According to Politico Biden is set to meet with Manchin today to try, once again, to convince him to pass his disastrous agenda sitting in the Senate.
But as Politico notes in their Playbook, this will NOT be an easy task for Biden and Schumer will have to eat his words:
NO PRESSURE, MR. PRESIDENT — President JOE BIDEN is set to speak with Sen. JOE MANCHIN as early as today in what Hill sources tell us will be a make-or-break moment for passing the Build Back Better Act (BBB) before Christmas.
Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER has been adamant that his chamber will clear the party’s $1.7 trillion social spending package before senators leave for the holidays. Yet everyone knows that won’t happen without the stubborn West Virginia Democrat — and Democrats are looking for some presidential arm-twisting to get him there.
Last week Republicans got the CBO to give the real score of Biden’s BBB agenda, which ended up adding $3 Trillion to the deficit. Turns out it was Manchin who asked Republicans to submit that to the CBO:
POSSIBLE PROBLEMS FOR MANCHIN: On Friday, the CBO issued a score showing that if programs in the bill were extended for a full decade, as many expect they would eventually be, the cost of the legislation would add about $3 trillion to the deficit. Democratic leaders have been deriding the score as “fake,” noting that their legislation includes sunsets on programs after a couple of years. But Manchin has called such a score the “real” cost of the programs — and it turns out he was the one who asked Republicans to have it commissioned all along.
“Joe Manchin came to me and he said, ‘I think this bill is full of gimmicks that these programs won’t go away, Lindsey, and if you [CBO] score them, I think the bill will double,’” Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) told “Fox News Sunday.”
There’s also a new poll out on how people in Manchin’s home state of West Virginia view the bill as it relates to inflation, and it is not good for Biden:
Then there’s inflation, another top-of-mind concern for Manchin. Friday’s economic data showing inflation at a near 40-year high won’t help matters. Neither will a poll commissioned by the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and set to be released today. The data, shared with Playbook in advance, shows that nearly two-thirds of West Virginia voters think BBB will make inflation worse and a slightly larger share think Congress “should slow down and get the Build Back Better Act right.”
Here’s a little more detail on the poll:
WEST VIRGINIA poll, conducted by Remington Research (R) for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors:
“Do you believe the multi-trillion $
package being considered by Congress, known as Build Back Better Act, will:”Make inflation worse: 64%
Decrease inflation: 14%— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) December 13, 2021
An overwhelming majority in WV believe the bill will make inflation worse and that’s huge for Manchin.
Politico finishes by suggesting Manchin isn’t the only problem with getting the bill passed before Christmas:
TIME NOT ON DEMS’ SIDE: It’s not just Manchin that Schumer has to worry about. This week, his chamber will be tied up for the first part of the week with the National Defense Authorization Act and voting to raise the debt ceiling. The full BBB bill text hasn’t even been released; once it is, the parliamentarian is still working through the so-called Byrd bath ensuring each provision complies with the rules of reconciliation.
Last but not least are the still-unresolved disputes over key BBB provisions: Senators are still haggling over the state and local tax deduction, paid family leave and climate policies. As our Hill team reports this morning, Schumer has been trying to use the expiring enhanced child tax credit to up the pressure on his members to get this done. But so far, all signs point to BBB getting kicked into 2022, and Democrats pressing their luck that they can close the deal in an election year. We’ll see what Biden and Schumer have up their sleeves.
If Biden and Schumer had anything up their sleeves, we’d all know it by now. As far as I’m concerned the bill is dead and that’s the best thing for this country. Just asks Time’s person of the year.