Former Squad members claim Democrats wanted $10 trillion Build Back Better bill
Ex-Squad Reps. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman claimed that Democrats had originally wanted to pass $10 trillion in spending as part of former President Joe Biden’s doomed Build Back Better (BBB) Act.
"We were at ten [trillion] and then it went down to six and down to three and down to 1.7, I believe," Bush said on the "Bowman and Bush" podcast on Mar. 14.
The two were reflecting on the collapse of Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better Act, which called for hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in "social infrastructure" programs such as universal childcare, an expansion of the child tax credit, climate change initiatives, and low-cost housing.
"We wanted to make sure that the climate investment was there because many of the groups were saying this isn’t enough on climate… so I was getting attacked for not asking for more," Bush said.
The former members of Congress each lost Democratic primaries to more moderate opponents prior to the 2024 general election. They said they held out on voting for Biden’s infrastructure bill for "months" in order to couple it with Build Back Better so that one couldn’t pass without the other. But according to the two ex-reps, the federal investments in the BBB Act kept going "down, down, down."
The progressives’ efforts ultimately failed, in their telling, with the Democrat-controlled House voting to pass the infrastructure bill separately from Build Back Better, and no vote scheduled for the latter bill. The House passed Biden’s infrastructure bill in November 2021.
Bush recounted a tense meeting of the House Progressive Caucus in which Biden called in to plead with the lefty reps to pass his infrastructure bill despite their demands for a vote on BBB not being met.
"Mr. President, I’m a no. I’m not going to vote for this if we don’t have the infrastructure bill, if we don’t have Build Back Better being voted on at the same time," Bush allegedly told Biden.
When Biden implored her to "trust your president" that the Build Back Better Act would one day be passed, Bush claimed she gave the president a flat "no." BBB, which was valued at nearly $2 trillion, ultimately failed to pass due to objections from centrists such as then-Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.
Bowman, who lost his primary to Rep. George Latimer, D-N.Y., faced controversy in his district, which encompasses parts of Westchester, for numerous anti-Israel statements which critics alleged crossed the line into antisemitism.
BIDEN'S 'BUILD BACK BETTER' IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF CRADLE-TO-GRAVE, BIG-GOVERNMENT DEPENDENCY
Bowman at one point said there was "no evidence" Hamas raped Israeli women during their barbaric Oct. 7 attacks (he later reversed course on that claim), and has frequently referred to Israel’s war against the terrorist group as a "genocide." He was also censured by the House for pulling the fire alarm during a 2023 spending vote.
Bush, whose husband was recently charged with defrauding the government to the tune of $20,000 in fraudulent PPP loans, blamed the American-Israeli activist group AIPAC for her congressional loss and lashed out at pro-Israel groups during her concession speech, saying they "radicalized" her and vowing to take revenge.
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"As much as I love my job, all they did was radicalize me — and so now they need to be afraid," Bush said.