Is Biden's plan 'fully paid for' or 'budget gimmicks'? President Biden says his "Build Back Better" spending plan is "fully paid for," but some fiscal experts have challenged his math and a key Democrat in Congress also harbors doubts. "What I see are shell games, budget gimmicks, that make the real cost of the so-called $1.75 trillion bill estimated to be almost twice that amount," Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), whose vote can make or break the bill, told reporters this week. What's this numbers game all about? The Senate already approved Biden's 10-year, $550 billion infrastructure bill. The issue here is a related plan to boost spending on social services to the tune of $1.75 trillion trillion over 10 years, which Biden and Democrats recently scaled back from $3.5 trillion. They did this by cutting some goals outright and in many cases shortening the number of years for items on their wish list: child tax credits, universal pre-K and affordable care funding, and more. One independent analyst said the Biden administration earns "some credibility points" for presenting a package that does not increase the deficit on paper, but cautioned that policymakers will face pressure to extend the popular perks that Democrats are shortening to meet their $1.75 trillion goalpost. Administration officials said each bill should be considered on its own merit and that Biden is committed to cost-neutral proposals. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. A Biden 'Nobel line' that morphed over time This is an example of how a carefully worded sentence can, over time, get morphed into shorthand that might lose some nuance. "This is from 15 Nobel laureates in economics — quote, 'Because this agenda … invests in long-term economic capacity and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease long-term inflationary pressures,'" President Biden said in September, quoting from a letter from economists supporting his infrastructure and spending plans. Those plans have been shaken up and scaled back in congressional negotiations, changing some of the underlying economic assumptions. Yet Biden keeps citing the letter and its line about easing "long-term inflationary pressures." Does it still hold up now that Biden's infrastructure and spending plans have been pulled back by Congress? Several of the signers in the letter told The Fact Checker that long-term inflationary pressures still would likely be reduced, but not to the same magnitude. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @AdriUsero) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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