Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) sudden reversals against various policies in the reconciliation bill often come as unhappy surprises to his fellow Democrats.
He is reprehensible. EVERY SINGLE TIME they come to a tentative agreement he is ‘against’ something. Do people in W. Virginia WORK??? Do they NEED child care? WTF is wrong with him?
It’s time for the WH to IGNORE Manchin. Giving him attention just encourages his increasingly trollish behavior. If Manchin wants to hurt Biden, there’s not much to be done, except to make sure all sweeteners for WV go to other states. Seriously. He is a troll, almost as loathsome as Moscow Mitch.
….except of course the entitlements he and his silver spoon buddies and political donors always had……
It’s almost like Manchin has been operating in bad faith this whole time…
We must not forget that Manchin is deeply involved in the Voting Rights Bill.
We must not forget that a Republican Manchin would give us McConnell as Senate Majority Leader.
This is a trying time
Who is to blame? Manchin, of course, for being a jerk about this…but we allowed it by failing to take the ME and NC seats last November which were ours for the taking..
The reprieve in the form of Warnock and Ossoff got us the ARP. Voted into Law by Manchin and Sinema, by the way.
And now they want to be difficult. We are going to have to dial down the indignation and use anger selectively and not let anger use us…
It is more expensive to means test and verify work requirements than not to do it at all and just pay them. He has to know this. Why the fuck is he allowed to dictate to everyone else. It is well past time to play some serious hard ball with him. Also that he keeps leaking shit to the press is despicable.
Also, 60,000 in WV is not the same as in CA, or NY, or GA
Dang… I guess Castor Troy finally got through to Manchin.
/s
The Press wants conflict and Joe is givin’ it to 'em.
OT
That isn’t going to happen. Manchin is bluffing on a lot of this.
You and I know it and many refuse to contemplate this. There is something about the attraction of men to pessimism…Makes them more authoritative-seeming.
You never win telling people what they cant have. That’s why Manchin has to have an end game here somewhere. Sinema is just stupid, and loves spending time looking at herself in the mirror.
The issue isn’t that Manchin is asking for cuts (we all knew he would demand his pound of flesh and progressives/Biden are willing to negotiate).
The issue is that Manchin has never been clear and honest about his intentions. Case-in-point is the demand letter between himself and Schumer that he kept secret for months. He could have made his demands public back in July and not have his Senate colleagues waste months on items he was never going to support.
I hope his Senate colleagues remember how much Manchin disrespected them and they give him the cold shoulder the minute he is no longer useful.
Right now, Manchin could say that he wants 50% of what’s in the Reconciliation Bill and he would be 50% better than McConnell’s ZERO.
Besides…Biden at any time can pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which the Senate already passed.
I will be the first to say to anyone complaining about Manchin that it’s better to have him in the role he’s playing now with the Democratic Senate we have than have McConnell as Majority Leader. On the other hand, as far as I can see, if Manchin keeps it up we will certainly have a Republican Senate anyway after the next election.
I agree, but the issue is that he’s never been clear what he wants. There is the $1.5 trillion top line (which was finally made public after months), but he hasn’t stated clearly what he wants in the details.
If he had made his intentions clear back in July, Democrats could have spent the summer crafting a reconciliation bill to his liking. Instead, they wasted months on a $3.5 trillion bill he was never going to support and are now scrambling to figure out how to make the remainder something acceptable to him.
Hey, it’s the “Joe Manchin Job Creation Program”, think how many people will have to be hired to carry out all that means testing!
There is something seriously wrong with this man. Wonder how his voters in WVA feel about him nixing the climate change provisions? They probably think it’s all the fault of “godless liberals” anyhow, but jeez. I really think he’s just pulling this crap because he can; showing the world just what an “independent thinker” he is. He’s a gutless coward.
They probably don’t care. Not enough people do.