senate and radicalized republican party but they need to rethink the politics of this poitical strategy. let s talk about this, eugene. schumer sent a dear colleague letter in which he says i d ask you to consider the question if the right to vote is the corner stone of the democracy, how can we in good conscience allow for a situation in which the republican party can debate and pass voter suppression laws with a simple majority vote but not allow the united states senate to do the same? i m not sure who he s asking the question of but that s the call to make this majority vote issue if you can get sinema and manchin on board or two other republicans perhaps. that s the big if. and, you know, it i think bill makes valid points in that. when we talk about quote voting rights legislation end quote, it
back better act has been held up week after week after week by senator manchin and to a lesser degree by senator sinema of arizona. because they are 50/50, they are not able to pass this bill without manchin s support. democrats on capitol hill and the white house have been frustrated it has been so difficult to bring manchin on board. the statement was very personal in nature and certainly seemed to indicate over the weekend that there was no hope of reconciling with manchin. i think if they thought they were a week or two from now going to be able to come up with a compromise with manchin to pass this bill they probably would have held back on some of the personal attack. but they chose not to do so. one other point. you mentioned at the top this statement was approved by biden himself. that s important because this is a president who campaigned on and tried to govern with a sense
here, this is about a tremendous agenda here, very ambitious regarding clean energy investments, child care, paid family and sick leave, the child tax credit as well as home health care and medicare, housing, education, grants and, of course, home investments for energy and climate change provisions. this is something that the democrats are going to have to look at very carefully if they re going to get some of these items, very significant items, done. do they propose it in kind of a piecemeal fashion so they can get kmanchin on board and perhas some republicans and move forward on the child tax credit that way? that is something they have to think about in the coming year if they re actually going to address this. it looks like this ambitious agenda as it s laid out now just is not going to make it through. it s not going to make it
there was not the clown care that came with this but this is a major failure. whether it s the spending plan or the voting rights. it s the same blockade. trying to pass these without any republican support but republicans don t support what s in the social spending package and they haven t shown that they support any of the voting rights or election reform measures, so it ultimately comes down to senators like senator joe manchin and kirsten sinema and whether or not they are willing to make any changes and whether or not they are willing to go on with the social spending package and right now biden is at pretty much like a crossroads and he s having difficulty getting manchin on board with this bill because, you know, to the frustration of the white house, they feel as though the goal posts keep moving with manchin and that they can t nail him down on exactly what he wants. so, again, they say, and the calendar only matters if they
idea of quick passage of bill biden s build back better plan. manu raju is on capitol hill. manu, what are we learning about the dynamics at play? reporter: the talks between joe manchin and the president are not going well. the president is trying to get manchin on board but i m told they are very far apart. manchin has been concerned about this for some time. in particular he s concerned about the price of the child tax credit, expanding that to a number of families as democrats are trying to do a central component of that bill. if it does not expand by the end of this year, that expansion will actually expire for a number of families. there is a big push for democrats to get this done, but manchin is concerned about the cost and thinks it should be zeroed out. manchin says he s not opposed to including the child tax credit but he seems concerned about including it in this bill if it were to blow up the cost of the bill. the question is, can they still