[ "Many of us made a major compromise in going from the $6
trillion bill that we wanted" to the proposed $3.5 trillion package,
said Sen. Bernie Sanders.] [[link removed]]

MANCHIN'S OBSTRUCTION OF BUILD BACK BETTER ACT IS 'ABSOLUTELY NOT
ACCEPTABLE,' SAYS SANDERS  
[[link removed]]


 

Kenny Stancil
September 12, 2021
Common Dreams
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_ "Many of us made a major compromise in going from the $6 trillion
bill that we wanted" to the proposed $3.5 trillion package, said Sen.
Bernie Sanders. _

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks to a crowd on the National Mall on
June 24, 2021 in Washington, D.C., Photo: Larry French/for Green New
Deal Network // Common Dreams

 

Conservative Democratic Sen. Joe

Manchin's recent vow, repeated
[[link removed]] on
Sunday morning, to oppose a reconciliation bill larger than $1.5
trillion is "absolutely not acceptable," Senate Budget Committee
Chair Bernie Sanders made clear this weekend.

"We are not going to build bridges just so our people can live under
them. No infrastructure bill without the $3.5 trillion reconciliation
bill."
—Sen. Bernie Sanders

"We are not going to build bridges just so our people can live under
them," Sanders (I-Vt.) said
[[link removed]] on
Saturday night. Invoking a phrase that he
[[link removed]] and other
[[link removed]] progressive
members of Congress have repeated
[[link removed]] for
months, Sanders added, "No infrastructure bill without the $3.5
trillion reconciliation bill."

During an appearance on _CNN_'s "State of the Union" on Sunday
morning, Sanders told
[[link removed]] host Dana
Bash that "many of us made a major compromise in going from the $6
trillion bill that we wanted" to the Build Back Better Act
[[link removed]] (BBBA),
a popular
[[link removed]] plan
endorsed by President Joe Biden that would invest
[[link removed]] $3.5
trillion over a decade to improve social welfare, advance workers'
rights
[[link removed]],
establish a path to citizenship
[[link removed]] for
millions of undocumented immigrants, and strengthen climate action.

Referring to "the enormously unmet needs of working families," Sanders
said: "We've got to lower the costs of prescription drugs for people.
We've got to expand Medicare to include dental, hearing aides, and
eyeglasses. We have to maintain the $300 direct payments we're giving
to working parents, which have lowered childhood poverty in America by
50%."

Moreover, the lawmaker stressed, scientists warn
[[link removed]] that
"we've got a few years left before there will be irreparable,
irreversible harm to our planet if we do not address climate change."

  [[link removed]]

Listen here [[link removed]]

Sanders acknowledged the key role played by Manchin (D-W.Va.) in
developing the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
(IIJA), which proposes $550 billion in new spending to upgrade the
nation's roads, bridges, and ports.

"The real question you should be asking is, 'Is it appropriate for one
person to destroy two pieces of legislation?'"
—Sanders

Manchin—who has made more than $4.5 million
[[link removed]] from
his family's coal business
[[link removed]] since
joining the Senate in 2010 and received praise
[[link removed]] from
an ExxonMobil lobbyist for undermining climate action—was the chief
architect of the energy-related measures in the bill, which
progressives have criticized
[[link removed]] for
prioritizing fossil fuels over renewables.

The Senate passed
[[link removed]] the
Biden-backed IIJA last month, but in an effort to ensure passage of
the more ambitious BBBA, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—with
the support of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the
president—is pursuing a "two-track
[[link removed]]"
strategy that advances both pieces of the legislation simultaneously,
linking each bill's fate to the other.

"What we have worked on," Sanders noted, "is working both of those
bills in tandem. They go together. And it would be a really sad state
of affairs for the American people [and] for Congress if both of those
bills went down."

Asked by Bash if it's "possible that that could happen right
now," Sanders replied: "Yeah," before adding, "I don't think it
will."

A few minutes later, George Stephanopoulos, host of _ABC_'s "This
Week," asked
[[link removed]] Sanders
if it he would vote for a $1.5 trillion reconciliation package to
avoid ending up with "no bill." Sanders and other lawmakers
who wanted
[[link removed]] to
invest $6 trillion to address inequality and the climate
emergency—including Reps. Rashida Tlaib
[[link removed]] (D-Mich.)
and Pramila Jayapal
[[link removed]] (D-Wash.),
chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus—have been adamant
[[link removed]] that,
having already bargained, $3.5 trillion is the lowest they are willing
to go.

Given that most Americans, the president, and the vast majority of
congressional Democrats want both the physical infrastructure bill
and the social infrastructure package to pass, Sanders said Sunday,
"the real question you should be asking is, 'Is it appropriate for one
person to destroy two pieces of legislation?'"

