Americans Did Not Elect This Fool ‘Decider-in-Chief’

No one imagined that when they elected Joe Biden President, Kamala Harris Vice President, flipped the Senate to Democrats and retained the House for Democrats that they were electing this fool, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), to be the “Decider-in-Chief” over the Democratic agenda and legislation in Congress.

Manchin recently told West Virginia’s News:

“I’ve watched people who have obtained power and abused it. I’ve watched people who have searched for power and hungered for power that totally destroyed themselves trying to seek it,” he said. “Then I’ve watched people who are in a position to make a difference and use it in the most positive way. I hope that I have that opportunity.”

Totally lacking in self-awareness, Manchin is abusing the power he has as a necessary vote to pass the Democratic agenda and legislation in Congress. And for what? His slavish devotion to anti-democratic Senate procedural rules:

“I’m just committed to making sure that we protect the filibuster — [and] the Byrd rule — which keeps them in their lane,” Manchin said. “Basically, it has to be along budget lines. It can’t be anything out of the blue. It can’t be a whole slew of things that are aspirational, that people have pent-up desires to do.”

Manchin said “he believes the U.S. Senate will soon pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package through the budget reconciliation process,” but not before he is done reducing aid to Americans who desperately need financial help in this COVID-19 pandemic induced recession.

Jake Johnson reports, “Bad policy and bad politics”: Joe Manchin hit for trying to cut unemployment benefits, limit checks:

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and other conservative members of the Senate Democratic caucus are reportedly pressing for changes to the emerging coronavirus relief legislation that would cut the bill’s proposed weekly unemployment supplement and further restrict eligibility for $1,400 direct payments.

The $1.9 trillion relief measure approved by the House of Representatives late last week proposes extending emergency unemployment insurance (UI) programs through the end of August with a weekly federal supplement of $400, up from the current $300-per-week boost that is set to begin expiring on March 14.

But as Roll Call reported late Monday after conservative Democrats [the only other senator identified is  Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.], met virtually with President Joe Biden to discuss the relief package, Manchin “said he’d prefer to see a $300 benefit in response to criticism that some laid-off workers could end up making more money on unemployment than they would on the job” — a right-wing talking point that Republicans have deployed in their efforts to slash UI benefits.

“We’re just looking for a targeted bill,” said Manchin, whose support Democrats need to pass the so-called American Rescue Plan (ARP) without any Republican votes.

According to the Washington Post, Manchin and other conservative Democrats [who?] also pitched “tightening income eligibility for the $1,400 stimulus payments,” a demand that House Democrats rejected in their legislation.

The House-passed relief bill calls for sending full $1,400 payments to individuals earning up to $75,000 per year and married couples earning up to $150,000 per year, with the payments gradually phasing out thereafter — an eligibility structure that resembles the one used for the previous two rounds of checks.

Despite warnings that doing so would be politically “suicidal,” Biden has previously said he would be open to lowering the income cutoff for the direct payments.

Noting that progressive lawmakers are already furious over Senate Democrats’ plans to move forward with a relief bill that excludes a minimum wage increase — pointing to the parliamentarian’s advisory ruling against the provision — economist Arindrajit Dube cautioned that slashing UI benefits or imposing additional restrictions on eligibility for direct relief payments would “cause a full blown revolt from progressives.”

Note: Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) plans to introduce the $15 minimum wage as an amendment to the COVID-19 relief bill, forcing his Senate colleagues to go on the record as to where they stand. “Ignore the Parliamentarian”: Bernie Sanders is forcing a vote on the $15 minimum wage: Sen. Bernie Sanders late Monday announced he will force a vote this week on an amendment to include a $15 minimum wage provision in the pending $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

“I am not sure, however, that my view at this point is the majority view in the Democratic caucus,” the Vermont senator added, alluding to opposition from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

Roll Call reported late Monday that “the Senate’s parliamentarian said funding to shore up failing union pension plans and to subsidize health insurance for jobless workers do not violate the “Byrd rule,” which limits what can be considered under budget reconciliation procedures, according to Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore.” But somehow she finds raising the minimum wage doesn’t qualify? She is clearly wrong.

