Manchin and Sinema should kill the Reconciliation Bill
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has two problems with President Biden’s $3.5 trillion dollar Reconciliation Bill. First is the total cost — and secondly the provisions in the Bill he will not support.
Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema has not detailed all her oppositions to the big Bill. She does not like the size but has not been as specific as Manchin in indicating what her ceiling is or which provisions she will not support.
Manchin had notified Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer early on that he would not support a bill in excess of $1.5 trillion. That has led to Washington-style speculation that a final compromise Bill would be in the $2.0 to $2.5 trillion range. Manchin will come up from his ceiling, they assume. But maybe not. So far, he is sticking to his $1.5 trillion number.
This has put Vermont’s Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders into a frenzy. And why not? Sanders has wanted a $6 trillion package. He considered the $3.5 trillion Bill as a final compromise. On the other hand, Manchin may see his $1.5 trillion as a compromise from his initial position that only the bi-partisan physical Infrastructure Bill should be passed this year.
Manchin proposed that the bigger Bill should be put on pause and not even considered until next year. He said that Congress should wait until we can ascertain the effects of the initial $1.9 trillion Stimulus Bill that passed in January – and until the backlog of unspent money gets into the economy. His point is well taken. If Biden got all his proposals through Congress, that would be an expenditure of $6.4 trillion over the next ten years – and a lot more fuel to the inflation that is already raging.
It is only the astronomically high cost of the initial proposals that makes Manchin’s $1.5 trillion line-in-the-sand reasonable. It is not. It is still too much money spent for too many wrong reasons.
On the other hand, a $1.5 trillion package is a defeat for the Biden and the Progressives agenda. Oh, they will call it a great victory, but losing more than half of his proposal – and some of the core programs – is more of a defeat than a victory. But it still gives Biden too much.
So, there ‘tis.
Both Manchin and Sinema seem to be holding out for their wealthiest contributors – Manchin wants nothing in the bill to do with global warming or any kind of energy efficiency bills. He’s from coal country, even if it’s a dying industry, harms or kills most of its employees, and there are clean energy alternatives that are already contributing more to his state. It’s in his DNA, and lining his pockets, and he’s not going to change.
Sinema, on the other hand, ran as a progressive. Now that she’s in office, she’s taking the position that anything that taxes the rich is the worst possible outcome. I don’t know what to think about her – either she got a huge payoff (or maybe the promise of a future lush job-for-life) to represent the rich in Congress, or she was already a Republican in sheeps clothing lying and misrepresenting herself just to win an election.
In truth, no candidate represents all constituents, no matter how much they try. They present their positions to the people, and whatever is closest to what most people want is what is chosen. Some candidates try to lie or even hide their obfuscate their positions to gain a little more of the vote share. Or they object to good legislation to make it look to the voters they disagree with like they’re with them.
In the end, I think Manchin will cave. He’ll get some of the energy stuff removed from the bill, and the country will suffer for it. Since Sinema won’t actually say what she thinks except she’s protecting rich people, I think she will cave too. The bill is still going to pass in some form, and it’s still going to tax the wealthy in some form.
I also believe that both Manchin and Sinema will pay the next time they’re up for re-electlion. No matter what they do, neither is going to get Republican support, and Democrats hate them. They’ll get killed off in primaries, and I think that Democrats can still win those seats back.
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