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Biden acknowledges his Build Back Better plan will miss Christmas deadline
Biden acknowledges his Build Back Better plan will miss Christmas deadlineNegotiations for economic and climate package stall as the centrist senator Joe Manchin withholds support Joe Biden has acknowledged that his $1.75tn economic and climate legislative package will miss the Christmas deadline for Senate passage and will not pass Congress in the waning weeks of this year.Negotiations for the president’s Build Back Better bill, for which the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, set a Christmas deadline, have stalled as the centrist Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has withheld his support for the bill in its current form, making him a key vote in the evenly split Senate.‘It’s an American issue’: can Georgia’s candidate for secretary of state save democracy?Read more“My team and I are having ongoing discussions with Senator Manchin; that work will continue next week,” Biden said in a statement on Thursday evening.“It takes time to finalize these agreements, prepare the legislative changes, and finish all the parliamentary and procedural steps needed to enable a Senate vote. We will advance this work together over the days and weeks ahead,” he added.Despite the slowed negotiations, Biden reiterated his confidence in the bill’s passing and said that Manchin has signaled in recent discussions his support for the proposal’s general outlines.“Senator Manchin has reiterated his support for Build Back Better funding at the level of the framework plan I announced in December,” Biden said.Manchin has expressed criticism of the proposal to continue the expanded child tax credit program through the Build Back Better Act.While Democrats want to continue the expanded program for one year through the $1.75tn spending package, Manchin has reportedly expressed concern over the cost of doing so. He believes the bill’s programs should be viewed on a 10-year basis when doing costing analysis, even though some of them expire after just a year or a few years.Should the expanded child tax credit program be extended through the next 10 years, it would require much more funding than the bill allocates.When asked about Biden and Manchin’s current relationship in a press conference on Friday, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, replied: “The president considers Senator Manchin a friend. He’s somebody who he has had many candid and direct conversations with. It doesn’t mean they always agree on everything but that is not the bad that the president sets for his friendships or relationships with members of Congress.”“He is committed to pressing forward through ups and downs and that’s where we are right now,” Psaki said.She also added that Biden later on Friday would make a “passionate case” for voting rights legislation that remains stalled in Congress as a result of Republican opposition.Psaki said of voter suppression attempts going on in several states that: “It’s a sinister combination of voter suppression and election subversion, which is un-American, un-Democratic but not unprecedented.”And later Friday morning, Biden did speak on the topic when he gave the commencement address at South Carolina State University, a historically Black institution.He was introduced by Congressman Jim Clyburn, who was instrumental to Biden clinching the Democratic nomination for president last year after he endorsed him when he was trailing in the primaries and swung support in the south and among Black voters.Biden told the graduating students: “We have to protect that sacred right to vote, for God’s sake,” Biden said. “I’ve never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote.”The president’s comments come as Senate Democrats are discussing potential changes to the filibuster to push voting rights legislation through the evenly divided chamber.Senate Republicans have used the filibuster to block voting rights legislation, as Democrats do not have the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.“This battle is not over. We must pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We must,” Biden told the graduates of the historically Black university.“We’re going to keep up the fight until we get it done, and you’re going to keep up the fight, and we need your help badly.”TopicsUS politicsJoe BidenUS CongressDemocratsnewsReuse this content More
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What should we expect from Washington in 2022? Politics Weekly Extra
Jonathan Freedland and Joan Greve look back on a chaotic year in US politics and attempt to offer some predictions of might be coming down the tracks in 2022
How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know
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Biden faces vaccine mandate pushback from own party despite support of scientists
Biden faces vaccine mandate pushback from own party despite support of scientistsTwo Democratic senators push back against president’s rules for large businesses as cases continue to rise in the US Two Democratic senators have resisted Joe Biden’s vaccine-or-test mandate for large businesses, illustrating problems the US president faces even within a faction of his own party, despite having the support of scientists and public health experts.The US Senate on Wednesday evening voted to overturn the mandate as new cases and hospitalizations continue rising in the country.Why doesn’t Biden mail free Covid tests to all Americans? | Ross BarkanRead moreThe West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, who co-sponsored the bill, and Montana’s Senator Jon Tester crossed Democratic party lines to vote yes and join 50 Republicans in their political opposition to the public health policy.The bill is seen as a largely symbolic gesture, since it would also need to pass the Democratic-led House and would probably be vetoed by Biden. The mandate was already put on hold by a federal appeals court, and the future of the mandates will likely be decided by courts, not lawmakers.But the vote showed the significant political problems Biden has faced in carrying out his public health policies to combat the pandemic. He has encountered virtually implacable Republican opposition – now joined by rebel Democrat senators – that has ranged from ideological concerns over how far government power can be exercised to fringe conspiracy theories and quack science.Manchin, who is vaccinated and boosted, said the rule represents federal overreach, which is why he co-sponsored the bill.