We can’t disagree with the anger aimed at Joe Manchin for dragging the Senate along for months before finally admitting there’s no pared-down version of a Build Back Better bill he will support after all. Manchin uses inflation as an excuse but simultaneously says he can’t countenance raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and businesses, which might actually help curb inflation.
It genuinely hurts to see a single member of the majority party stick a shiv in legislation that would’ve helped middle- and working-class Americans with child-care costs, accelerated rollout of clean energy technology, expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, built gobs of affordable housing and scored a big win for a Democratic president — all because it would’ve meant having the richest among us pay the Treasury a bit more. The 2017 Trump tax cuts ballooned deficits and debt, did far less than advertised to stoke economic growth and were enduringly unpopular with the public. They must be targeted, not protected.
What’s left of the package — lowering prescription drug prices while expanding Affordable Care Act subsidies — is surely worth sending to Biden’s desk. But Democrats should’ve delivered much more.
Even as we say this, we acknowledge that Manchin, a conservative Democrat from a state Donald Trump won by nearly 40 points in 2020, is critical to the party’s Senate majority. Replace him with a Republican and Democrats lose committee control; they can’t confirm judges, which they’ve so far done at a rapid clip; and they lose all ability, however weak it is, to set the legislative agenda.
Such calculations explain why Democrats were right to decouple the bipartisan infrastructure legislation from Build Back Better last year. In this Washington, you take the victories you can get, when you can get them, or you likely go home empty-handed.
So emotionally, Democrats can and should get as mad as hell at Manchin. Practically, their only constructive response is to regroup and figure out how to notch a win or two before November. Politics remains the art of the possible.
