Building something somehow
The House passes Joe Biden’s ambitious social-spending package
It’s now the Senate’s piñata
AFTER MONTHS of delay, what is one night more? On November 18th Democrats in America’s House of Representatives were preparing to pass the Build Back Better Act—an enormous climate and social-policy spending package that will define Joe Biden’s legacy—more than six months after it was proposed. Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House, decided to forestall the inevitable by staging a one-man, eight-and-a-half-hour stemwinder (a privilege only afforded to the two party leaders). A few hours after Mr McCarthy’s discursions on, among other things, the cost of a Tesla car, George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River and the production method for baby carrots concluded, around 5am, Democrats dutifully passed the legislation on a party-line vote.
It is a step forward for Mr Biden, whose agenda appeared to be foundering as Democrats violently disagreed among themselves about what to do with their thin congressional majorities. The president’s approval rating has steadily declined as inflation has climbed (a problem that the White House now admits is real), amid a pandemic that the country has not quite managed to shake off. Defeat in the closely watched gubernatorial race in Virginia on November 2nd—where the president had won handily only the year before—seemed to augur a coming electoral wipeout.
But the president’s luck has turned—for now. On November 5th the House passed a bipartisan infrastructure deal that the Senate had already approved but was stuck in limbo because progressive Democrats wanted it to move in tandem with the social-spending bill. That measure will spend more than $400bn over the next decade on, among other things, roads, bridges, airports and removing lead from water pipes. Now, the House has also advanced the other piece of Mr Biden’s agenda. Its last and steepest challenge will come in the Senate, where Democrats remain divided and have no votes to spare in the face of united Republican opposition. Despite the procedural success, the actual contents of the president’s signature bill have been hastily cobbled together, with some portions drafted rather poorly. Few Americans actually understand what is in it, a messaging failure that suggests that even eventual passage would do little to sway public opinion about the president.
The House version incorporates some of the edits that Democratic senators, particularly Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema—moderates on whose votes the bill’s fate hinges—have been demanding. The recently released score by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the pending legislation would spend $1.7trn over the coming decade—a fraction of the sum the White House had originally pitched. The CBO also estimated that $367bn of that amount would be deficit-financed, which may prove a problem with moderates, though Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, argued that a provision that increases funding for the Internal Revenue Service would yield enough to balance the bill through stricter enforcement of tax laws. That will probably not be enough, though. The bill that eventually passes the Senate, if it does, will almost certainly be less ambitious than the House version.
The House version of Build Back Better spends most of its funds on various family benefits, though these are parcelled out among many initiatives. Around $273bn will go on subsidising demand for child care in a manner that seems likely to accelerate inflation. The bill would also establish a universal pre-kindergarten programme. Because of budgetary constraints, just four weeks of paid family and medical leave made it in—less than the 12 originally proposed. Even this is unlikely to pass, thanks to Mr Manchin’s concerted objections. The expanded child-tax credits that have successfully reduced child poverty in America (amazingly, a fact seldom trumpeted by the White House) would be maintained at their present levels for just one more year. Mr Manchin’s queries on this initiative may result in its being jettisoned entirely.
Although pared back, the climate-change mitigation provisions of the legislation, which would cost almost $500bn, would still be the most ambitious in American history. The heart of the president’s climate initiative, a programme to limit emissions from electricity generation, had already been cut out on the objections of Mr Manchin, from the coal-loving state of West Virginia. Instead, the majority of the spending will go to various tax credits for renewable energy. One of the few remaining punitive measures—a fee on emissions of methane, a very potent greenhouse gas—is also looking shaky because of Mr Manchin’s opposition. If enacted, these would probably significantly reduce the country’s overall emissions of greenhouse gases, though by less than Mr Biden promised when he was campaigning.
For the better part of a year now, Mr Biden has been stuck shaking and remaking a legislative cocktail. Its main ingredients—climate and family policies—look to be set, but its odd dashes of various accompaniments (such as the smattering of immigration reform) are unlikely to all remain in place. Time has not really improved the president’s recipe—if anything the results are becoming murkier with every new attempt. Many more revisions will be needed over the next few weeks. But at least the worst outcome, that of a shaker explosion, looks a good bit less likely.