To paraphrase Henry II of England, “Will no one rid us of this meddlesome hillbilly?” (and no, I am not suggesting to Thomas Beckett his sorry ass).
My frustration has just reached the breaking point with this ignorant hillbilly. 330 million Americans should not be held hostage to the whims of one prima donna Democratic diva megalomaniac.
And yes, there are 50 Sedition Party Senators, any one of whom if they cared about American families and loved their country could render this ignorant hillbilly ‘Mr. Irrelevant,” but not one of them does care about American families or loves their country. If you object to this observation, I say “Oh yeah? Prove it!” All we have seen since January 6 is a bunch of craven coward traitors in thrall to another megalomaniac wannabe dictator.
So yesterday the prima donna Democratic diva Sen. Joe Manchin went to the White House to essentially tell the man that Americans actually elected President of the United States that “I am the decider-in-chief, and I will decide whether or not Americans are allowed to have nice things.”
The Washington Post reports, Manchin, Biden discuss ‘different iterations’ of spending bill as Democrats seek consensus:
President Biden’s economic agenda remained in political limbo on Monday, as Senate Democrats returned to Washington and set about confronting their simmering differences ahead of a self-imposed holiday deadline.
With less than two weeks until Christmas — the date by which Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said he hopes to adopt the roughly $2 trillion bill — Democratic lawmakers still appeared at odds over the scope of their ambitions to overhaul the nation’s health care, education, climate, immigration and tax laws.
The chief obstacle remains Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W-VA), a pivotal moderate swing vote obstructionist appeaser who has only intensified his criticisms of the package in recent days. Manchin has repeatedly refused to endorse the measure, known as the Build Back Better Act, and on Monday he reaffirmed his calls for Democrats to slow down their work, particularly in response to his concerns around inflation.
Jesus Christ! This ignorant hillbilly doesn’t know a goddamn thing about economics or inflation. Why is anyone, particularly the feckless corporate media who fawn over this man, listening to anything that Manchin has to say, as if this fool has any clue of what he is talking about? This is why he always speaks in incoherent word salads.
Economics professor Paul Krugman today explains it to Manchin in The Bogus Bashing of Build Back Better, but this ignorant hillbilly prefers to listen to fellow Southern crackers like Lyin’ Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is playing him for the fool that he apparently is. Damnit West Virginia, are you not embarrassed and ashamed by the actions of your megalomaniac senator?
In a sign that the tense debate has entered a more serious phase, Manchin spoke directly with Biden on Monday evening to discuss the path forward. Exiting the conversation, the senator told reporters the two talked about “different iterations” of the bill, though Manchin declined to share specifics. [Because he has none. He is acting in bad faith.] “Anything’s possible here,” Manchin said about the prospects of a vote before Christmas. Asked if he intends to continue negotiating with the White House, he replied, “I’m engaged, we’re engaged.”
This is meaningless bullshit, and yet the feckless media hangs on his every word. This is not a serious man.
The meeting marked Biden’s latest attempt to engage Capitol Hill directly and save the final component of his economic agenda from further disputes and delays. The task has become all the more critical in the Senate, since Democrats in the narrowly divided chamber simply cannot adopt their roughly $2 trillion measure without Manchin’s supportive vote.
“The president looks forward to speaking directly with Senator Manchin about and making the case for why the president feels this legislation should move forward,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday before the call. Psaki added that the package itself could help combat inflation, responding to one of Manchin’s concerns.
In the meantime, Senate Democrats forged ahead with the intricate process known as reconciliation, which will allow the party and its razor-thin majority to band together and adopt the bill despite overwhelming opposition from Republicans.
Democrats over the weekend released another round of legislative text and official budgetary modeling, further refining the bill that party lawmakers adopted in the House last month. On Saturday, they debuted a new version of the proposal that helps pay for the roughly $2 trillion spending measure, a series of financing mechanisms that target millionaires and corporations that pay nothing in taxes.
But the text, released by the Senate Finance Committee, also highlighted the considerable work lawmakers must still do if they hope to bring the bill to the floor before the holiday. One of the most contentious issues — state and local tax (SALT) relief targeting Americans in higher-cost communities — still has not been resolved. Democrats essentially left the section blank, as they continue to war over the future of that reduction, which some liberals see as too generous for the wealthy.
As they prepare to release more legislative text this week, Democrats also must work out the finer points of their proposal with the Senate parliamentarian. The reconciliation process carries strict rules in the Senate, requiring lawmakers to ensure every element of their plan has direct effects on the federal budget. If it does not, Republicans then can try to strike entire sections from the bill once it reaches the Senate floor.
