Members of the U.S. Senate are on their way home for Christmas break without passing President Joe Biden's signature spending agenda.
Biden ran for president as a "moderate," yet quickly upon entering the Oval Office, he became infatuated with making history.
With the socialist left demanding payback for their loyalty and votes in November, Biden chose to "become the next FDR" by proposing a multi-trillion expansion of the welfare state and federal government programs with "Build Back Better." With Democrats in control of the U.S. Senate, Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders became the chairman of the budget committee and was driving the agenda. Biden's National Economic Council was stacked with far-left economists who have plans to fundamentally change America's economy.
"Biden has stacked his Council of Economic Advisers with three labor economists whose focus is on workers, not just markets: Bernstein, who was most recently senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Heather Boushey, a founder of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, which focuses on inequality; and Cecilia Rouse, who left her post as a dean at Princeton to serve in the administration. This is the team pushing Biden not to kowtow to fearmongering about deficits and inflation," the New Republic reports. "Freed of the old economic models, Bernstein and the others were able to convince Biden to finance his pandemic relief package through borrowing, instead of 'paying' for it with higher taxes or lower spending."
With a 50-50 party split in the Senate and the slimmest margin in the House since the late 1800s, this economic strategy — especially after the federal government flooded the country with trillions in easy "relief" dollars — was, of course, a delusional, unrealistic power grab that was bound to fail.
With Wuhan coronavirus still raging and a worsening storm of inflation on essential items, Biden's FDResque pipe dream came to a screeching halt this week. After the White House insisted for months that Build Back Better would be passed before Christmas, it's been punted to the spring.
"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," Biden released in a statement before senators skipped town. "We will advance this work together over the days and weeks ahead; Leader Schumer and I are determined to see the bill successfully on the floor as early as possible."
Now that Build Back Better is stalled, its chances of being revived are slim. Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin are far more popular in their home states than Biden, and given the current state of the generic ballot for the 2022 midterm elections — with Republicans consistently ahead by double digits — House Democrats in tough districts aren't likely to keep pushing.
Biden bet big, and this time, his agenda was too big not to fail.
