Senate Democrats held a “Zoom caucus” Tuesday night, and the big question was whether Sen. Joe Manchin would attend. He did, but little progress seemed to be made, according to various sources to CNN and Politico. Manchin continued his specious claims about inflation and the deficit. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stuck to his intent to force votes on both President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) Plan and on voting rights and elections reform, setting up a possible filibuster reform fight with Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

“I know we are all frustrated at this outcome,” Schumer said of their failure to pass the bill by his Christmas deadline and Manchin’s announcement on Fox News Sunday that he couldn’t support BBB. “However, we are not giving up on BBB. Period. We won’t stop working on it until we pass a bill,” he said, according to CNN’s sources. Those sources said Manchin stuck to his ill-informed guns. “Inflation is a serious issue. These programs will cost more than they are saying. I can’t add to the debt,” he reported said. CNN’s sources “added that Democrats spoke up and took issue with Manchin’s characterizations.” Because that has worked so well.

The glimmer of hope in this situation is that despite his bombast on Fox Sunday, Manchin is still talking to Democrats. President Biden spoke with him Sunday night after Manchin’s Fox appearance, and insisted Tuesday that two will “get something done” on BBB. ”Some people think maybe I’m not Irish because I don’t hold a grudge. But I want to get things done,” he said at a news conference Tuesday. “I still think there’s a possibility of getting Build Back Better done.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the Democrat from Washington State who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus and who has been the leading champion for BBB among Democrats, told The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent that she called Manchin on Tuesday morning to clarify where he stands. She also reportedly gave him homework. 

She asked him to go back to the framework the White House released in October after consultation with Manchin, which included in part: one additional year of the expanded monthly Child Tax Credit payments; four years of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies; six years of universal pre-K; and $550 billion for projects to tackle climate change. She told Sargent that she “asked him to say what, specifically, in the House bill doesn’t match up with what Manchin did commit to in the framework (in his discussions with Biden), and to say what specifically in the framework he did not commit to and does not support.”

She said she wants to create a baseline for what’s possible, but since she and fellow House members haven’t seen anything from Manchin or the White House on what he’s discussed with Biden, she’s trying to get clarity from Manchin. “We need to move forward on as many parts of Build Back Better that we can get,” Jayapal told Sargent. Prior to Manchin’s Fox meltdown, Jayapal said Biden had asked him for much the same thing: to sit down with White House staff and the House-passed BBB and go through it section by section to “go over what Manchin did and did not commit to in the framework.” 

“Tell me what is not consistent with what you committed to before,” Jayapal said she is asking Manchin, “and let’s take those pieces out and then vote on a bill that has the rest of it.”

Does that mean some things get cut entirely, like the expanded Child Tax Credit? That’s one of the key things he’s opposing on the extremely obnoxious grounds that people use it to buy drugs. That’s been debunked repeatedly by studies showing what people are actually spending the money on, primarily food, housing, and other essentials. Including people in West Virginia. The people who elected Manchin.

In fact, the economic benefits of the Child Tax Credit in that state have been massive, more than any other. “There is no state that’s more impacted by the CTC,” Kelly Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, told AP. “West Virginia, frankly, wasn’t doing great before the pandemic. So this is absolutely needed now and in the long term.” 

The last monthly checks were sent out on Dec. 15 to 181,000 West Virginia families. The checks averaged $446 and reached 305,000 children. That’s 93% of the state’s children, 50,000 of whom are at risk of their families falling into poverty if the program isn’t resumed. “Households across the state would have trouble meeting their basic needs,” Allen said. “There is real urgency right now to make sure families don’t get left short.”

There’s a lot at stake for children in the entire country. A press release from First Focus Campaign for Children details some of what will be lost if BBB isn’t passed.

