Build Back Better Plan stalls, along with votings rights legislation

Yahoo Finance’s Jessica Smith provides an update on support for President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan and voting rights legislation.

Video Transcript

JESSICA SMITH: Democratic lawmakers had been hoping to get this roughly $2 trillion package done before the holidays, but it is starting to look more and more likely that that could get pushed until next year. Democrats just had a private lunch meeting. And as they were leaving, talking to reporters, some started to acknowledge that next year might be more likely for this package. Senator Joe Manchin has still not come to an agreement on this bill with Democratic leaders and President Biden. We know he's had a couple of conversations with the president this week, but they have not come to any kind of agreement. He has not committed to support this bill yet.

Democratic leaders are still trying to figure out exactly what he wants from that-- this bill and if that is going to be enough to get progressive lawmakers on board, so a lot of work still to do. Senator Manchin didn't say much after leaving that lunch, talking to reporters. But others are frustrated that this is not getting done, that it looks like it's quite possible that it will get pushed, especially because those enhanced child tax credit payments are expiring. The last payments will have gone out this month, unless Congress acts.

So, as we started to see this stall a bit, we did see some lawmakers shift their focus to voting rights legislation. That was something that they were hoping to potentially get done at some point before the holidays. They were even talking about changing some of the Senate rules to allow them to do that with just a majority vote. President Biden said yesterday that there's nothing domestically more important than that issue.

But when you talk about changing the rules, that's going to be complicated as well because senators Sinema and Manchin have been very skeptical about that, even when it does come to voting rights. But the Senate leader spoke about this issue on the floor this morning. Let's watch.

CHUCK SCHUMER: The fight to protect voting rights is far from over in the Senate. Just because Republicans will not join us to defend democracy does not mean that the Democrats will stop fighting. This matter is too important not to act, even if it means we must act alone.

MITCH MCCONNELL: I understand my colleagues are frustrated they may not get to spend $4.9 trillion on the way out the door for Christmas, but believe me, lashing out at our democracy, at the Supreme Court, and at the Senate itself, is not going to solve anything.

JESSICA SMITH: Now Democratic senators say they'll keep working on voting rights and keep working on the Build Back Better plan. Even if it doesn't get done before the holidays, they'll come back and work on this next year. We are still waiting to see on what the Senate's schedule is going to look like over the next couple of weeks. Right now, they are focused on confirming nominations. We'll see if they end up striking a deal to move those nominations quickly sometime in the next day or two and then go home for the holidays, or if they keep working over the next couple of weeks. We're hoping to get some clarity on that later today. So we'll keep you updated, guys.

JARED BLIKRE: Yeah, and probably not going to be a 2021 issue, more like a 2022 issue. Thank you for that report, Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith.