Sen. Joe Manchin has some issues with the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that Democrats want to pass:
There are still serious hurdles ahead for the bill. One of the most centrist members of the Senate Democratic caucus, Joe Manchin, said after the vote that he has “serious concerns about the grave consequences” of another large spending package.
“Given the current state of the economic recovery, it is simply irresponsible to continue spending at levels more suited to respond to a Great Depression or Great Recession — not an economy that is on the verge of overheating,” Manchin said.
Joe needs to learn his economics. This bill isn't intended to be an economic stimulus.
Deficit spending stimulates an economy in recession, but the reconciliation bill is supposed to be fully paid for. If that's really the case, then it will have no significant effect on the economy one way or the other. It's just a collection of new programs, and Manchin's vote should depend solely on whether he supports the various programs contained in the legislation.
Now, if there are some programs Manchin doesn't support, then fair enough. He should work to remove them from the final bill. But don't use an "overheating" economy as an excuse.
I fervently hope he's just trying to generate "mavricky" or "cenrist-y" headlines for the rubes back home, and that he'll take credit for "savings" when the bill comes in $400 billion lower than the current quote.
I believe many oi his constituents aren't "the rubes back home," since they poll at 79% in favor of the Biden-agenda legislation that he supposedly can't vote for put of either principle or fear of being defeated in his next campaign.
Given his use of verbiage similar to that of the US Chamber of Commerce about the For the People Act shortly after he received a donation related to the CoC, that's just one more questionable position.
His income from the worst coal company in West Virginia & the fact that Enersystems is colocated with the Manchin Law Group in the Manchin Professional Building makes me unable to make excuses for him as being unable to buck the supposed backlash from his constituents if he toes the Democratic Party's line.
His posturing isn't excusable, & while his houseboat get-togethers may indeed be bipartisan, he seems to include few or no really liberals. He's just another fatcat faking economic concerns & won't be persuading his Republican guests to see the virtue of anything that Schumer tries to get through. I don't expect that "maverick" to do anything comparable to McCain's save on the ACA issue.
Agreed. Manchin has always been “Wolf’s heart and Dog’s lung”. But, at the same time, a part of the problem is the Democrats approach which seems to treat each congressperson as a baron whose office (and call upon the party’s resources and support) is his by right regardless of whether he supports the party’s agenda.
Just look at how the party treated Holy Joe Lieberman. He actively campaigned against Obama and actively opposed nearly every policy or legislative proposal of the Democratic Party. Yet, he was allowed to keep every perk and after losing the primary, the president and congressional Democratic leadership continued to support him, encouraged Democratic voters to support Lieberman in the general election
We’re in the same situation with the asshole Manchin. Biden should demand his loyalty and support or tell him he gets nothing from the Democrats and Biden and every other leading Democrat will do the same.
And a message should be sent to his coal baron and other patrons that they will be held accountable for Manchin’s disloyalty. Other the full weight of the government will be brought to bear on them until they are utterly destroyed.
Whether his posturing is excusable or not, Biden's agenda is dead without his vote. So, it's not unreasonable to hope much/most of Machin's posturing is related to his desire to win another term. If my hopes are ill-founded, Democrats are in for a rough ride and, relatedy (and terrifyingly), the odds increase we'll descend into autocracy in 2025 (one of MAGA's best weapons would be a non-decisive reelection win by Biden). I will note that, whatever suspicions one might have toward the senator, he did vote for Biden's large covid relief package in the spring; he did vote for the infrastructure bill; and he did vote for the budget resolution formally enabling reconciliation legislation. I think this signifies that, more likely than not, Manchin would prefer that a reconciliation bill reach Biden's desk. The question, to me, is how much smaller that bill will be than the initial proposal. Simple Negotiation Tactics 101 would suggest Senator Sanders's opening bid ($3.5 trillion) is higher than he expects he'll actually get.
For the record I think any Democratic senator who obstructs the reconciliation bill or directly contributes to its death should be primaried.
flummery or mummery? or maybe just plain BS.
Manchin could believe that there should be deficit reduction in there. "Everything is paid for" only means the bill should not increase the deficit.
So, is that really the case or only with a wink and a nod?
I feel like I still don't really grok Manchin.
Anyone have a handle on him? Does this mean "My nether-parts have seen insufficient tongue-bathing", or does this mean "I'm looking forward to shitting all over my team?"
He thinks he's clever.
He's a veteran Democratic pol who got re-elected in a state that Trump won by 40 points. So he has a pretty good opinion of himself and his political instincts (join the club, so do 99 other senators), and more specifically, he probably thinks he has a good sense of what he needs to do to keep his base together.
