President Joe Biden and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., are ”very far apart” on the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act, which means Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will likely wait to put the bill on the floor until 2022, though he had hoped to get it done by Christmas, according to a person who spoke with CNN.
Manchin wants the child tax credit cut from the bill because of the cost, though Democratic leaders are rejecting the idea.
”It’s not going to get zeroed out,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, told CNN. ”That’s nonnegotiable.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said: ”We need the child tax credit. It has cut childhood poverty in America by nearly half.”
The child tax credit payments are set to expire at the end of this year unless lawmakers reauthorize it as part of the law.
When asked about the report, Manchin told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday afternoon, ”I’m not opposed to the child tax credit.”
But he didn’t specify whether he would prefer the program be taken out of the bill.
He also told CNN he wanted to be clear about his position.
”I don’t think I am asking anyone to move,” he told reporter Manu Raju while walking to his waiting SUV. ”I want people to understand where I am.”
Asked if Biden is moving closer to him on the spending package, Manchin said: ”I wouldn’t say that.”
A White House official told Axios that Biden and Manchin ”deal with each other in good faith, and their calls have been constructive and friendly.”
