The “Joe Manchin Show” was on full display on Sunday as he did the “full Ginsburg,” appearing on all five Sunday talk shows for interviews days after he and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) shocked all with the deal heard ‘round the Hill. He did so in support of the $670 billion climate, health care and tax package, hailing it as an inflation-fighting tool.
Note: The Penn Wharton Budget model finds the budget reconciliation package being considered by Senate Democrats “would reduce non-interest cumulative deficits by $248 billion” and “the impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero.”
UPDATE: What? The Republicans lied? Analysis Deems Biden’s Climate and Tax Bill Fiscally Responsible: Despite Republican claims, the new legislation would be only a modest corporate tax increase, Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation found.
The Hill’s Morning Report — Can Dems pass Manchin-Schumer bill this week?
“How in the world can it be inflammatory [He means inflationary]?” Manchin told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “How can it add flames to the inflation fires right now if you’re paying down debt, you’re increasing more production from fossil industry in energy, and we’re doing it cleaner [than] anywhere in the world?”
“This is not a green deal. It’s not a Republican deal. It’s not a Democrat deal. It is a red, white and blue deal. And this is what the American people want, solutions and a balanced energy approach,” Manchin continued.
▪ The Hill: Manchin defends climate, tax deal with Schumer in multishow blitz.
▪ CNN: Manchin says Republicans in “normal times” would be supporting energy, health care bill.
The centrist Democrat noted that the blueprint would invest in reliable energy and new technologies, focusing on domestic production to “aggressively produce” in the U.S. and lower costs for Americans. However, “But to all of this, they’re not factoring any of that in,” he claimed (The Hill).
As for the tax increases included in the bill — a new 15 percent minimum tax on large profitable corporations — Manchin claimed that they actually aren’t tax hikes. Instead he defended them as closing loopholes (The Wall Street Journal).
However, the tax hike issue could be a problem for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. The Arizona Democrat has made it known over the past year that she opposes an item in the legislation that would pare back the carried-interest loophole. [“Silent Sinema”] has declined to weigh in on the bill since it was released.
The bottom line: Sinema is one of the last hopes for Republicans as they hope to derail this bill.
“She has a spine of steel. She’s not going to easily be twisted,” Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), a member of GOP leadership, told Fox News on Sunday. “In terms of, will this pass, they need all 50 Democrats on board and in the room. … They haven’t had 50 senators show up for work in well over a month. So, this is far from done.”
Wow, Barrrasso just outed Sinema as a Vichy Democrat collaborator with the enemies of democracy in the Sedition Party. By blowing her cover Republicans are not even trying to maintain her plausible deniability.
Barrasso was also referring to the effect COVID-19 has had on the chamber in recent weeks as at least a handful of Democrats have tested positive for the virus, including Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), who will miss the opening of this week while in quarantine.
Everything is expected to come to a head this week. Schumer and top Democrats will attempt to shepherd the bill through the upper chamber before senators break for the August recess.
▪ The Hill: Manchin says Sinema is not involved in bill talks because he “didn’t think it would come to fruition.”
In other words, he considers her an obstructionist Vichy Democrat collaborator with the enemies of democracy, a spy who would reveal his negotiations to the Sedition Party. Sinema is not to be trusted.
▪ Politico: Manchin to Sinema: Believe in this bill.
▪ The Hill: This week: Senate Democrats race to finish tax and climate package — if Sinema signs on.
▪ Bloomberg News: Manchin spending deal includes billions in taxes on oil sector.
“Silent Sinema” cannot remain silent for long. Time’s up lady, this bill is moving this week.
Let Kyrsten Sinema know if she votes ‘no’ on Manchin and Schumer’s reconciliation bill, we will defeat her in a primary. She cannot keep playing games with Americans daily lives.
202-224-4521
— Replace Sinema PAC (@ReplaceSinema) July 31, 2022
UPDATE: The Hill reports, Economists say reconciliation bill will lower prices for all Americans:
A group of more than 120 economists is backing the climate, health care and tax package that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) will bring to a vote this week.
The economists said in a letter addressed to Schumer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that the Inflation Reduction Act will reduce prices for American families while making “crucial” investments in energy and health care.
They added that the legislation will quickly and noticeably lower health care costs by allowing Medicare to directly negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies and capping out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2,000. And it will lower health insurance prices for 13 million Americans in expanding the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, they said.
