Bill Sher: ‘Joe, You Won. Now Let The Other Joe Have A Win, Too.’

Bill Sher has a message for the hillbilly coal baron from West Virginia: Manchin, You Won. Now Give Biden a Win, Too.

For one of the first fights between Al and Peg Bundy on the farcical sitcom Married … With Children, Peg belts out a song Al hates, the sappy “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro. Al retaliates by clipping his toenails in front of her. Peg raises the stakes by shifting to Helen Reddy’s feminist anthem, “I Am Woman,” which is too much for Al, and he surrenders. After a moment of tranquility, Peg starts singing the chirpy 1963 hit “Dominique” from Jeannine “the Singing Nun” Deckers. A pained Al pleads, “Peg, you won. There’s no need to spike the ball.”

Senator Joe Manchin is the Senate’s Peg Bundy.

Over the objections of congressional progressives, his bipartisan physical infrastructure bill was delinked from the more sweeping and partisan Build Back Better bill. While Build Back Better was initially conceived as a $3.5 trillion program, the House-passed version costs $1.7 or $2.2 trillion, depending on how you count. As significant parts of that version will likely be stripped out by either Manchin or the Senate parliamentarian before the chamber votes, the final price tag is expected to be lower.

Yet on Monday, Manchin once again tapped the brakes on the 10-year Build Back Better bill, telling reporters, “There’s an awful lot there and a lot of changes to be done and you’re throwing it at a time when it’s very vulnerable in our economy.” Discussing the push by some Democrats to vote on the bill by Christmas, the 74-year-old elaborated: “I don’t know if setting a certain time is going to fix the inflation … And I’m concerned about, you know, the geopolitical unrest we have around the world right now.” On Tuesday, at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit, Manchin was critical of how some of the new programs sunset before reaching the end of the bill’s 10-year window, distorting its price tag: “Do they not intend for those programs to last the full 10 years? Well, if you intend for that to happen, what’s the real cost? Because we’re either going to debt-finance it, if we’re not going to pay for it, or come back and change the tax code again.” [what he is really concerned about.]

Joe, you won. If you’re going to spike the ball, at least do it in the end zone. Make clear what you want in, what you want out, and what you want to change. Then declare victory and go home for Christmas as the hero.

(With the need for a fresh Congressional Budget Office score and Senate parliamentarian rulings, a vote by Christmas might not be possible. But a public blessing by Manchin before the holiday would allow Democrats to end the year on a strong note, generate favorable year-in-review coverage, rewrite gloomy media narratives, and maybe even rejuvenate the party’s poll numbers.)

The negotiating tactics of Manchin, and his moderate partner in senatorial crime, Kyrsten Sinema, have frustrated progressives and other Democrats all year. Manchin would answer questions with a confusing word salad, and Sinema wouldn’t even respond most of the time. But there was a method to their madness. Their inscrutability made other Democrats scramble to figure out what it would take to appease them. The moderate duo could sit back and pocket one concession after another. The attempt by progressives to hold their bipartisan handiwork hostage and gain leverage was rendered impotent.

Progressives caved on the infrastructure bill once President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear they didn’t want to wait anymore, meaning progressives were only willing to be an obstructionist bloc if they weren’t flagrantly opposing party leadership. Now, progressives are not even trying to draw red lines about what has to be in the final Build Back Better bill. They’ve positioned themselves as flexible pragmatists willing to compromise in service of Biden’s agenda. Progressives will almost certainly accept whatever Manchin says must be taken out of the bill. (Sinema reportedly has already communicated in private her intention to support the Build Back Better bill.) Any attempts at last-minute resistance will likely melt on contact with heat from Biden, Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

In other words, Manchin doesn’t need to wait until after the holidays to gain additional leverage. He can get his way now.

Granted, one must always entertain the possibility that politicians say what they believe. Maybe Manchin isn’t playing games. Perhaps the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman does just want to wait and see if inflation cools before proceeding. But Manchin should know better than to rest the fate of a long-term bill on wisps of monthly economic data.

Inflation is a volatile indicator in normal times, especially regarding consumer goods like food and fuel. You can’t take one month of inflation data and use it to predict what will happen in subsequent months. Furthermore, we’re not in normal times. We haven’t beaten the pandemic. A new coronavirus variant could always stall the world economy. Biden and the Federal Reserve should watch inflation and, if necessary, take action to contain it. (On Tuesday, Manchin scolded Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for hesitating to raise interest rates.) But any such action doesn’t require junking Build Back Better.

