Biden Touts Build Back Better in Meeting With CEOs

While the economy has made big gains under Mr. Biden, for many Americans the rise in prices has overshadowed job and wage growth and has become a political concern for the White House ahead of the midterm elections. Republicans have argued that the president’s policies contributed to the spike in prices and voters may place blame on Democrats.

Addressing executives from General Motors Co. , Ford Motor Co. , HP Inc., Microsoft Corp. , Siemens AG and other companies at the White House, Mr. Biden touted job growth and a drop in unemployment but acknowledged the challenges posed by persistent inflation.

“We’ve got to get prices in check for working people,” Mr. Biden said of his roughly $2 trillion Build Back Better bill.

The president’s efforts to advance the legislation stalled last year when Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) rejected it as too costly. Republicans remain united in opposition. Last week, the president said he would change strategies on the package, aiming to pass a scaled-down bill that would include some original elements but leave out other components that his party and activists had called for.

Speaking at the meeting, Microsoft President Brad Smith praised pieces of the policy plan, like providing subsidized child care and increasing funding for college grants.

“People can only come back to work if they have a way to take care of their children,” he said. “And so from our perspective, Build Back Better will help address supply shortages in the short run.”

The executives took turns talking with Mr. Biden about their expectations for federal climate legislation and the parts of the bill that would be beneficial to their companies.

Tom Linebarger, CEO of engine manufacturer Cummins Inc., said he urged Mr. Biden to push for federal tax incentives to promote the use of electric and hydrogen-power vehicles and the installation of the fueling infrastructure to support the vehicles when they are on the road.

“If there’s not electric charging stations or low-cost hydrogen, nobody is going to buy them,” he said.

Barbara Humpton, who leads the U.S. unit of German industrial firm Siemens AG , said she emphasized her company’s work on high-speed rail, electric-vehicle deployment and modernizing rural electric grids to help cut carbon emissions. “The cost of doing nothing is just too great,” Ms. Humpton said she told attendees.

Some business groups have criticized the overall proposal.

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce spokesman said Wednesday that there are some provisions that would likely win support from the business community and pushed lawmakers to “consider those items as stand-alone measures.” But the spokesman said the chamber will continue to oppose the overall bill, contending it would fuel inflation, impose large tax increases on U.S. companies and force price controls on drugmakers.

Business Roundtable CEO Joshua Bolten said the group supports spending on climate-change programs but opposes the proposed tax provisions.

While negotiations between Mr. Manchin and the White House have yet to begin in earnest, Democrats have started considering how they may prepare a package he could support. Because Mr. Manchin has insisted that the bill fund fewer programs for the long term, rather than a bevy temporarily, Democrats are preparing to choose their top priorities for the bill.

Among the programs Democrats have started circling around are extending healthcare subsidies, lowering prescription drug costs, funding universal pre-K and child-care subsidies, and offering tax incentives for reducing carbon emissions. Those spending programs would be paired with a series of tax increases on corporations and very high-income Americans.

Some Democrats hope to make progress on the legislation by March 1.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday that the administration hasn’t set a deadline.

Democrats have been planning to use a tool known as reconciliation to pass the bill through the 50-50 Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris can break a tie. Some Democrats have advocated for passing pieces of the agenda individually. If the legislation was broken up and reconciliation wasn’t used, Democrats would need 60 votes in the Senate, which requires Republican support.

Under reconciliation, if Democrats can reach a deal with Mr. Manchin, all 50 Senate Democrats would have to agree to it, and then it would also have to be approved by the House, where Democrats hold a narrow majority. Progressive lawmakers in both chambers have resisted the idea of narrowing the package any further.

Some Democratic lawmakers and aides see funding for housing and expanding Medicare to cover hearing, two elements of the bill the House passed last year, as in danger of falling out of the negotiations.

Many Democrats are also concerned that an extension of an expanded child tax credit could fall out of the legislation. Mr. Manchin has repeatedly criticized the child tax credit expansion, which increased the size of the credit for many families and made it available in monthly payments for 2021, arguing that it is too generous and should include a work requirement.

In a letter Wednesday, five Democratic senators wrote Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris urging them to maintain the child tax credit expansion in the bill.

“The consequences of failing to extend the CTC expansion are dire, particularly as families face another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic,” they wrote.

Some Democrats have started exploring ways to change the proposed expansion, including by tying the payments to work or reducing its size, that Mr. Manchin could accept. But it is unclear if he would do so.

—Sabrina Siddiqui, Bob Tita and Alex Leary contributed to this article.

Write to Catherine Lucey at [email protected]

Corrections & Amplifications
Andrew Duehren shares a byline on this article. An earlier version misspelled his surname as Duerhen. (Corrected on Jan. 26, 2022.)