Top progressive urges Biden to focus on Build Back Better despite Manchin blow

Pramila Jayapal, a leading House progressive, has urged Joe Biden to continue focusing on his Build Back Better social spending legislation and to use executive actions as a way to work around public rejection by a key senator, Joe Manchin.

Writing in the Washington Post, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said it would soon release a plan for actions including lowering costs, protecting family healthcare and tackling the climate crisis.

Manchin, a centrist Democrat from West Virginia, rejected Build Back Better last Sunday. With the Senate split 50-50, his dramatic move seemed to doom the bill.

It also threatened to scuttle hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for measures to meet climate goals and prompted Goldman Sachs to lower its forecasts for US economic growth.

Manchin has expressed concerns about climate proposals and extensions to monthly child tax credit payments.

She also said the White House was not giving up on the legislation.