House Democrats, who did not have to contend with the Senate’s so-called Byrd Ruleincluded a provision to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 in their relief bill.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, warned late Monday that “further ‘targeting’ or ‘tightening’ eligibility means taking survival checks away from millions of families who got them last time.”

“That’s bad policy and bad politics too,” Jayapal tweeted.

Despite this internal Democratic conflict, Senate Majority Leader says he will have the Democratic votes to pass the COVID-19 Relief bill, as amended by the Senate (without any anticipated Republican votes). Senate to move forward on $1.9 trillion virus relief bill; Schumer says ‘we’ll have the votes’:

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Senate will move forward as soon as Wednesday on President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill and pledged, “We’ll have the votes we need to pass the bill.”

Schumer’s comments at a news conference Tuesday came even as moderate Senate Democrats maneuvered to limit some of the expenditures in the bill, over objections from liberals who insisted they’d already made concessions on Biden’s first major legislative proposal.

The president urged Senate Democrats during a lunchtime call Tuesday to stay united behind the bill, arguing that it’s broadly popular with the public and controversial only on Capitol Hill, according to two Democrats who spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount the private comments.
“He got on and kind of gave us a rally call,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.).

Meanwhile, the “Grim Reaper” of the Senate graveyard where legislation goes to die, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), invoking his policy of “total obstruction” said he hoped that “in the end Senate Republicans will unanimously oppose it, just like House Republicans did” when the legislation passed the House on Saturday with no GOP support.

This GOP evil bastard whined “We think this package should have been negotiated on a bipartisan basis. … Instead, the new administration made a conscious decision to jam us.”

You can’t have a “bipartisan” bill when Republicans are negotiating in bad faith and have no intentions of ever voting for this relief bill, even if Democrats were to agree to their extortion demands. It is part of their 2022 election strategy.

As Perry Bacon Jr. explains at FiveThirtyEight, Why Republicans Don’t Fear An Electoral Backlash For Opposing Really Popular Parts Of Biden’s Agenda (the American people have not held them accountable for almost 30 years):

There are several reasons to think that opposing popular policies won’t hurt Republicans electorally, and conversely, that implementing a popular agenda won’t necessarily boost Biden that much.

The first reason that congressional Republicans can afford to oppose popular ideas is one that you have probably read a lot about over the last several years: The GOP has several big structural advantages in America’s electoral system. Because of the Electoral College, Trump would have won the presidency with around 257,000 more votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, even though he lost nationally by more than 7 million votes. The Senate gives equal weight to sparsely populated states like Wyoming and huge ones like California, so the chamber’s 50 Democratic senators effectively represent about 185 million Americans, while its 50 Republican senators represent about 143 million, as Vox’s Ian Millhiser recently calculated. Gerrymandering by Republicans, as well as the weakness of Democrats in rural areas, makes it harder for Democrats to win and keep control of the House even when most voters back Democratic House candidates. That’s what happened in 2020.

Put all that together, and congressional Republicans are somewhat insulated from the public will. In turn, the advantage for Biden and congressional Democrats of being closer to the public’s opinions is blunted.

Second, electoral politics and policy are increasingly disconnected. More and more Americans vote along party lines and are unlikely to break from their side no matter what it does. Some scholars argue that voters’ attachments to the parties are not that closely linked to the parties’ policy platforms but rather more akin to loyalty to a team or brand. And partisanship and voting are increasingly linked to racial attitudes, as opposed to policy. So GOP-leaning voters may support some Democratic policies but still vote for Republican politicians who oppose those policies.

