednesday he believes he can get passed in the Senate.
Presiding Speaker Nancy Pelosi also emphasized proposals that would increase health insurance coverage to millions of Americans and cut the cost of prescription drugs. The Speaker also stated that she is not willing to abandon policies that benefit children, such as universal preschool and an enlarged child tax credit, in order to achieve her goals.
According to her, “we must have care at home, whether it’s for our children, our older siblings, or our parents.” “There are significant portions of the measure that will have to be included in the [new] legislation.”
However, after Senator Joe Manchin expressed reservations about certain high-earning families receiving monthly tax credit payments, President Joe Biden hinted on Wednesday that the highly coveted item may need to be removed from a future tax reform package.
Free community college and child tax credits are two provisions that Biden has stated he is “not certain” he will be able to include in the package.
Nevertheless, Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) of the House Ways and Means Committee told reporters on Thursday that he has received no indication from President Joe Biden or the White House that the enhanced child tax credit, which expired for millions of families earlier this month, will be eliminated.
According to Neal, “we need to figure out what Joe Manchin is in favor of.” “I’m certainly not ready to throw thrown the towel on this one,” says the author.
A suggestion by some of Pelosi’s most vulnerable moderate members, who have urged that House Democrats should break up the huge Build Back Better package into smaller chunks and have a series of votes on specific pieces, appeared to be met with resistance from the Speaker.
The Speaker pointed out that it would be a pointless exercise because any of those individual proposals would be easily defeated by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. The Build Back Better Act is being introduced through the reconciliation process, which will provide Democrats the opportunity to pass it with the support of all 50 of their senators.
They simply need to find a way to bring Manchin on board.
“This is a bill for reconciliation.” It is because they do not understand the process that people say, “Let’s divide it up,” Pelosi explained. “I’m certain that we can come to some sort of agreement on anything big.
Use the term “chunk” to describe what we’re looking for: something that will help us make a positive difference in the workplace while also saving the environment.
“As a result, I’m optimistic; I’m hopeful.”
