Sen. Joe Manchin has lately made the rather dubious claim that a $3.5 trillion (over ten years) investment in the Build Back Better plan would be “fiscal insanity.” He also asserts that the bill is in his view too “liberal.” In other words, in Manchin’s opinion, the proposed bill would be detrimental to our economy and our society. And while she says she’s opposed to the bill’s cost, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has also said she’s against its proposal to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which is a substantial cost-savings measure.
Manchin and Sinema are free to make their economic and/or social policy arguments, free to make the case why their positions are best for their constituents and for the nation. At the same time, Democrats who are trying to pass the administration’s agenda are free to make their own case in support of a robust Build Back Better plan and to point out the weaknesses in Manchin’s and Sinema’s arguments.
A strong case can be made for the necessity and benefits of both the size and scope of this bill, and for how the bill will be funded.
It may help to make that case in prime time.
One of President Bill Clinton’s top priorities in his first year in office was to pass the North American Free Trade Act. However we may feel about NAFTA, the administration effectively and very publicly advocated for it. The trade agreement’s most well-known and outspoken critic of the day was the late Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire who’d managed to win the votes of about a fifth of the electorate in his independent bid for the presidency. Vice President Al Gore challenged Perot to a televised debate on the issue.
Over 16 million viewers tuned into Larry King on Nov. 10, 1993 to watch then Vice President Al Gore debate billionaire businessman and infomercial-specialist Ross Perot on the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Prior to the showdown — in which a calm, suave Gore literally towered over a snide and snarling Perot — national support for the Clinton Administration’s attempt to finalize NAFTA was only at 34%. After the debate, it measured around 57%.
Sen. Tina Smith has been a leading proponent of the Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP), a critical component of Build Back Better’s climate action plan which was carefully crafted to meet the stringent criteria of budget reconciliation rules, and which Manchin is reportedly giving a thumbs-down to. Bernie Sanders chairs the Senate Budget Committee and negotiated the $3.5 trillion budget resolution which the entire caucus voted for. He’s been doing yeoman’s work inside and outside the halls of Congress advocating for the Build Back Better plan, and he might actually be as well-respected in West Virginia as Manchin is. (A survey conducted in the Mountain State more than a year after Sanders’s robust 2016 primary victory suggested that his win there wasn’t a fluke: Sanders’s favorability was at 53%, Trump’s 52%, Manchin’s 51%. In recent polls, a majority still view Trump favorably, while Manchin’s favorability has dropped about 10 points. I don’t know of any recent West Virginia polls that have included Sanders.)
In 2017, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar agreed to a high stakes debate against Sens. Lindsay Graham and Bill Cassidy on CNN just days before the Senate was scheduled to vote on the Graham-Cassidy bill (an attempt to destroy the ACA by a simple majority vote) — but I don’t know if there’s precedent for members of the caucus meeting publicly to debate aspects of their own party’s major legislation. Bernie Sanders and Joe Manchin have publicly expressed their differing opinions on BBB to the press and in op-eds; there’s nothing that prevents them from doing so face-to-face. Sanders did remark the other day, in response to a reporter’s question, that the notion of he and Manchin getting together and privately hashing out a deal is something that would only happen in a Hollywood movie. But I suspect Sanders might not be opposed to a public debate.
One of the arguments that was raised against Democratic participation in the 2017 CNN debate was that it would lend credence to a bill which was not a serious alternative to the ACA (as a matter of fact, the bill was so half-baked that by the time the CNN debate aired, it was already effectively dead, as key Republicans like Susan Collins had announced they wouldn’t support it). The counterargument was that the CNN debate might have been the best opportunity for the Democrats to publicly make their case. These arguments apply now too: the spectacle of a televised debate could make it seem as if the party is more divided than it really is, putting an undeserved spotlight on the caucus’s outliers. But it would also be an opportunity to shine a bright light on the weaknesses of their arguments.
Certainly the situation in 2021 is quite different from 1993. Back then, the corporate media arguably would have been inclined to laud the vice president’s advocacy of a free trade agreement; the media might not be as inclined to laud this administration’s progressive goals. And contrary to Gore’s situation, collegiality would be required in engaging with Manchin and Sinema, since they are fellow members of the caucus and their votes are as necessary to pass the bill as any other member’s, and since there’s always a possibility, however remote, that either might defect and hand control of the Senate to the GOP. Finally, even if the progressive Democrats’ advocacy succeeded in the court of public opinion — even in the recalcitrant senators’ home states — Manchin and Sinema still might remain intransigent in their positions. Indeed, it’s conceivable that the more pressure that is put on these senators to defend their cases, the more doggedly they will hold fast to their positions.
But if private talks fail to budge them, a public discussion would at least afford a national audience a very clear picture of the stakes; it would demonstrate the strong case for the Build Back Better agenda which the vast majority of Democrats in Congress support; it would highlight Democrats who are trying hard to keep the promises which the Democratic ticket made to the electorate in 2020; and it would put the outlier senators on the hot seat to explain their intransigence.
Given that this administration is trying in good faith to deal with major social and economic challenges and an existential environmental threat, trying to fulfill the goals laid out in the Democratic Party platform, trying to keep the promises made by a presidential campaign team who won the votes of over 81 million Americans — I think Manchin and Sinema would have their work cut out for them in defending their positions, assuming they would accept the invitation to a public discussion/debate with their colleagues. Manchin in particular does not seem reticent to publicly express his perspective, though a press gaggle is different from sharing the stage with and defending his position against people of stature in his party who will respond in real time to his conservative tropes about an “entitlement society” and his head-in-the-sand stance on global warming.