President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion social and climate spending bill is dead, and Democrats aren’t likely to advance a skinnier bill anytime soon due to resistance from a holdout within their ranks and GOP resistance.
Democrats are likely to wait and try to pick up smaller pieces sometime in the spring, given Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia threw more cold water on new federal spending this week in light of stubborn inflation.
Talks between the conservative Democrat and the White House completely collapsed in late December after he put a dagger in the House-approved bill. Without Manchin’s vote, the plan is stalled in the 50-50 Senate.
