LONDON: Goldman Sachs has cut its quarterly US 2022 growth forecast to 2 percent from 3 percent previously after Senator Joe Manchin withdrew his support for President Joe Biden"s $1.75 trillion domestic investment bill. Also known as Biden"s Build Back Better policy bill, it aims to expand child and home care benefits, as well as investments in clean energy and climate change issues, among other sectors. Manchin cited his concerns about inflation and rising debt that would reduce the country’s ability to respond to the pandemic and geopolitical threats. Reuters cited Goldmans Sachs analyst Jan Hatzius as saying in a note issued Dec. 19: “We had already expected a negative fiscal impulse for 2022 as a result of the fading support from COVID-relief legislation enacted in 2020 and 2021. Without BBB enactment, this fiscal impulse will become more negative than we had expected.” The firm had cut its US GDP forecast for the first quarter of 2022 to 2 percent from 3 percent previously, assuming that BBB would not become a law. Goldman also trimmed its forecast for the second quarter to 3 percent from 3.5 percent. The third quarter estimate was revised down to 2.75 percent from 3 percent previously. In a similar reaction, Moody"s Analytics indicated that the firm expects real GDP growth to be lower by half a percentage point in 2022 if the proposed legislation doesn"t become law. According to a Reuters poll of economists published on Dec. 8, US growth for 2022 was seen decelerating to 3.9 percent from 5.6 percent this year. Economists projected growth to slow down next year as the effect of previous spending programs should fade gradually. They expect the Federal Reserve to pursue a tighter monetary policy accommodation to tame high inflation, according to a Reuters news on Dec. 20.