Third, the last several midterm elections have all been defined by backlashes against the incumbent president. You could argue that there’s nothing inevitable about this, and that former President George W. Bush (Social Security reform, Iraq War), Obama (Obamacare in 2010 and its flawed rollout in 2014) and Trump (Obamacare repeal) all did or proposed controversial things that irritated voters. Maybe if Biden sticks to popular stuff he’ll buck the trend. But it could instead be the case that voters from the president’s party tend to be kind of fat and happy in midterms, while the opposition is inspired to turn out. So even if Biden does popular things, GOP voters could be more motivated to vote in November 2022.

Fourth, voters may like a president’s policies in the abstract but still think he isn’t doing a good job or that his policies aren’t that effective if those policies aren’t bipartisan. Think of this as the Mitch McConnell theory. [See his whiny comment, above.]

[T]he opposition party to create the perception of division simply by voting against the president’s agenda. [And the lamestream media will readily play along.]

Put another way: The opposition party can guarantee a lack of bipartisan support — and then criticize the president for lacking bipartisan support.

Maybe history won’t repeat itself. But being the “Party of No” in the Obama years resulted in the GOP winning the House, the Senate and then the presidency from 2010 to 2016. It is totally logical that a party still led by key figures from the Obama era (McConnell and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy) would think total opposition to a Democratic president would work again.

There is only one governing political party in American, the Democratic Party. The Republican Sedition Party has abandoned governing. They are the post-truth, post-policy party that only engages in Soviet-style propaganda and conspiracies to gain power and to abuse power – GQP authoritarianism – once they have it.




5 thoughts on “Americans Did Not Elect This Fool ‘Decider-in-Chief’”

  1. I agree with your overall message regarding the political partisanship and how it has affected voters. I believe that’s been reinforced by the broadcast media that various groups follow and Mitch is a total jerk and liar (eg,, comments after impeachment but voting against impeachment and saying he would support Trump if he was nominee in 2024).

    As far as Manchin is concerned, I think his moderate views should be listened to. A certain portion of the country (not talking about 1%) were not affected economically by the pandemic. Many people were able to work at home and even put away money because there were fewer expenses. Those people may not need the direct payments and why should it be a one-size-fits-all plan?

    We shouldn’t waste money just because interest rates are low. That money needs to be put paid back at some time and interest rates are actually rising right now (10-year and 30-year bonds are up nearly 1/2 pt in last few weeks). Every percentage point increase is an extra $600 billion of interest that comes out of the federal budget.

    As for the minimum wage, it will come up again in the near term, either as a stand-alone bill or attached to a must-pass budget item. The latter is how the last minimum wage increase was passed. But justifying a minimum wage increase while unemployment is high is a harder hurdle to overcome because many of the workers laid off are in the minimum wage category. Frankly, however, i doubt many employers are paying minimum wage as it would be hard to attract workers and the larger retailers and restaurants are paying at least $11 an hour to start.

    i know that progressives are upset that some of their policies aren’t being pushed by Biden, but as Mick Jagger said, “You can’t always get what you want.” Biden attracted a number of Republican voters in Arizona and Georgia by saying he was a moderate and wanted to work across the aisle. He only won those states by 10,000 and 12,000 votes, respectively. If you turn on Manchin, he could easily switch parties and be in the majority. I don’t think he will now, but he comes from a conservative state that Trump won by 40 points. Cut him some slack and listen to his ideas. He’ll accept that he won’t win on all of them, but he deserves the respect to have a say in the process.

  2. Republicans, those who do not deny the existence of COVID-19, will criticize President Biden’s response to ramping up vaccine availability and distribution, but will vote against the funding to make it possible.

    Republicans, who laughingly refer to themselves as the party of the working class, will vote against providing working Americans with a COVID -19 relief check, extended unemployment benefits and a pandemic boost in benefits, and against funding for small businesses loans through the Paycheck Protection Program.

    Republicans, who are whining about schools not being open, will vote against providing the funding schools need to reopen safely for teachers, staff, and students.

    Republicans, who claim to be pro-family, will vote against increasing the Child Tax Credit and increasing the amount available to families in the SNAP program so that children who are going hungry can eat.

    They are a fraud. Don’t be fooled.

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