Based on what he did earlier this year on the Recovery Act, that means 1) making a *lot* of noise about not accepting what the party leadership puts forward in the initial draft of the bill, 2) picking out a handful of items in the bill that he absolutely can't/won't support and that he demands be removed as the price of his support, 3) repeatedly arguing the bill is too big and he won't vote for something that's fiscally irresponsible, and 4) ultimately voting for a somewhat smaller and worse version of the bill and doing so because it's met his "centrist" demands.
This is all part of defining "centrist" as "whatever Joe Manchin ultimately supports", and putting up with all the noise he'll make over the next 2-3 months is part of the price of winning his support for a $3.4? $3.2? trillion reconciliation bill.
Seems right. Remember, if you don't like the veto power Manchin has now, you can hope the Democrats pick up another Senate seat or two in 2022, and then they can let Manchin vote against the party once in a while, if it's what he needs to do.
If the reconciliation bill can be pushed through in anything close to present form, in 2022 that should get the Democrats the extra Senators they need to dispose of Manchin and Sinema.
And it's not even "dispose of"; it can just be "give them passes to vote against certain bills/nominees".
That's what Pelosi does in the House. She has a limited number of "hall passes" she can give for each vote and they're rotated among members who, for whatever reason, need to vote against the party in certain cases.
He's 100% self-serving; gave my reasons for thinking this in a reply above. No more excusing this rich guy posing as a Democrat devoted to bipartisanship; that's just his pretense for leveraging things like a job for his wife, & PUBLIC negative attitude toward his own party's agenda.
This was positioned to be a response to the comment by arghasnarg. WordPress does this occasionally.
Maybe you should stop taking unsourced quotes from the Guardian.
I have come to regard Manchin and Trump as equals in the fight against the opportunity for equality and opportunity. They may be at opposite poles in some ways, but their effect on events is the same.
Really? Would Trump have voted for/signed the American Recovery Plan?
Manchin's a centrist Democrat who's figured out how to win re-election in a state that went for Trump by 40 points...and he's done so while voting to impeach/convict Trump...twice.
Looks like the confidence fairy now speaks with a drawl
Conservatives trot out their winning argument,
https://i.redd.it/de1scvo19qg71.jpg
A politician using flummery? What next?
But actually if the full amount is approved it is unlikely to be fully paid for - except ostensibly with more flummery. So you get flummery whatever happens, as usual.
It's easy to criticize Manchin because he doesn't fully support the Democratic program, but if he weren't a "moderate" blue dog he wouldn't have been elected in a state that went overwhelmingly for Trump. The only chance of WVA not going fully Republican in the next Senate election is if Manchin runs again, and he won't get elected if acts like a full Democrat.
And expecting politicians to be logical is futile, especially when they have to satisfy sharply different constituencies.
This all depends on whether you believe WV citizens can tell the difference between “acting the fool” and actually doing something.
I can guarantee you that they cannot.
If there is one thing I am 100% certain about, it is that not a single voter anywhere knows anything about actual votes the politicians they vote for are taking.
And, so far, the difference between Manchin and an out of the closet Republican has been pretty minimal. Yes, for example, he’s part of the reason why Chuck Schumer is majority leader but he’s also blocked and hinder Schumer to the point where the Democrats will either have no part of their agenda passed in time for the midterms or so little that he will be in the minority in the next Congress.
Manchin is wolf’s heart and dog’s lungs. If he could keep his seat without some Democratic support, he’d already have changed sides and reaped the rewards. We need to pressure him and his patrons so that he’s either a loyal Democrat or he’s out of politics. And with so much stink on him that his friends won’t take care of him and nobody will hire him, not even Fox News.
Pressure Manchin out and you've got Mitch McConnell as Senate president controlling the flow of legislation and confirmation (or not) of judicial and executive nominees.
You don't have to like Manchin to recognize the difference between him and a Republican. Manchin also voted for the American Recovery Plan and to convict Trump...twice.
All that you say is undoubtedly true but it’s also true that since Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are implacably opposed to both passage of the Democratic agenda and elimination of the filibuster, it’s clear that the Democrats won’t be able to run in 2022 and 2024 on a record of accomplishments and having achieved much beyond what Manchin and Sinema will allow——which isn’t likely to be much beyond the annual highway bill, albeit a beefed-up one. For me, that leaves the question of the future, rather than gratitude for Manchin’s past limited opposition to Trump as an individual.
Based upon current projections and polling, Chuck Shumer will not be the majority leader after the 2022 midterms and neither will Nancy Pelosi be speaker of the house. I’m simply suggesting making a virtue out of necessity. With Manchin and Sinema, the Democrats are probably doomed; running against them and running against the Republicans (as opposed to stressing “bipartisanship”)offers Biden and the party a second chance at running on Biden’s agenda; they can argue that all of these good are impossible with a divided government and the filibuster but within our grasp with an expanded Democratic majority.
