
<p>West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin has two problems with President Biden’s $3.5 trillion dollar Reconciliation Bill. ; First is the total cost &#8212; and secondly the provisions in the Bill he will not support.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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. ; ;</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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. ; ;</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>So, there ‘tis.</p>