The economists also said in the letter, first reported by CNN, that the investments the legislation would make would be “more than fully paid for” since the revenue to finance them would come from wealthy individuals and corporations.
The bill would raise $739 billion in revenue from a range of provisions, including a 15 percent corporate minimum tax, stronger IRS enforcement of tax law and closing loopholes.
“This proposal addresses some of the country’s biggest challenges at a significant scale,” the letter states. “And because it is deficit-reducing, it does so while putting downward pressure on inflation.”
The package would also make significant investments in climate programs, which Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have said would reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2030, while devoting $300 billion to deficit reduction.
The economists said this would be the biggest step in fighting climate change yet and lower energy costs for families.
The signatories include Robert Rubin, a Treasury secretary under former President Clinton; Jack Lew, a Treasury secretary under former President Obama; and Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, an economic research and consulting organization.
A Moody’s analysis found that the package will “nudge” inflation in the right direction and “meaningfully” address climate change.
Senate Republicans – who know absolutely nothing about economics – have lied that the legislation would worsen inflation and raise taxes across the board.
Lying and fear mongering are all that Republicans know.
UPDATE: Five former Treasury secretaries — including Hank Paulson, who served under President George W. Bush — signed a statement strongly backing the “Inflation Reduction Act” brokered by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). The others who signed on are Robert Rubin and Larry Summers (President Clinton), Tim Geithner and Jacob Lew (President Obama).
“As former Treasury Secretaries of both Democratic and Republican Administrations,” the statement says, “we support the Inflation Reduction Act which is financed by prudent tax policy that will collect more from top-earners and large corporations.
“Taxes due or paid will not increase for any family making less than $400,000/year. And the extra taxes levied on corporations do not reflect increases in the corporate tax rate, but rather the reclaiming of revenue lost to tax avoidance and provisions benefitting the most affluent.
The selective presentation by some of the distributional effects of this bill neglects benefits to middle-class families from reducing deficits, from bringing down prescription drug prices, and from more affordable energy. This legislation will help increase American competitiveness, address our climate crisis, lower costs for families, and fight inflation — and should be passed immediately by Congress.”
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It would be fitting after the Climate Bill is signed into law and a favorable mid-term outcome the White House abruptly withdraws their pipeline support. Which will prompt Manchin to prove he’s nothing but a punk who can dish it out but can’t take it.
White House Agrees to Complete Pipeline to Win Sen. Manchin’s Support for Climate Bill
HEADLINEAUG 02, 2022
Senator Joe Manchin’s office said Monday the conservative West Virginia Democrat has secured a promise from party leaders and the White House to complete a highly contested gas pipeline. In 2020, construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline was halted by a federal court after activists argued its construction violates environmental laws and could pose catastrophic threats to nearly 1,000 streams and wetlands. The deal to complete the pipeline came as Senator Manchin ended months of opposition to President Biden’s legislative agenda and agreed to support a scaled-down bill to combat the climate crisis.
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/8/2/headlines/white_house_agrees_to_complete_pipeline_to_win_sen_manchins_support_for_climate_bill
UPDATE: The Washington Post editorializes, “Don’t sink this bill, Sen. Sinema”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/01/kyrsten-sinema-should-support-inflation-reduction-act/
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) reportedly wasn’t included in talks between Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) as they hammered out the details of the surprise Inflation Reduction Act announced last week. The deal, nonetheless, is largely in line with the preferences she laid out in past negotiations: from its relatively modest reforms to prescription drug pricing to action on climate to the 15 percent corporate minimum tax rate estimated to raise $313 billion. Indeed, that the legislation neglects broader hikes on the highest-income Americans is itself a form of concession. There is, however, a big exception. The closure of the carried interest loophole has been a boogeyman for Ms. Sinema from the beginning. But it is in the bill before her today — and for good reason.
The carried interest loophole is essentially a way for fund managers to make a lot of money and pay the government very little back because the share of the fund’s profits they receive for their work is taxed at a top rate of just under 24 percent — dramatically less than the 37 percent top rate for ordinary income. This giveaway is so valuable that many have it to thank for the bulk of their fortunes. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Blackstone Inc. Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman received somewhere around $150 million in carried interest compensation last year; two other executives at the company received close to $92 million and $77 million. There’s simply no excuse for any lawmaker who purports to care about economic justice or equality to oppose eliminating the carried interest loophole.
