Sen. Joe Manchin torpedoed key climate and tax provisions of the Democrats’ election-year spending agenda.
Summary
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin torpedoed the inclusion of new climate spending and tax hikes on the wealthy in the Democrats’ election-year spending agenda.
- The West Virginia Senator’s about-face came after weeks of negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that saw other Democratic priorities like federally subsidized child care, paid family leave, and universal pre-K fall by the wayside.
- Sen. Manchin informed Schumer he would only support a spending bill to lower pharmaceutical costs and extend federal health care subsidies.
- Manchin’s spokesman said, “Sen. Manchin believes it’s time for leaders to put political agendas aside, reevaluate and adjust to the economic realities the country faces to avoid taking steps that add fuel to the inflation fire.”
- Democrats need Manchin’s vote to get their spending plan – or “reconciliation bill” through the evenly-divided Senate.
- Democrats were furious at Manchin’s decision. In an example of a typical Democratic response, former Obama advisor John Podesta told the New York Times, “It seems odd that Manchin would choose as his legacy to be the one man who single-handedly doomed humanity.”
- The New York Times wrote Manchin’s decision “dealt a crushing blow to President Biden’s domestic agenda” and Democratic plans to “enact a broad social safety net, climate, and tax package.” Manchin blew up “weeks of painstaking negotiations” and came seven months after he walked away from the Democrats’ prior $3.5 trillion spending plan.
- Politico reported House Democrats are angry at the senior Senator from West Virginia for forcing them to once again “rubber-stamp” Senate deals. Given Manchin holds all the cards, House Democrats will have to “swallow whatever the Senate feeds them.”
- CNN re-ran an October 2021 article with minor updates to slam Manchin for having “long ties to the coal industry.” CNN claimed unnamed “climate advocates” were “quick to point to Manchin’s ties to the coal industry” as a reason for blocking climate spending.
- Fox News lampooned the New York Times for being “shocked Manchin still opposes massive spending amid soaring inflation.” Fox tore apart the Times’ “straight news” report paragraph-by-paragraph as “the anti-Manchin report.”
- Breitbart covered Manchin’s comments mocking the Biden White House’s pathetic spin that the historically bad June inflation numbers were “outdated.” The West Virginia Senator said the people making those claims are “the same people that might have given him the information saying that it was transitory, a year ago.”
- National Review urged Manchin not to “go wobbly,” “run out the reconciliation clock and avoid making inflation worse” by shooting down the entire Democratic spending agenda, not just the climate aspects.
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© Dominic Moore, 2022