Biden might be overselling how much Build Back Better will reduce inflation, but Manchin is overhyping how the bill might increase it. Yes, the CBO estimated that the bill would grow the deficit by $155 billion in 2022, largely because it extends the child tax credit but delays ratcheting up taxes on the wealthy and businesses. But $155 billion just isn’t very much in a $22 trillion economy. (As I noted here previously, Moody’s Analytics projected that inflation would be slightly higher in 2022 with Build Back Better than without, but would be much lower than today in either scenario.) Besides, if Manchin is so terrified about the bill’s short-term impact on inflation, he can insist on front-loading more of the bill’s increased revenue.

In fact, he can insist on anything. Yet he is taking an oddly leisurely approach. “We haven’t seen the final text,” Manchin said on Tuesday. “For me to speak on it, to say, ‘Yes, I can be for this,’ or ‘No, I’m not going to be for that,’ or ‘You need to change this or that’—until I see the legislation, it’s hard to say that.” But he doesn’t have to wait for Democratic leaders to present him with text, or for the Senate parliamentarian to rule on what qualifies for reconciliation, or for more noisy inflation data, before asserting his influence. Right now, he can take out or adjust what he doesn’t like, then tell Democrats to take it or leave it. Believe me, they’ll take it.

Since there is no rational political or policy reason for Manchin to delay, cynics will conclude that his endgame is to kill the bill. If that’s true, then Manchin should kill it now. Why wait? Unlike most Democrats, he can’t be worried that his heavily pro-Trump home state would be mad at him for stabbing Biden in the back. If he has any awareness of how sinking Biden’s agenda would undermine vulnerable Democrats who have to face voters in 2022, he should clarify his intentions so the rest of his party can regroup.

I am not so cynical. Manchin is a tough negotiator, but history strongly suggests that he likes his negotiations to succeed. His record as governor and more than a decade in the Senate says he’s a doer, not a destructor. Last week, he struck a pragmatic note on CNN: “You never get it the way you want it. You have to get the best position you can [so] that you can accept it. We just got to work it. We’re working.”

Manchin must also be aware that sinking the Build Back Better bill, after progressives swallowed their fear of delinking it from the bipartisan infrastructure bill, would obliterate the rekindled trust between progressives and moderates. Without party unity, any hope of Democrats beating the odds in the 2022 midterms, or at least containing the damage, will dissolve. Those who would suffer the most are moderate Democrats in swing districts, the allies Manchin would like to keep in Congress.

Manchin has played his cards exceptionally well. Despite efforts to squeeze and shame him, he remains the 50th and final vote. In the battle with progressives about who has the leverage over Biden’s agenda, he has emerged victorious. But the victory is only worth having if Biden can deliver on his agenda.

Joe, you won. Now let the other Joe have a win, too.

Do it for the kids, Joe. You represent one of the poorest states in the country. Do it for the kids. Millions of Kids Could Sink Back Into Poverty if the Child Tax Credit Expires:

With the quixotic optimism worthy of a carol pledging to be home for Christmas, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly outlined his goal to pass the Build Back Better Act, President Joe Biden’s mammoth social spending, tax, and climate legislation, before the holiday.

“Families need to know that critical programs like the child tax credit will continue uninterrupted. This program has already done immense good for millions upon millions of families. Build Back Better will make sure these benefits stay in place,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor on Monday.

If the Democrats fail to act in a timely manner, the enhanced child tax credit, which was expanded in March by the American Rescue Plan Act, will expire at the end of the month. A series of temporary changes to the credit were implemented by that $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill; one of the more significant among many made it fully refundable for the first time. Before this expansion, around 27 million children under 17—including roughly half of all Black and Latino children and a similar proportion of children living in rural America—received only partial credit or none at all because they belonged to households with incomes too low to qualify for the full credit. The measure also increased the amount from $2,000 per child to $3,600 for children under age 6 and $3,000 for children aged 6 through 17, for households earning under a certain threshold. Previously, families had not been able to claim their 17-year-old children for the credit.

Starting in July, the Treasury Department began issuing advance payments of the credit, allowing families to receive it on a monthly basis instead of as a lump sum during tax filing time. (Families will be able to claim the second half of their credit when they file taxes next year.) The credit reaches around 90 percent of the country’s children and can cut child poverty by 40 percent, according to the left-leaning Center for Budget Policy Priorities, or CBPP. The fourth monthly payment of the credit, distributed on October 15, kept 3.6 million children from poverty, and contributed to a 4.9 percentage point drop in the child poverty rate, according to a study by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University. A September study by the National Bureau of Economic Research also found that the initial payments are associated with a 7.5 percent decline in food insufficiency. But parents will not be able to continue to realize the benefits if the credit is not extended.