Yes, the Democrats will lose West Virginia. But so what? Having West Virginia doesn’t seem to be doing them very much good at the present time. Manchin and Sinema are happily crippling the party’s chances for the future; it seems to me that the party should return the favor by destroying their chances and, by so doing, maybe improve the future prospects for the Democrats success in 2022 and 2024.
Thanks for your response. We agree that Democrats will only be able to pass into law "what Manchin and Sinema will allow". So far (and it's early days still) that includes not only the American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure bill, but also the Democrats' reconciliation bill. Both have made clear they'll demand some amendments as the price of their support, and the whole thing could *still* fall apart, but if Manchin and Sinema *do* vote for the reconciliation bill, that's a major victory that would not have happened if Republicans occupied their seats.
Controlling one WV senate seat has been critical to every victory Democrats have had in Congress thus far this year. You (or I, or anyone else) may not like it, but having Manchin in that seat makes Kamala Harris the decisive vote in the Senate. Having a Republican in that seat would put Mitch McConnell in charge.
That's the world as it is.
There was a recent story in the papers about Joe Manchin's houseboat on the Potomac where he entertains luminaries of both parties. His guests kick off their shoes, dine and quaff, and forget their politcs for a while. His houseboat is a symbol of his politics and his bipartisan bonhomie. I suspect it is more important to him than economics, party agenda or ideology, and the key to his survival as a Democrat in West Virginia.
Wait, are you telling me that Manchin is using disingenuous arguments? I'm shocked! Shocked, I say.
I don't mind centrism if there are real centrist policies you support, but too often it just means "I will poke people to my left in the eye just to show that I'm not one of them", and there's not much room to compromise when the opposition rather than the policy is their goal.
Except what Manchin's done over the past year or more is "poke people to my left in the eye to just to show that I'm not one of them...and then vote for 95% of what they want" (e.g., convicting Trump (twice), the American Recovery Plan).
Am I wrong? I thought that thing already passed the Senate, 50 to 49, early this morning.
Procedural vote.
It did, but 3.5 trillion is a lot
Well, this is semantics in the weeds. The 2021-2022 Budget Resolution (https://bit.ly/3iBihmU) passed in Feb set revenue and new spending authority limits. The new spending authority exceeds revenue for every year in the 10-year horizon, but is especially front-loaded.
Reconciliation is relative to that Budget Resolution. In general, it does not allow additional spending than what was allowed, but it does allow for savings.
Manchin's complaint has merit, if you consider that he wants to roll back total spending that was already authorized by the Budget Resolution. Therefore, ostensibly he really does want to save money and slow debt growth.
It is arguable what Manchin's true intent is, however, because he did after all vote in support of the Budget Resolution. If he wanted true deficit-neutral budgets, he would have voted against the Budget Resolution that set in stone (until the next Budget resolution, that is) nearly $12T in additional deficit spending over 10 years.
Kevin, it's flummery and we can expect a lot more from Manchin in the coming weeks and months. Recall what he did with the American Recovery Plan: make *lots* of noise about how he wouldn't just go along with what the House passed, and about how he wouldn't vote for a $1.9 trillion bill, etc., and then---having successfully defined "centrist" as "whatever Joe Manchin will support", voting for a $1.85 trillion bill.
Unless and until proven otherwise, it's probably best for those of us outside of Washington to assume Manchin is running the same flummery as he did earlier this year, that Biden and Schumer and Pelosi all know about it, and that in the end he'll vote for a $3+ trillion bill.
Cur defense spending. Defund all the trumpist generals and vets. They are the enemy.
https://www.armytimes.com/veterans/2021/08/09/army-veteran-sentenced-for-shooting-black-girl-at-iowa-trump-rally/
Tell your boss Vlad to do likewise.
Manchin's not entirely wrong: If you take some of the money from the vast wealth that the riches are sitting on and use it to create green jobs, etc., it will stimulate the economy. But that's what he means, it should be on him to argue why that's a bad thing.
Krugman believes
1) The paid-for provisions in the bill are smoke-and-mirrors, a good portion of the bill will be dumped on the debt.
2) With interest rates being what they are, that's a good thing.
Manchin does NOT support the new programs because, you know, coal. West Virginia. But you can't SAY that. So you have to move your concern to a new venue.
Manchin can spin his ‘perspective’ to best suit his political needs. Strategically, from Manchin’s point of view:
He comes from a strong GOP state
He is likely the only Democrat that could hold his senate seat
His state has significant coal interests/political lobby
His daughter is a pharma CEO
His vote is required to pass the reconciliation package
Bottom line is that Democratic leadership has a limited ability to influence Manchin’s desires.
It's not exactly true that non-deficit spending has no stimulative effect. Spending has a multiplier effect; that is, one dollar of spending creates more than one dollar worth of economic activity. Spending on different things gets you different multiplier effects. If fully funded government spending reduces spending in areas with a low multiplier effect and diverts it to areas with a high multiplier effect, it can be stimulative.