It is not looking too good for the $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” plan that is the cornerstone of President Biden’s agenda. The reason? A small handful of Democrats who are acting far too much like Republicans. “Centrists” like Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin are so determined to be the leaders of an imagined bipartisan revival they are willing to throw Biden and their own party under the bus.
In reality, they are just behaving like Republicans and calling it “bipartisan.” Their reasons for doing this appear to range from satisfying their donors to exhibiting a strange mix of narcissism and new age gobblygook.
This would all be a silly inside baseball political story if the stakes weren’t so high. The Build Back Better plan is primarily a mixture of long overdue social safety net measures combined with essential investments designed to combat climate change.
If a big bill like this doesn’t happen now—before the midterms, when Republicans may very well get majorities in Congress—it likely won’t happen for, oh, ten years or so. At the rate the globe is warming and weirding, we can’t afford another month, let alone ten years.