How Can Build Back Better Be Killed?

            The liberty principle for this Freedom Friday concerns President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better economic plan. The plan was defeated once in Congress, but Democrats in the Senate have not stopped trying to revive it. Bernadette Hassan described Build Back Better as “a multitrillion-dollar legislative package proposed by Biden consisting of massive spending on social, infrastructure, and environmental programs.” 

            Steve Forbes, the CEO of Forbes Media, wrote about Build Back Better (BBB) in his new book titled Inflation: What It Is, Why It’s Bad, and How to Fix It. At a recent speaking engagement in Washington, Forbes said the following: “Don’t call it an ideology. Call lit an idiot-ology.” In his remarks, Forbes compared BBB to an 18^th-century doctor: “To cure you, they bleed you, which got rid of pain and suffering – because it got rid of you.”

            Forbes is not the only person speaking negatively of BBB. According to the article by Hassan, Preston Brashers is a senior analyst for tax policy at The Heritage Foundation, and he concurs with Forbes. He described the bill as a “$3.5 trillion patchwork of taxes, mandates, job-killing regulations, and social welfare entitlements that will only exacerbate the supply-side issues plaguing the economy.”

Hassan noted that “Forbes concluded that Republicans [in the Senate] did Biden a favor” when they block the BBB bill. This bill passed out of the House – controlled by Democrats – without a single Republican vote. “If the bill had passed, you would have a far worse [economic] situation.”

            Republicans cannot let their guard down on this bill because Democrats are trying to revive it. According to Hasan, they “are attempting to craft a pared-down version of Build Back Better that they hope to pass through the reconciliation process with only Democratic senators’ votes.”