Dems Promised Universal Pre-K, Paid Leave, and Free Community College. Now It’s All Gone.
As progressives debate whether or not to celebrate the Inflation Reduction Act, let’s take a moment to remember Build Back Better: universal pre-K, paid family and medical leave, free community college. It’s all been taken away — and you should be furious.
Preschoolers on the Head Start program at North Shore Park. (Jeffrey Greenberg / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Remember universal pre-K? Remember universal paid family and medical leave? Remember tuition-free community college?
These weren’t planks of the Bernie Sanders 2020 platform scorned by mainstream Democrats like Joe Biden. They were presented as important elements of the president’s agenda and included in the “Build Back Better” package rolled out with great fanfare in 2021.
Fast-forward to last week, when it was announced that, after many months of stops and starts, negotiations between Democratic leadership and recalcitrant Democratic senator Joe Manchin have finally resulted in a bill that incorporates some elements of what Build Back Better was supposed to do.
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