Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) believes that President Joe Biden’s roughly $2 trillion Build Back Better Act will never be passed.
During an appearance on Fox News’ Sean Hannity’s show on Wednesday, Graham said, “I think Build Back Better is dead forever, and let me tell you why: because Joe Manchin has said he’s not going to vote for a bill that will add to the deficit.”
“Well, if you do away with the budget gimmicks, Build Back Better — according to the CBO — adds $3 trillion to the deficit. He doesn’t want to vote for a bill that makes inflation worse,” he continued.
Finally, Graham said, “At the end of the day, Joe Manchin has promised the people of West Virginia, ‘I will not vote for a bill that adds to the deficit that’s full of gimmicks,’ so I think it’s dead forever.”
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On Wednesday, NBC News reported it was unlikely that Senate Democrats would meet their self-imposed deadline of passing the bill by the end of the year.
The news comes as NBC reports that discussions between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), a necessary vote for Democrats to pass the bill, have been going “very poorly,”
Manchin has previously raised concerns that there are budget gimmicks being used to hide the true cost of the $1.75 trillion bill.
“Debt and inflation are a big concern for me,” he told CNN, adding, “Basically we should pay for what we’re doing.”
Graham reference a report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), that was requested by Republicans, that found that if several provisions in the bill were made permanent and did not expire, the bill would add $3 trillion to the deficit.
Biden has repeatedly insisted that his spending plan would be fully paid for by a series of provisions designed to raise revenue.
In October, he claimed, “It will not add to the deficit at all, it will actually reduce the deficit.”
However, the CBO found that the bill would add $367 billion to the deficit over 10 years.
As The Wall Street Journal notes, “For technical reasons, the CBO’s bottom line doesn’t include $207 billion in revenue that the scorekeeper estimates would result from pouring roughly $80 billion into tax-enforcement efforts at the Internal Revenue Service. Adding that revenue to the CBO’s other estimates would make the bill’s 10-year deficit about $160 billion.”
The Biden administration believes increased IRS enforcement would bring in $480 billion in revenue and says the bill would actually decrease the deficit.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blasted the CBO score requested by Republicans, calling it a “phony score of an imaginary bill.”
Additionally, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki called the report “fake” and said it was “not based on the actual bill that anybody is voting on.”