Yet all the same, Congress — many of whose members benefit from the donations of the deep-pocketed — could allow this scandal to persist, especially if Ms. Sinema demands it. She shouldn’t. Republicans have been making hay in recent days of an analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, claiming that the reconciliation would raise rates on those earning less than $400,000 per year, contrary to President Biden’s pledges. This is mostly meaningless. The theory that some of the new 15 percent minimum tax on corporations would be passed on to employees and to shareholders doesn’t change the reality that the bulk of the burden would fall on the richest and the bulk of the benefit would redound to those worse off: whether it comes as help affording medicine or health care or as an investment in slowing global warming.
Ms. Sinema shouldn’t sink this bill, most of whose contents she has indicated in the past that she supports. And she shouldn’t sink it because she opposes closing the carried interest loophole. That provision unambiguously aids those who need help most, at the expense only of those who need it not at all.
UPDATE: “Corporate interests flood Arizona begging Sinema to tank Inflation Reduction Act — but ‘she’s feeling pressure to vote yes'”, https://www.rawstory.com/corporate-interests-flood-arizona-begging-sinema-to-tank-inflation-reduction-act-but-she-s-feeling-pressure-to-vote-yes-report/
On Monday, Axios reported that big business interests are scrambling to lobby Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to tank the Inflation Reduction Act — the large health care, climate, and deficit reduction package agreed to between Democratic leadership and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
“The National Association of Manufacturers and the Arizona Chamber have launched a six-figure digital and TV ad buy — compressed into one week — to saturate the Phoenix and Tucson media markets,” reported Hans Nichols. “‘Taxes won’t strengthen supply chains, promote energy security, or fill vacant jobs,’ the narrator says. ‘Say ‘No’ to taxes that would devastate Arizona manufacturers.'”
“If successful, the barrage of paid media and personal phone calls will knock out the main provision that terrifies the business community: a 15% minimum book tax that will cost the biggest 150 U.S. companies some $313 billion over 10 years,” said the report. However, “The clock is ticking to persuade Sinema to play her hand — and potentially force Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) back to the drawing board on how to pay for the $370 billion in new climate spending.”
“She’s feeling the pressure to vote yes on something,” admitted Arizona Chamber of Commerce CEO Danny Seiden. “I hope that she gets this deal opened back up.”
Sinema has previously expressed support for a corporate minimum tax similar to that proposed in the bill. However, she has consistently opposed another tax provision included in the bill, which closes the so-called “carried interest loophole” shielding some investment income from taxation. This provision raises far less money, just $14 billion. However, Manchin has said he is “adamant” about keeping this provision in the bill, likely requiring that the two senators work out a compromise on the matter before the bill can move forward.
I am so conflicted.
On the one hand, I’ve waited and hoped for the two sewer rats, Traitor Joe and Psycho Sinema, to end up in the same barrel and rip each other to shreds.
Manchin has put Sinema in a tough spot. He negotiates a deal with Schumer and excludes his ex-collaborator. Now what does that say? Sinema has to decide if she’s willing to tank the deal for the GOP and suffer the consequences. Or, will she just hold up the vote by demanding changes that benefit her wealthy donors and not her constituents? Tough choice for the old heifer.
It’s nice when alliances of traitors start to break down as they generally do. But the core issue remains. The fate of this deal is apparently going to be the decision of one corrupt Senator. And that’s just wrong.
Sinema is bought and paid for.
Sinema is bought and paid for.
Sinema is bought and paid for.
She may have had momentary alliances with Coal Joe Manchin, but she’s in it for herself.
I wish she’d put the green tutu back on, I’d rather live in a state being made fun of for it’s flamboyance than its corruption.
It was a pink tutu. She probably still has it in her closet. https://twitter.com/NancyHerr4/status/1437903336296968196
Oh, yeah, that’s pink AF. Thanks AZ.
From flamboyant AF to corrupt AF.
I don’t think it was a long drive, not sure she even need to leave the parking lot.
Hopefully, Sinema is about to learn one of life’s hard lessons. That is, there’s no going back.
All that “cuteness” and quirkiness that she peddled in years past to get attention is over. Everyone knows her now, everyone knows what she’s done to the Democrats, to Biden, to the American people. Everyone knows she’s corrupt. Her persona is a national joke.