Sen. Joe Manchin and his Maserati

Last weekend, the U.S. Senate adjourned for the rest of 2021, without passing the Democrats’ signature Build Back Better bill that the U.S. House passed on November 19. Much of the blame for the lack of Senate passage of Build Back Better lies with Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who cynically kept moving the goalposts on what it would take to win his vote, until ultimately he declared that he would not vote for the bill at all.

Of course, Republican Senators were not going to vote for Build Back Better, because it is a Democratic bill that helps President Biden and elected Democrats politically, and helps millions of people across the United States. That means that all 50 Democratic Senate votes (plus, most likely, the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris) would have been needed to pass the bill. And Senator Manchin had at least been going through the motions of negotiating over the Senate bill for weeks, repeatedly proposing cuts to various spending portions and whittling the bill down in size. However, every time an item got cut based on Manchin’s objections, Manchin would name new items that were obstacles to getting his vote, including everything from paid family leave to methane emissions to taxes. Manchin then complained that the bill itself would add to inflation, when in fact experts said the opposite. It eventually became apparent that nothing was going to get Manchin’s vote.