Biden wanted to build back better, but Manchin shot down his signature $2 trillion bill, preserving America as it is for now

A bipartisan group of senators supports rebuilding roads and bridges but Joe Manchin and 50 Republicans think a larger rebuild is a no-go.

• Biden's economic agenda was thrown into jeopardy by Sen. Joe Manchin.
• It set off a scramble among Democrats to rescue the $2 trillion centerpiece of their agenda.
• Instead of Build Back Better, the Democrats could be left with the country pretty much as is.

President Joe Biden entered office in January with a straightforward pledge from his campaign: to Build Back Better.

The alliterative phrase was Biden's version of Donald Trump's "Make America Great," and its vagueness and grammatical oddity provoked some criticism over what it truly meant. For instance, British comedy writer Ian Martin wrote in the Guardian that it was "catchy, unoriginal and spectacularly meaningless."

But as Biden's legislative agenda became clear after he won election, it was clear he wanted to build America back to a point that was better than it has been. That's been a hard sell.

In the spring, Biden laid out a pair of plans to overhaul the economy with new investments in roads and bridges along with another package to expand the social safety net and combat the climate emergency.

The first plan became law with support from some Republicans in late summer, but drawn-out negotiations on the latter culminated in a spectacular blow-up with a member from Democrats' own ranks on Sunday: Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. He rejected the sprawling package in a national interview on Fox News, effectively putting him in league with 50 Republican senators who stand in opposition. It set off a scramble among Democrats to rescue the $2 trillion centerpiece of their agenda that many of them view as critical investments to level the playing field for Americans.

Here's why 51 members of the senate want to leave the country pretty much as it is, roads and bridges aside, and what might still be possible to salvage from Biden's sweeping agenda.

'Sen. Manchin and I are going to get something done'

The legislation now in jeopardy would amount to the largest expansion of the American safety net in a generation. It would set up universal pre-K, renew monthly child tax credit payments to American families for another year, establish federal subsidies for childcare, set up a national paid leave program, address the climate crisis and more. It would be financed with new taxes on rich Americans and large corporations currently paying little or nothing. 

Biden campaigned on reversing the widening inequality between the richest Americans and everyone else. A recent report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that wages for the top 1% grew almost ten times faster compared to the bottom 90% in 2020, Insider's Juliana Kaplan reported. 

"Democrats have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve American society, not just for a few years, but permanently," Ben Ritz, a budget expert at the centrist Progressive Policy Institute, wrote in a New York Times op-ed. "Doing so would give them some clear victories they can point to with voters that lay the groundwork for future success."

That's part of the reason Biden has staked the success of his presidency into the Build Back Better plan. "For much too long, the working people of this nation and the middle class of this country have been dealt out of the American deal, and it's time to deal them back in," he said in October.

GOP lawmakers cite exactly this reason for their opposition, assailing the package as one that would saddle businesses with job-killing tax hikes and lead to a bloated federal government.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky lauded Manchin for torpedoing the social and climate legislation. "He gave the American people the Christmas gift they needed," McConnell said in a Fox News interview on Wednesday. "He killed this bill in its current form, which would have been really bad for America."

Manchin has expressed support, though, for some climate-change initiatives that are tech-neutral. He also included an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies and universal pre-K in his reported pitch to the White House.

Manchin's vote is so crucial because of the  difficult legislative math: A three-seat majority in the House and a 50-50 Senate where he can't lose a single Senate Democratic vote, including Manchin's, due to the wall of GOP opposition. 

Biden isn't throwing up his hands in defeat yet. Democrats are reconvening in January with the aim of getting a newer, slimmer version of the legislation over the finish line. Assuaging Manchin's concerns about excessive government spending may take months, but Democrats want to demonstrate to voters they're capable of delivering tangible improvements to people's lives.

"Sen. Manchin and I are going to get something done," Biden told reporters on Tuesday.