The Biden administration’s signature “Build Back Better” initiative is in trouble as I write. The supposedly $3.5 trillion bill would be the most remarkable legislative achievement in several generations, providing major investments in child care, health care, education, housing and climate change mitigation.
Every GOP senator and representative opposes the bill. Democrats could go it alone, as they could pass it through the reconciliation process if they were united. But they are not.
The progressive caucus is holding the $1 trillion infrastructure bill hostage, threatening to vote it down until and unless the larger bill has Senate support. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will not support the Build Back Better bill and have resisted pressure from colleagues and direct, one-on-one appeals from the president. Without their support, the bill cannot pass an evenly divided Senate. Manchin claims to oppose it on fiscal grounds. Sinema appears to oppose it because she’s getting lots of attention.
The Democrats have failed miserably in the battle of sound bites, capitulating to the $3.5 trillion characterization. The proposed expenditures span an eight- to 10-year period and would be significantly offset by revenue from very reasonable tax increases. In House hearings on the bill, Republicans have trotted out the whole stable of red herrings: “We can’t afford it!” “The bloated national debt will destroy us!” “Tax increases will cripple the economy!”
The hypocrisy is amazing. Fun fact: six of the eight largest deficits in the last 50 years were racked up by Republicans, with Ronald Reagan, patron saint of limited government, leading the way with an 186% increase in the national debt as a result of tax cuts (which did not produce the promised economic growth) and a 35% increase in defense spending.
Of course no fiscal prudence was on offer when the Trump administration’s $2.3 trillion tax cut was passed. Or the $2.4 trillion for the Bush/Cheney war in Iraq; or the $2.3 trillion cost of our 20-year misadventure in Afghanistan; or the more than $8 trillion in military spending projected over the next decade. Future defense spending alone will be more than double the cost of the Build Back Better investments. The only wars Republicans won’t support are wars on poverty, climate change and health injustice.
The legislative logjam is ostensibly about money, but purported fiscal concerns are a smokescreen, obscuring an ideological divide that goes back many decades.
Fiscal conservatism is always a proxy for social insensitivity. But even with scripted messaging, the ideological truth leaks through the seams. During the House debate on Build Back Better, Republican after Republican called the bill “radical socialism,” proving again that they have no idea what “socialism” means. Socialism is when there is social or government ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. In contemporary America, government doesn’t own corporations. Corporations own the government.
Even Manchin, who claims to be worried about spending too much money, let his underlying ideology slip: “I cannot accept our economy, or basically our society, moving towards an entitlement mentality.”
Isn’t it always the most entitled who worry about the “entitlement mentality?” Rich politicians (usually white men) worried about “welfare queens” (usually Black women) buying too many bags of potato chips. Isn’t it always the most entitled who tell poor folks to pull themselves up “by the bootstraps”? They might try walking a mile or two in those boots. It is deeply insulting to assume that poor people are desperate by preference.
To borrow Manchin’s phrase, I think it’s about damn time we moved to an “entitlement mentality” where all are entitled to affordable health care.
Where all are entitled to free, well-funded education — pre-K through community college.
Where women are entitled to make their own reproductive choices.
Where all families are entitled to affordable child care.
Where all humans are entitled to a safe home.
Where we are all entitled to a habitable planet.
All of this can be achieved at half the cost of maintaining the greatest destructive force in human history.
Our failure to create a just society is not, and never has been, because we can’t afford it. It is because too many of us don’t want to do it.
Steve Nelson is a Valley News columnist. He can be reached at stevehutnelson@gmail.com.