If, as expected, Build Back Better fails and Congress implements a Continuing Resolution, the share of federal spending on children will once again skirt the historic lows reached under the Trump Administration, <a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUawJtyJsEmkC87xUVkmUPDjmpPKEugBMcqIShyUZsaQPGPqWxYgrQ8hIJY11-2BUt8Ywk5Io2FgtNlLNm4VpMVuT4-3DAl7G_cOs4BCNv-2BajkQtg0hDR-2FVRAytKvFfBc1dJye9aNvernuMwgl-2Bi1lFLDQGLfCUMNlNFMzdjQ8NRc0ayH9unLze-2F2Y8hcRZHD8v8bl1jeCoOktMDvzoLLeX7X2xfJtoObVrGw1BH57sqY4THvnGagfmXICp7TMjpI0kPpukD4x2onfwdDinlYbRBzeu5xJpwvTvp2iqbz59e6sZDUKqIJbRcqZWba4GQn9ZmAYxWUbRMnr-2FVHDrFvfYilPwfGWSZe7qLPvzTwQKZDvOICAjsf0DWr6G4P-2BD2uPGYb-2Bmxgmh9S0OwxQh5XGIvgC97-2FJ3Scy9eft3QPlV0oB7H4GNYq1vA-3D-3D">which bottomed out at 7.6%</a>
Renewal of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which was to become permanent, will resume its status as a political bargaining chip, imperiling the health of the 10 million children it covers
Nearly 4 million children will be <a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUYs62qXgKuMUWFf7CxZg3s-2FU-2BWhw1fsv8-2BEyfwW1suFMQC9UHGCKCz9LenQcEHwFsLbOMyVGKLsn2rmjaIsq9-2FvpmN4Cl4R9vDFeW-2BTJ-2BYWxBdnw_cOs4BCNv-2BajkQtg0hDR-2FVRAytKvFfBc1dJye9aNvernuMwgl-2Bi1lFLDQGLfCUMNlNFMzdjQ8NRc0ayH9unLze-2F2Y8hcRZHD8v8bl1jeCoOktMDvzoLLeX7X2xfJtoObVrGw1BH57sqY4THvnGagfmXICp7TMjpI0kPpukD4x2onfwdDinlYbRBzeu5xJpwvTHKerqioibyTdGRcw6ZxoFbtn3L49krYDgU9DemPaEerwiuoT3U-2FAJIx4a-2BlRjq5HuOKIDTaW6v2orbXF86n7GtNlrzMpQXWA5w9koZHbutCiXpaZLRsapiENFLUeCAmSNK4DKzYfIJm6-2BKNehwWojA-3D-3D">pushed back into poverty</a> just in time for the new year
The 27 million children who benefited most from the expanded Child Tax Credit — those in the very lowest income families — will return to receiving little or nothing at all. This number will encompass <a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUbJvGWsgUF2NQveCW4wYrNYs9j4lfd2BlTn8ih7qUTINZuibRHTvtnvEr75sX4vY8T9fR-2BM2emyvck1r3jtTwolUZCzBziLTqbryFh7438u2DnPxMVwqljv7Bop56cnoqbxmwEsoDpUt1QyacYihGaw-3Dxwof_cOs4BCNv-2BajkQtg0hDR-2FVRAytKvFfBc1dJye9aNvernuMwgl-2Bi1lFLDQGLfCUMNlNFMzdjQ8NRc0ayH9unLze-2F2Y8hcRZHD8v8bl1jeCoOktMDvzoLLeX7X2xfJtoObVrGw1BH57sqY4THvnGagfmXICp7TMjpI0kPpukD4x2onfwdDinlYbRBzeu5xJpwvTtU-2BQrxEIl9OAkBUa0nuPAnxOzNodENpt6nsqkp8lNADBcK42N93MFfMS3DHm2g7BqwFuUsDfQBukIVinq8bOsob1yTpr-2B1dCDBfP-2BIwLuVGPJPHXDVQ99ZV3P1QzzqsmkqqwVVbrbZJYLnuGhh-2F7QQ-3D-3D">half of all Black and Hispanic children, and half of children in rural communities</a>.
We will forfeit two decades of work — initiated by President George W. Bush and supported and nurtured by successive Republican and Democratic presidents — to achieve a Child Tax Credit that reaches the children who need it most.
The cost of child poverty will continue to sap <a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUbpheohG0C2Fj-2Bhjo7zm0lEt4Gljo0lodrB1NPQSUrnIrr8QmKXkDMCbgzDh-2FCqmrAsVGsDSSbDLiSP-2FuNud3HoIRvK1qberGxX5EHBGLvQK7RxMsEqPg3AUrZXy7KhbBNkqvAelNB3D-2BbQd4EVVQ3IVzClmwFsMetG8VJvUNspykX9muAJaHY0-2FNy-2BAtyiy0g-3D-3D0eTz_cOs4BCNv-2BajkQtg0hDR-2FVRAytKvFfBc1dJye9aNvernuMwgl-2Bi1lFLDQGLfCUMNlNFMzdjQ8NRc0ayH9unLze-2F2Y8hcRZHD8v8bl1jeCoOktMDvzoLLeX7X2xfJtoObVrGw1BH57sqY4THvnGagfmXICp7TMjpI0kPpukD4x2onfwdDinlYbRBzeu5xJpwvTzRb437DEELqiKNp5cs5AMsHOuz6N89m-2BCI9zXY0HevhFPiqi19tswSEFX12wW9YUrvB9-2B1c-2Fy21PWEU4LxAknU6VizS7PJTTNY6PX0gZF7iLN693-2FjsfZE4OIXps-2BjeVcSCRG91fBeHQ-2FGsLNuGQOg-3D-3D">more than $1 trillion from the U.S. economy</a> each year. 

It’s worth noting, as Eric Boehlert points out, that the situation would not be so dire if Republicans weren’t such nihilists. We’re here because they unanimously refuse to help President Biden do basically anything. Boehlert’s criticism of the media that focusing on Democratic failures and the singular problem of Manchin while giving Republicans a pass is valid.

At the same time, the one thing obstructing BBB’s passage right now—as a budget reconciliation that can pass with just Democratic votes—is Joe Manchin, Mitch McConnell’s greatest gift.