For months now, Democrats have insisted on the importance of passing President Joe Biden's agenda items, which includes his reconciliation spending bill. While infrastructure did come up for a vote and ultimately pass the House on Friday night due to an eleventh hour kind of deal, a vote on the reconciliation bill won't come at a later date, as the Congressional Business Office (CBO) still has to score it. Such disunity and disarray isn't the only issue facing the Democrats though.
Reporting from Paul Steinhauser and Megan Henney with Fox News highlights polls that show even Democrats are less than enthused when it comes to how the reconciliation bill, also known as Build Back Better, will positively affect them.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted October 29-30 and released on Sunday found that Americans know very little about what's in the bill. Who can blame then, as the text is about 2,000 pages long? An explainer from Ipsos highlighted that a plurality, at 37 percent, are only following the negotiations "somewhat closely" and 31 percent are following it "not so closely." A stronger plurality exists when it comes to the 44 percent who say they know "just some" about what's in the bills.
It gets worse for the Democratic agenda from there. A plurality, at 32 percent, say they believe it will hurt people like them. Twenty five percent say it will help, 24 percent don't know, and 18 percent say it will have no effect. Only a plurality of Democrats, at 47 percent, think it will help them.
Respondents are also evenly divided on if it will help or hurt the economy, with 34 percent responding to each option. Twenty five percent don't know and 6 percent say it will have no effect. Sixty eight percent of Democrats think it will help the economy, while just 7 percent of Republicans think so. Even more noteworthy is that just 29 percent of Independents think so.
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The ABC News/Ipsos poll included a national random sample of 514 adults with a margin of sampling error of 4.7 points. There's a breakdown of 31 percent Democrats, 24 percent Independents, and 36 percent Independents.
Per an agreement to assuage progressives, who had insisted that infrastructure and reconciliation be voted on together, the Build Back Better agenda item will be voted on "no later than the week of November 15."
The latest statement from our chair @RepJayapal on the Build Back Better Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act votes: pic.twitter.com/rcvYrcFuQ7
— Progressive Caucus (@USProgressives) November 6, 2021
As Landon reported last month, progressives are actually blaming the media for not doing enough to sell Biden's agenda, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, did.