Enough about the Senate parliamentarian! She is an unelected employee of the Senate. She only issues an opinion which the Senate can ignore by a simple majority vote. The Republicans did it when they were in control of the Senate, (they even fired the Senate parliamentarian in 2001 to get the Bush tax cuts they wanted), so why are Democrats so skittish about doing the same, if necessary? Because Republicans will cry foul? Oh, please. Fuck their feelings after what they did on January 6.
In the days ahead, the two parties are set to battle it out in another round of private meetings in front of the Senate’s chief rule-keeper. The process already has imperiled some of Democrats’ initial policy ambitions, including their hopes to proffer reforms to the country’s immigration laws as part of the social spending bill.
As I said, the parliamentarian only issues an opinion which the Senate can ignore by a simple majority vote. Grow a pair, for chrissakes!
“This remains a laborious process, requiring a lot of precision and a lot of pieces moving together,” Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor, opening debate for the week. “The work is not yet finished, but we’re working hard to put the Senate in a position to get the legislation across the finish line before Christmas.”
Enough with Mr. Congeniality, Chuck. Where is that New York tough guy shtick you New Yorkers are always bragging about? Give me New Jersey over New York any day.
Manchin, however, represents Democrats’ greatest political challenge. The moderate obstructionist appeaser lawmaker has repeatedly said he cannot wager a view on the bill until he sees its final text – this is total bullshit and is a dilatory tactic – frustrating many in his party, who say they have [already] whittled down their package considerably to win Manchin’s support.
In a series of interviews last week, the moderate obstructionist appeaser lawmaker raised concerns the package still may be too large, it might not be paid for full, it might intensify inflation and it could inflict other harm on the economy. He repeated his calls for a political pause, echoing views he first communicated in September. [Delay is always the enemy of legislation. This has gone on for 11 months, too damn long already.]
Manchin also has raised alarms about the way Democrats formulated the package. Party lawmakers essentially staggered or cut short some of their spending proposals [to accommodate his demands], as they angled to keep down the total costs of the roughly $2 trillion package. The senator has sounded opposition to the idea, arguing that it masks the full costs of the bill since Democrats have made clear their desire to make many of its elements permanent in later years.
By a future Congress, one that hopefully does not include your ignorant ass. It is not in this bill. So now we are all supposed to “Time Travel with Joe Manchin” to the land of make believe?
Republicans last week sought to capitalize on that source of angst, releasing a FAKE economic analysis showing the roughly $2 trillion proposal — if its components are extended — could add $3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. Democrats sharply rejected the estimate as a misinformed hypothetical that did not take into account their plans to pay for any future spending. But the lead Republican instigator, Sen. Lyin’ Lindsay Graham (S.C.), said he had raised the numbers directly with Manchin, and that the Democrat seemed “stunned” in response.
Asked about the conversation earlier Monday, Manchin told reporters the spending “should be 10 years,” adding that the data furnished by Graham was “very sobering.”
Jesus Christ! I want to get this guy in a poker game. I will take his every last dime, and everything he owns. What a gullible goober.
I will reiterate what I said back in October, The Mendacity of Joe Manchin – Enough Already! (excerpt):
[O]ur government no longer works in regular order. The Senate has been entirely dysfunctional in the “McConnell Era” of Senate Republican leadership. McConnell developed the policy of “total obstruction,” i.e., sabotaging Democratic administrations as a political means to power. The “Grim Reaper of Democracy” is incapable of good faith, and he does not believe in honest negotiation.
And now we have the added problem of Senator Joe Manchin. His “aw shucks, I’m just a country bumpkin” demeanor has made this prima donna diva a favorite of the political press corps, who give him way too much credit and way too much air time.
This diva has decided that he is the “decider-in-chief” for the whole country, a position that literally no one, not even West Virginians, elected him to. This is an abuse of power.
Joe Manchin is willing to tank President Biden’s agenda, and the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party, out of his “I’m the decider-in-chief” delusions of grandeur. The resulting damage would be to empower the authoritarian fascist white Christian nationalist personality cult of Donald Trump, and to end American Democracy as we know it. This is what is at stake.
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Politico reports “‘Going very poorly’: Biden can’t nail Manchin down on Dems’ bill”, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/15/biden-manchin-megabill-524776
The Hill similarly reports, “Democratic talks with Manchin show signs of melting down”, https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/586003-democratic-talks-with-manchin-show-signs-of-melting-down
Greg Sargent explains, “Manchin’s effort to kill the expanded child tax credit is getting more absurd”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/15/joe-manchin-child-tax-credit-absurd/
The fate of the Build Back Better bill suddenly looks very precarious, now that Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) has offered up new objections to it. But this time, the arguments coming from the West Virginia Democrat’s camp are so dubious that you have to ask whether he’s actually trying to kill BBB by slow-walking it to death. [YES HE IS, as I have warned all along. He is negotiating in bad faith.]
