559 Comments
Dec 21, 2021Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

As upset as I am with Manchin, we must all remember the 50 Republican Senators who are refusing to negotiate at all on the BBB Act. If even a single Republican Senator would support these priorities Manchin’s opposition would not matter. So yes, be upset with Manchin but reserve your anger also for those 50 Republican Senators.

Expand full comment

This needs to be posted here. A voice from a West Virginian.

I am a grassroots organizer for economic justice here in West Virginia, building the Rattle The Windows movement alongside poor and marginalized West Virginians. I have been working tirelessly for months in coalition with groups here, on a state level and on a national level with Moms Rising and Community Change Action, to organize and elevate the stories of WV children and families around their support of Build Back Better, especially the Child Tax Credit expansion, paid leave, and child care.

For months, I have celebrated with moms as they talked about being able to pay for child care, buy reliable vehicles, fill their freezers and cupboards with food, and move their families out of Section 8 housing, to name a few. The expanded CTC allowed families to feel as if they were finally able to breathe a little easier, and Senator Manchin's announcement yesterday was devastating, especially so close to the holidays.

West Virginia was born out of the resistance. Engrained in our DNA is the need to not give up or to back down. When we think about the 50,000 WV kiddos the senator has singlehandedly pushed back across the poverty line, our hearts break, and we wonder how he could be that far removed from those he was elected to protect and fight for. We wonder what legacy he is seeking to leave for all the children in the Mountain State, not just his own. And we need for him to know that he's taking away our best opportunity to be able to rely on ourselves. We're disappointed in Manchin's actions, but we haven't given up. It is, after all, the season of miracles and hope.

- Amy Jo Hutchison, organizer and movement builder, Rattle The Windows

Expand full comment
Dec 21, 2021Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

Read Rebecca Solnit’s opinion piece in The Guardian today. “Why are right-wingers so angry? Because they know social change is coming.”

Expand full comment

Manchin is a weasel, an oath breaker, and a traitor to his constituents.

Expand full comment
Dec 21, 2021·edited Dec 22, 2021

- Negativity (and rant) Warning -

*

*

*

*

The biggest thing I’ve noticed between the two Bills is:

1. Infrastructure Bill would primarily help male workers since it’s mostly men in construction & contracting jobs and it would help corporations (whose employees pay for upkeep through income taxes) since they rely on the roads & bridges.

2. The Build Back Better Bill is a tremendous help to many women (particularly Black & Hispanic), since I believe single women with children are the one of the largest groups of the poor & low income financial categories. The ability for affordable childcare would enable so many to be able to work (and needy employers to stop crying about the labor shortage). It would also give some help some women with children to afford to get out of abusive relationships.

It’s such a Republican thing for them to tank anything that enables women in most any area. It’s like their tactics attacking abortion on the grounds of saying they’re pro-life, and yet everything they do suggests otherwise.

They really just want for men to go back to being the center of women’s universe and dependant upon men for protection, supplier of basic needs, social status/respectability. Republicans who want small government and freedom to do what they want but are fine with women being at the mercy of men.

It really feels like a war on women.

🔺https://twitter.com/mhdksafa/status/1471820619268431881?s=21

🔺 https://twitter.com/hope4betterusa/status/1467228760340582404?s=21

Expand full comment
Dec 21, 2021Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

I wonder if the outcry from the Average Joes and Jills---like the many of us who called or emailed Manchin today, might have made a difference? I certainly hope he viewed this past weekend's edition of 60 Minutes with the story of the deplorable conditions in Alabama!!

Expand full comment
Dec 21, 2021Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

HCR, thank YOU, for your time and energy.

Expand full comment

Everyone should realize, spread to their family and friends, and tell their representatives, Joe Manchin, and public media (papers & tv news) that Build Back Better at $2 trillion over ten years is less than one third of the near unanimously approved Defense Budget of $7+ trillion EACH year. In other words, the Defense Budget would fund BBB for more than 30 years.

It's a crime against Anerica that we spend more on the Defense Budget each year than the next ten military spending countries combined. And, not as much on the domestic needs represented in BBB over 30 years.

It's a crime that nations like Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Israel can spend so much less, even use our funding and weapons to make so much misery for us and the world and we cannot even defend ourselves and their victims. Russia can meddle in our elections, spread conspiracy theories to destroy our democracy and our Defense spending doesn't prevent this.