“It is not the place of the federal government to tell private business owners how to protect their employees from Covid-19 and operate their businesses,” he said in a statement, nonetheless urging “every West Virginian and American to get vaccinated to protect themselves and their loved ones”.West Virginia, which has the third-highest rate of deaths from Covid in the country, and Montana, where some health systems instituted crisis standards of care, have suffered devastating surges throughout the pandemic. Half of all West Virginians and half of eligible Montanans are fully vaccinated, both lower than the national average.Public health experts fear the mandates, and political opposition to them, have further cemented the politicization of health policies.West Virginia has joined other states in suing to undermine the mandates for large businesses and government contractors, both of which have been blocked by federal courts. Governor Jim Justice has said there’s “no chance” vaccines will be mandated in West Virginia schools.“The data is very clear that mandates work,” Christopher Martin, a physician and professor at the West Virginia University School of Public Health, said. “I don’t know of any other measure right now that would get more people vaccinated other than requiring them to do so.”There is a long precedent of strong vaccination requirements in workplaces and schools in West Virginia and around the country.But concerns over the Covid vaccines combined with political polarization have “unintended consequences” because “people are mistrustful of governments”, Martin said. The opposition is not based on public health concerns but on civil liberties and other arguments.“That starting point of not wanting the vaccine in the first place again arises from this broad and inherent mistrust in institutions,” he said. “People perceived these institutions to fail them.”In West Virginia, widespread job losses over the past several decades have eroded trust in the government. The vaccine mandates expose larger societal rifts, Martin said. “Vaccinations in particular in this current climate have really exploded the problems that we have in our society.”Officials, including in public health, “need to begin the exercise of restoring trust”, Martin said.In the meantime, vaccine mandates will work like seatbelt laws once did, gradually becoming the norm, he said. “It improves compliance, but it takes a long time.”The US is now seeing an average of more than 119,000 new Covid cases and 1,700 deaths every day.TopicsJoe BidenDemocratsJoe ManchinUS politicsCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationnewsReuse this content More
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Why Georgia is a battleground state to watch: Politics Weekly Extra – podcast
A week after Stacey Abrams announced she was running for Georgia governor again, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Oliver Laughland about why the southern state is shaping up to be one of the most interesting to pay attention to for the 2022 midterm elections
How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know
Archive: NBC, CNN, WSB-TV, ABC. Read Oliver Laughland’s work in Louisiana Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com. Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts. More
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AOC speaks out against Republicans’ gun-wielding Christmas photos
AOC speaks out against Republicans’ gun-wielding Christmas photosAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls out Lauren Boebert on Twitter for posting a picture of her family holding rifles in front of a tree Leftwing congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has spoken out about the hypocrisy of gun-wielding Christmas card photos, an emerging trend among several Republic lawmakers who have posted holiday photos showing themselves and their family holding military-style rifles.Man charged with arson for burning down Fox News Christmas treeRead moreIn a tweet on Wednesday, Ocasio-Cortez called out far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who had posted a picture of her family, including her small children, holding rifles in front of a Christmas tree.“Tell me again where Christ said ‘use the commemoration of my birth to flex violent weapons for personal political gain’?” said Ocasio-Cortez, recalling back in 2015 when conservatives declared that there was a “war on Christmas”, with companies like Starbucks facing threats of boycott.“lol @ all the years Republicans spent on cultural hysteria of society ‘erasing Christmas and it’s meaning’ when they’re doing that fine all on their own.”Tell me again where Christ said “use the commemoration of my birth to flex violent weapons for personal political gain”?lol @ all the years Republicans spent on cultural hysteria of society “erasing Christmas and it’s meaning” when they’re doing that fine all on their own https://t.co/TOKE1SmY4C— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) December 8, 2021
In addition to Boebert’s gun-themed Christmas photo, Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie recently posted a picture of his family holding rifles while posing in front of a Christmas tree, with the caption: “Merry Christmas! PS: Santa, please bring ammo.”The photo was posted only days after a school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, located an hour outside of the state’s capitol, where four students died and seven people were injured.Boebert and Massie’s Christmas photos faced widespread criticism, as several other Republicans have used violent imagery in attempts to shock and provoke as well as rally supporters. Arizona congressman Adam Gosar was censured after tweeting an animated video depicting him killing Ocasio-Cortez and Boebert received criticism for Islamaphobic comments about Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar.“Here his family’s got guns under a Christmas tree just after four kids were killed,” said Elaine Kamarck, a former official in the Clinton administration, in an interview with the Guardian. “The guy’s abominable but that’s what’s happening to the Republican party. They’re flat-out nuts. There’s a piece of the Republican party that now supports violence.”TopicsAlexandria Ocasio-CortezUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More