“The full benefit of the expansion cannot be realized in one tax cycle,” Gaylynn Burroughs, a senior policy counsel at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told reporters on Wednesday.

The Build Back Better Act includes a one-year extension of the expanded credit. It also makes full refundability of the credit permanent—meaning that families who do not earn enough to file income taxes are able to claim the credit—and no longer requires that children have a Social Security number to receive it. In order to continue the seamless distribution of these benefits, the IRS needs the bill to pass so it knows what changes to implement, including the tax year it should use for eligibility for the credit; the House-passed bill allows households to qualify based on their lowest income for either of the previous two years. It would also no longer peg the credit payments to inflation.

Most Democrats have expressed a desire to pass the bill in short order. “House Democrats will not allow this tax credit to expire, and I don’t believe the Senate will either,” Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Wednesday.

But the potential lack of consistency for families relying on the credit is a concern for many Democratic senators. “I think it would be a sad day for millions of working-class families who suddenly find that they’re not going to be receiving the support that they are expecting,” Senator Bernie Sanders told The New Republic.

The biggest advocates in the upper chamber for the child tax credit, Senators Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, and Raphael Warnock, each told The New Republic that the Senate needed to approve the bill as soon as possible.

“I’m very concerned that it’s headed toward a cliff,” Booker said. Bennet argued that “we’ve cut childhood poverty almost in half; the last thing we should be doing is doubling it.” Warnock sounded a more optimistic note, predicting, “I think you’re going to see movement shortly.” Brown, who has previously insisted that extending the credit would get support from all 50 Democrats, called it “the largest tax cut in American history.”

Senator Jon Tester called the child tax credit a “motivational factor” in passing the Build Back Better Act. But when asked by The New Republic if he believed the bill could actually pass before Christmas, Tester replied: “Well, I think so, but Jesus, I don’t know.”

“We want to do it, and we will,” Brown said.

At least one Democrat is seemingly unconcerned about the expiration of the expanded credit. Senator Joe Manchin has repeatedly expressed concerns about the Build Back Better Act, worrying that it could increase inflation, and argued that it was moving too quickly. He has also worried that the bill might create an “entitlement mentality,” and suggested that the child tax credit could be tied to work requirements, which can do more to harm than to help recipients of a benefit. On Tuesday, Manchin indicated that he would be OK with the credit reverting to its previous form, that is, distributed yearly at a lower amount with no full refundability.

While Joe Manchin continues to collect his federal coal subsidies – corporate welfare.

“The child tax credit is still in the existing law we had before,” Manchin told HuffPost. Manchin then indicated to reporters on Wednesday that he believed the credit could be distributed retroactively if Democrats did not pass the Build Back Better Act before the end of the month.

“I’ve never seen a situation where we weren’t able to make up whatever you thought time would be lost,” Manchin said, adding that “we should get the bill right.”

A CBPP report released last week estimates that, if the expanded credit is not extended, 9.9 million children will be at risk of slipping deeper into poverty. This would mean higher poverty rates for children of all demographics but would disproportionately affect Black, Latino, and Native American children. It would also increase the disparity in child poverty rates between white children and Black, Latino, and Native American children. This would also affect children in Manchin’s home state. According to the CBPP study, 346,000 children in West Virginia would be affected if the expanded credit is not extended, with 50,000 at risk of slipping back below the poverty line or deeper into poverty. The child tax credit also disproportionately aids children in rural areas, which describes much of the West Virginia landscape.

[E]ven if the Senate manages to pass the Build Back Better Act in a timely manner, the House will need to vote on the measure again, as it is likely to be changed in the upper chamber. In the event that occurs before the end of the year, in time for the IRS to prepare for another round of checks to be sent out on January 15, Congress may be in this position again late next year when the expanded credit would be set to expire again.

GQP lawmakers have expressed their opposition to the credit, denigrating it as a welfare measure. “Their next reckless spending spree proposes to double down on Democrats’ new monthly welfare deposits that can flow directly to people who are here illegally,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in October, referring to the provision that will allow children without a Social Security number to receive the credit.

[S]o passing the Build Back Better Act is just the next battle in the longer-term war to make this version of the expanded credit permanent.

“We need to get that passed, and then we’ll keep working on extending it further after that,” Representative Suzan DelBene, one of the most vocal supporters of the child tax credit in the House, told The New Republic.