Manchin’s latest objections center on the expanded child tax credit (CTC). This policy has been sending checks of up to $300 to most American families, phasing it down at higher incomes, after the covid-19 rescue package expanded the original version.
The expanded CTC is set to expire at the end of this year, and the BBB would extend the expanded CTC for another year, through 2022. In its current form it has already slashed child poverty and would continue doing so if extended.
Manchin’s objection now, as The Post reports, is to this fact — that the expanded CTC sunsets after one year. His opposition isn’t to the CTC specifically. It’s that Manchin sees the sunsetting of the CTC — and the other BBB policies, which also sunset at various times to keep BBB’s cost down — as “artificial budget gimmickry.”
Instead, Manchin reportedly believes, we should presume the programs will last 10 years, in keeping with the bill’s time window as part of the Senate reconciliation process. Once we do that, Manchin fears, with the expanded CTC the cost of BBB would balloon far beyond his $1.75 trillion limit.
Note: Yeah, this would have been the original $3.5 trillion dollar bill proposed for 10 years that Manchin has whittled down closer to his $1.5 trillion dollar red line, but he will still vote against any bill in any amount. He is a saboteur and bad faith broker. The media needs to treat this prima donna diva as the megalomaniac villain that he is. Whose bidding is Manchin doing by sabotaging the Democratic agenda, and why?
Manchin seems to object both to the total 10-year cost, and to the fact that this assumed 10 year extension isn’t offset with future pay-fors, such as new tax hikes [which he opposes]. And thus BBB is in peril.
It’s true, as Manchin says, that sunsetting programs to keep costs down is gimmicky. It’s also true that it’s possible political pressure will be such that those programs do end up getting extended.
But ultimately, this is an absurd rationale for withholding support for BBB.
First, let’s revisit why the expanded CTC sunsets after one year. It isn’t just to bring the overall cost down. The sunsetting is also happening because of … Joe Manchin III.
Back in October, Manchin was objecting to the expanded CTC on the apparent grounds that it constituted a too-generous welfare program. As you’ll recall, Manchin wanted to means-test the expanded CTC and pair it with a work requirement. That would have functionally gutted what’s so good about the policy, as some Democrats pointedly noted.
At that point, many Democrats also wanted to extend the expanded CTC for far longer than one year or even make it permanent. But as CNN reported at the time, Biden agreed that it would be extended only one year for the purpose of satisfying Manchin’s concerns about BBB’s cost (as well as those of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona).
So the limiting of it to one year was done to make Manchin happy. And it seemed at the time that this had satisfied Manchin’s concerns. Now it’s the source of another one of his objections.
Here’s something else worth considering. If Manchin doesn’t want the expanded CTC extended beyond one year (with or without any new pay-fors), guess who can stop that from happening? Joe Manchin III can.
Future congresses will decide whether these programs are extended. Which means Manchin will be able to vote against extending the expanded CTC at the end of next year. In a 50-50 senate, even if the program is extended right now, he can stop it from getting extended again.
“Manchin would retain his ability to kill efforts to extend it, if it’s not paid for to his satisfaction,” Brookings Institution scholar Thomas Mann told me. “Therefore he has no excuse for not supporting the one-year extension. If he doesn’t want it to go beyond one year, he’ll be in a position to keep that from happening.”
So Manchin’s various rationales just don’t add up. Unless his bottom line is that he just doesn’t want to extend the policy no matter what — or even worse wants to kill all of BBB — and is just looking for an excuse to do so.
The “Senate Passes $768 Billion Defense Bill, Sending It to Biden”, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/us/politics/defense-spending-bill.html
“Lawmakers in both parties linked arms in an overwhelming vote authorizing an increase in the Pentagon’s budget of roughly $24 billion more than President Biden requested.”
Both Sens. Sinema and Manchin voted for the bill.
Not one word of concern about the expense (or lack of transparent accounting from the Pentagon) from the former Green Party anti-war activist Kyrsten Sinema, or hillbilly coal baron Joe Manchin.
There is an open checkbook for the military-industrial-congresssional complex that President Eisenhower warned about, but these two want to deny a pittance to American families and America’s children, or to make corporations and the wealthiest 1% pay a little bit more in taxes.
They are morally bankrupt.