Biden opens the door to getting 'big chunks' of his economic agenda over the finish line after Manchin shut down the $2 trillion spending bill

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Biden opens the door to getting 'big chunks' of his economic agenda over the finish line after Manchin shut down the $2 trillion spending bill
U.S. President Joe Biden.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
  • Biden opened the door to making cuts to the centerpiece of his economic agenda.
  • "It's clear to me that we're going to have to probably break it up," he told reporters.
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President Joe Biden opened the door to making cuts to his $2 trillion social spending and climate bill, conceding that it's still possible to get "big chunks" of it through the 50-50 Senate sometime this year.

"It's clear to me that we're going to have to probably break it up," he told reporters at a two-hour news conference where he mounted a robust defense of his first year in office.

"I'm confident we can get pieces, big chunks of Build Back Better signed into law" before the midterms, he said. He added that parts of the legislation like universal pre-K and climate provisions already has a broad base of support among Democrats, including Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

It's a fresh sign from the president that he'll likely have to significantly scale back his ambitions on the Build Back Better legislation so it eventually clears the Senate over unified Republican resistance. Manchin effectively sunk the House bill last month, citing a laundry list of concerns including worsening inflation and the ongoing pandemic.

The economic plan would have set up universal pre-K, established federal subsidies for childcare, helped combat the climate emergency, and more. Democrats want to finance it with new taxes on rich Americans and large corporations currently paying little or no federal taxes.

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Other Democrats in the Senate are starting to recognize difficult cuts are probably needed so the centerpiece of Biden's economic agenda reaches his desk. Sen. Jon Tester of Montana said Democrats could revisit the sprawling legislation sometime next month, once a deal is struck on a spending deal that averts a government shutdown.

"We need to take a look at what we can get done," Tester told Insider on Wednesday. For much of January, Senate Democrats have focused on approving a set of voting rights and election bills that's likely doomed to fail due to resistance from Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona on blowing a hole in the 60-vote threshold known as the filibuster.

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