After President Biden’s Build Back Better social spending bonanza stalled due to obstruction from moderates, progressives began urging him to bypass Congress and enact his policy priorities via executive order.
The package that stalled had included provisions for climate change, childcare, immigration, and other items.
On Wednesday, Biden had a meeting with members of the House Progressive Caucus, which urged him to unilaterally impose their policy demands. Those included “canceling student debt, raising the overtime threshold, lowering prescription drug costs, expanding renewable energy to decrease reliance on fossil fuels, and fixing the Affordable Care Act ‘family glitch’ to expand access to health care,” a statement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus said.
The New Democrat Coalition also met with the president and insisted on bipartisanship and negotiation rather than bold strokes, Politico reported.
“Clearly, the president may be able to take actions, but we feel that for long-term durable policy, Congress needs to act,” New Dem leader Suzan Delbene told the publication Wednesday. “We have the House, the Senate and the White House. There may be slim majorities, but we still have an important opportunity to make long-term change. This whiplash of things going back and forth [via executive action] doesn’t really help over the long term.”
Earlier this month, nearly 100 progressive lawmakers asked Biden to use his executive authority to declare climate change a national emergency and to ban oil projects on public lands, Politico reported.
Congress already pledged many millions of dollars this month to support the Ukrainian resistance against Russian invasion as well as the humanitarian effort there.
Progressives’ plea to Biden comes as the party anticipates significant losses in the 2022 midterm elections. Republicans are expected to win back a number of key seats in Congress, as Democrats struggle to defend their record against a backdrop of rising inflation, supply chain disruptions, unchecked illegal immigration, and a destabilized geopolitical environment.
Progressives shifted gears to a new strategy after Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, and his other moderate counterpart Kyrsten Sinema, tanked Build Back Better earlier this year over inflationary and debt concerns.
Despite some speculation that Manchin would be open to renewed discussion, he confirmed in February that the bill was dead.
Source: National Review