[[link removed]]

Listen here
[[link removed]]

While the BBBA can be passed without Republican support through the
filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process, doing so requires the
support of every member of the Senate Democratic Caucus due to the
chamber's 50-50 split. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a right-wing Democrat from
Arizona, has joined Manchin in expressing disapproval
[[link removed]] of
the reconciliation package's overall cost.

"The sense of urgency is that we live in a country today where the
wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally
well, while working-class people are struggling... People are dying in
floods in New York City."
—Sanders

In addition to opposing a price tag over $1.5 trillion, Manchin on
Sunday claimed
[[link removed]] "there's
no way" Congress can meet Schumer's goal
[[link removed]] of
passing the BBBA before September 27, which is when Pelosi agreed to
hold a House vote on the IIJA. Citing fears of "inflation" and
"geopolitical challenges," the West Virginia Democrat reiterated his
desire to "hit the pause" button on government spending, even though
recent polls show that a majority of U.S. adults are in favor
[[link removed]] of bolstering
public goods and greening the economy right now.

"What's the urgency that we have?" Manchin asked
[[link removed]] Bash,
apparently unaware of worsening economic insecurity
[[link removed]] and extreme
weather disasters
[[link removed]].

As journalist David Dayen pointed out, Manchin and a small but
potentially consequential group
[[link removed]] of
conservative House Democrats—who last month tried unsuccessfully
[[link removed]] to
decouple the IIJA from the BBBA— have been anything but patient.
Dayen and other critics
[[link removed]] have made the case
[[link removed]] that
the demand for an expedited vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill
is a thinly veiled attempt to kill the social safety net and climate
provisions contained in the reconciliation bill. 

[[link removed]]

Listen here [[link removed]]

On Sunday, Manchin called for immediately enacting the IIJA, but when
referring to the BBBA, he argued that there is "not the same urgency
that we had with the American Rescue Plan. We got that out the door
quickly. That was about $2 trillion."

Unlike the American Rescue Plan, which represented a more immediate
outlay, the reconciliation package proposes spreading out $3.5
trillion of spending over 10 years, and much of that would be offset
by the trillions of dollars in revenue raised through proposed tax
hikes
[[link removed]] on
wealthy individuals and corporations.

As David Moore wrote
[[link removed]] last
week in _Sludge_:

$3.5 trillion is an estimate of the budget plan's gross spending over
10 years, ignoring revenue increases and other planned spending
reductions, not a calculation of net cost. Late last month, the
nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) wrote
[[link removed]] that
the package's net cost would be $1 trillion to $1.75 trillion over a
decade, which as a share of the anticipated $24 trillion GDP in 2022
and beyond would come to a total of only 0.3% to 0.6% of GDP over 10
years. 

... Simply averaging the higher net cost estimate over a 10-year
budget window, $175 billion per year is less than the roughly $188
billion that the U.S. paid in 2020
[[link removed]] to just three defense
contractors: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing. In 2019, the
Department of Defense spent half its budget, around $370 billion
[[link removed]],
on contracting, often without a competitive bidding process, according
to Pentagon watchdogs. The 10-year net costs of Senate Democrats’
budget plan would come in far under the $2.3 trillion spent on the
wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to a recent tally
from Costs of War
[[link removed]].

By voting for last year's Pentagon budget, Stephen Semler of the
Security Policy Reform Institute noted
[[link removed]],
Manchin and other deficit hawks approved funneling more public money
to a handful of weapons manufacturers than the annual net cost of the
BBBA they say is too expensive.

Despite Manchin's objections to the reconciliation package's costs,
Schumer said
[[link removed]] last
week that Senate Democrats are "moving full speed ahead" with the
BBBA, which he wants a complete draft of by Wednesday.

When asked by Bash if he was willing to appease Manchin and give the
bill "more time," Sanders emphasized that "there is a sense of
urgency."

"The sense of urgency is that we live in a country today where the
wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally
well, while working-class people are struggling," said Sanders. "You
got 90 million people uninsured or underinsured, people can't afford
to pay [for] prescription drugs, can't afford to send their kids to
college—kids are leaving school deeply in debt."

"You got almost 600,000 people in America who are homeless today," the
Vermont Independent continued. "And you got the climate crisis. Oregon
is burning, California is burning, Siberia is burning. People are
dying in floods in New York City."

"There is a sense of urgency which I think the American people
understand," said Sanders. "And what they want, is finally—maybe,
just maybe—the Congress of the United States will act for them, and
not just for the wealthy campaign contributors."

Echoing recent _Common Dreams _reporting
[[link removed]],
he added that "the rich and the powerful... are pouring huge amounts
of money—the drug companies, the insurance companies, fossil fuel
industry—in trying to defeat us."

Corporate opponents of the reconciliation package, Sanders said
[[link removed]] two
weeks ago, are "going to lose this round."

_[Kenny Stancil is a staff writer for Common Dreams.]_

_Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely._

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