There was no mechanism that seemed like it would have reliably stopped these provisions if they had been an order of magnitude or two worse, and indeed the original BBB bill seemed to have a number of things in that category.
The general mechanism for stopping provisions that are an order of magnitude or two worse is lobbying and in this case, that’s likely exactly what happened. The original BBB bill had a bunch of those things and then lobbyists came and fought the bill.
Lobbyist power is not absolute and there will be policies that damage business interests that lobbyists can’t prevent. On the other hand, at present Washington does to me not look like a place where lobbyists have too little power.
The general mechanism for stopping provisions that are an order of magnitude or two worse is lobbying and in this case, that’s likely exactly what happened. The original BBB bill had a bunch of those things and then lobbyists came and fought the bill.
Lobbyist power is not absolute and there will be policies that damage business interests that lobbyists can’t prevent. On the other hand, at present Washington does to me not look like a place where lobbyists have too little power.