Our only remedy for national security is strong and effective domestic investments that remind our citizens and citizens around the world that democracy makes life better, not more hazardous and prone toward violence and war.

Expand full comment
Dec 21, 2021Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

Thank you been waiting all day to get your take on what manchin did today Of course first time I saw the AFL CIO demand which is powerful Thanks for the message of hope that despite the press this bill is still alive and in the works Thanks

Expand full comment
Dec 21, 2021Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

Strange things are going on behind the scenes---much makes little (does Manchin make much sense at all right now---can't support it and now we have to negotiate? ) Is there not a single republican with an Conscience for Humanity? I guess not--it is pretty obvious. The Fear Level must be pretty high---dangers have been mentioned. But let's face it, they've all been bribed and threatened no doubt with lifetime ostracism and financial ruin if they don't toe the line---no cushy think tanks when you leave congress, no "speaking fees" and the like. A carrot and a club. and in all this the Democrats can't get out a coherent message---except to show daily how incoherent their approach is right now. Where is the message about what they are working for---in Short Sentences, Pithy "sayings", and Barbed Zingers. The silence is deafening...... Sigh. Sorry for the rant. I guess it feels good. On the other hand, I think last night HCR was saying that when it looks bleak, action can change the dynamics----and also the suggestion that We the People need to do something----Thomas Paine and the galvanizing effect of his two pamphlets were mentioned for a purpose . We need to meditate on that. And be ready to act. The Delaware was pretty cold that evening, but they acted. Things are pretty foggy out here/there right now. Well, that was a ramble. I'll check back in the morning.

Expand full comment
Dec 21, 2021Liked by Heather Cox Richardson

Everyone is reporting it as if it’s dead! Glad to see pressure from the coal miners union and Manchin’s recent tweet. I’m sure it’s not over... actually I wondered if Manchin was just doing that thing where “conservative” senators say one thing on Fox but it’s not actually related to what they say or do in real life.

Expand full comment

When the Congressional "Squad" insisted that both the bills move forward together and refused to vote for the Infrastructure bill as a standalone, they were roundly castigated.

But they knew what would happen if the bills were split. And sure enough, they were right.

I hope POTUS has finally realized that you can't "reach across the aisle" to an authoritarian political party that has no intention of reaching back or helping the average American.

As for right-wing Joe Manchin, he never intended to agree to the social safety-net portion of Biden's proposal, and the "Squad" knew this.

As another Substack commentator observed: "politics is filthy."

Expand full comment

As an American-born Australian, I find utterly mind-boggling that concepts like a tax benefit for families with children are so controversial that one or two votes can make the difference between them being voted into law or not. Australia has had a Family Tax Benefit (under several different names over the years) for generations and it hasn't gone broke yet! (FYI: It's income-tested and paid on a per-child basis straight into the parent's bank account.)

Expand full comment

Hello Heather Cox Richardson, you are invaluable in this time when our democracy, left right and center, is under existential threat. You bring history to the present and give us context and anchor. I do a lot of work for Citizens Climate Lobby, whose motto is “Our Solution to Climate Change? Democracy”. I do this because I have a 13 year old son and I love him. The hope is that the Build Back Better bill will contain significant progress on Climate Change but in your piece there is no mention of Climate Change. The truth is that all that we do and discuss here is merely manmade fabrication. There is little room for democracy, or a stable economy with an increasingly unstable climate and on an increasingly uninhabitable earth. If we are to continue the very interesting games we all play and hope to make progress, we had better pay attention to the fact that we live on Earth because without that orientation we don’t have much and can promise little to the young we love. Thanks for all that you do for all of us.

Expand full comment
Dec 21, 2021·edited Dec 21, 2021

In various forums I'll keep bringing up that the $7.6 trillion dollars in military spending (measured over 10 years, just like Build Back Better) and passed with overwhelming majorities in Congress... is somehow not inflationary. Perhaps the military should deliver needed public services since their spending is sequestered from Economics 101.

Expand full comment

To allow a coal baron to control climate catastrophe is beyond barbary. Appalling, the crude profit-taking on the backs of the impoverished. The perfidy of the republicans is criminal. The complicity of Manchin is criminal. He puts his empire above his constituents as well as the planet. I fear we have mortally wounded Gaia, and this adds insult to injury.

Expand full comment