Like the American Rescue Plan, BBB was less a coherent agenda than a hodgepodge of different priorities with their own Congressional champions.
It was obvious from the start that not all of this could pass. Democrats never had a majority for this full agenda, and their majority was dependent on moderate Sens. Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) — then both Democrats. These two had to be wooed for any measure to earn majority support in Congress.
Frustratingly for the administration, the two senators' desires were at cross purposes. Manchin was open to tax hikes on the rich but skeptical of the child tax credit and other "handouts," while Sinema was open to those programs but hostile to tax hikes. Manchin was also insistent that any changes to safety net programs should be enacted permanently from the start.
There was an obvious way to square this circle: pass a relatively modest bill funded by revenue that Sinema could support.
There are many indications that Congressional leadership and the Biden administration badly bungled these negotiations. In mid-2021, Biden invited Manchin, Sinema, and a number of centrist House Democrats to the White House. According to Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns's book This Will Not Pass, Biden announced to the group that Sinema had stated that the maximum Build Back Better bill she'd support would cost $1.1 trillion. Sinema was furious at Biden for betraying what she said was a "private conversation." Biden then had to convince a Senator whose vote he desperately needed not to leave the room.
But the more telling error in that meeting was something else: "Each of you are saying 'do fewer things and do them bigger,' but you're all saying different things," Biden told the group of moderates, per Frank Foer's The Last Politician. "And if you add up all your different things, it's actually a pretty big number. If you add all this up, it's well over $2 trillion."
The advice Biden was getting was good. Build Back Better was trying to do too much. But his takeaway from this was that trying to do one thing well was a trap, because someone would still be mad at him for not doing their thing permanently.
This failure to make a choice, to decide what to prioritize and make the centerpiece of Build Back Better, was Biden's greatest legislative mistake as president. It was precisely Biden's job, in that situation, to state what one or two things out of the package he'd like to do permanently. Perhaps it was the child tax credit; then he could negotiate a deal with Manchin that addressed the latter's concerns about work incentives. Perhaps it was universal pre-K. Perhaps it was the clean energy credits. But Biden was a man who could not choose.
This indecision repeatedly disrupted talks with Manchin, and reportedly led to Manchin becoming increasingly frustrated with Biden, who he apparently felt wasn't staying true to his word.
The greatest missed opportunity of the whole debacle, though, was a framework Manchin presented in December 2021. The $1.8 trillion plan included $500 billion to $600 billion in climate spending (in the ballpark of what the IRA would eventually include), plus 10 years of universal pre-K, and it extended the ARP's expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies for health insurance.
Biden did not take the deal as it was, which was fair. It's a negotiation, after all. Instead, the White House issued a press release singling Manchin out for blame in holding up the package. Manchin announced he was abandoning the effort. The White House, in a fit of pique, sent out a remarkably pointless and petty release of their own accusing Manchin of operating in bad faith.
In the end, Biden didn't get what he wanted. Manchin did, after Schumer's revived the talks, with the White House far away. Thanks to Schumer and Manchin — not Biden — the Inflation Reduction Act was able to come together.
There's perhaps no more damning critique of the White House's legislative strategy than the fact that a bill only came together when they got out of the way. Someone, it turns out, could choose: it just happened to be Joe Manchin, not the president.
