The Elitist Wealthy Coal Baron Joe Manchin Tells Us How He Really Feels About His West Virginia Constituents

Wealthy hillbilly coal Baron Sen. Joe Manchin is an elitist who does not think much of the Appalachian “poors” who comprise the majority of his constituents in West Virginia, the second-poorest U.S. state after Mississippi.

NBC News confirms, Manchin privately raised concerns that parents would use child tax credit checks on drugs:

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., had privately raised concerns in recent months that parents would use their child tax credit payments — a key part of the Build Back Better legislation — to buy drugs, three sources familiar with the comments said.

Manchin relayed the concerns in private conversations with his fellow Democratic senators, the sources said.

Manchin also raised private concerns with congressional colleagues that Americans, specifically West Virginians, would abuse paid leave time and use it to go hunting during deer season, two sources familiar with his comments said.

HuffPost was first to report on Manchin’s remarks.

“Senator Manchin has made clear he supports the child tax credit and believes the money should be targeted to those who need it most,” [means tested] a spokeswoman said Monday. “He has also expressed support for a paid leave program that has a dedicated, sustainable funding mechanism.” [But he is against raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy – you know, HIM – to help pay for it].

The American Rescue Plan, which was enacted in March, expanded the child tax credit by $3,000 from $2,000, with a $600 bonus for children under age 6, for the 2021 tax year. The first half was delivered from July to December in monthly payments of $300 for children younger than 6 and $250 for those ages 6 to 17. The second half will be delivered when families file their 2021 tax returns next year.

The administration has delivered nearly $93 billion to families since the first payments were distributed in July, according to the Treasury Department. When the administration sent out the final checks of 2021 last week, they were distributed to the families of about 61 million eligible children as part of the sixth monthly payment.

Studies have found that the expanded tax credits have lifted millions of children out of poverty and that parents have used the checks for essential items. The Treasury Department, for example, said data show that parents have spent the money on purchases like food, clothes and school-related expenses.

Like I keep telling you, Joe Manchin doesn’t know squat about economics. He just spews incoherent nonsense to a feckless news media that treats him as if is some kind of hillbilly sage on economics.

Jennifer Rubin writes, Manchin to kids in poverty: Let them eat cake (excerpt):

[M]anchin’s home state of West Virginia is among the poorest states in the country.

The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy reports: “Congress temporarily increased the Child Tax Credit (CTC) for more than 65 million children nationally, including 346,000 in West Virginia where it reaches 93 percent of children.” Reducing or eliminating it would amount to driving “50,000 of the lowest income children in the state below the poverty line or deeper into poverty.” (Manchin’s state ranks 47th in food security.)

Nevertheless, The Post reports: “Sen. Joe Manchin III last week made the White House a concrete counteroffer for its spending bill, saying he would accept a $1.8 trillion package that included universal prekindergarten for 10 years, an expansion of Obamacare and hundreds of billions of dollars to combat climate change. . . . But the West Virginia Democrat’s counteroffer excluded an extension of the expanded child tax credit the administration has seen as a cornerstone of President Biden’s economic legacy.”

Manchin was also apparently afraid that poor parents would use the money for illegal drugs, and HuffPost reported that “Manchin has also told colleagues he believes that Americans would fraudulently use the proposed paid sick leave policy, specifically saying people would feign being sick and go on hunting trips.” It’s rare for a politician to express such contempt for his own constituents, let alone poor children.

Au contraire, Ms. Rubin. Ronald Reagan built his political career out of demonizing the “poors” with his anecdotes about a welfare queen (by Josh Levin, author of The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth).

In fact, the Census Bureau reported in October that “Three in 10 families that received monthly Advance Child Tax Credit (CTC) payments spent them on kids’ school expenses, and 1 in 4 families with young children used them to cover child care costs, according to new results from the U.S. Census Bureau’s experimental Household Pulse Survey.” In addition, about 40 percent used the money to pay off debt. “The share of respondents that reported ‘mostly spending’ them increased from 27% to 33% during that period, in line with prior research that found that the CTC decreased household economic hardships, and that households with children were hardest hit during the pandemic.”

The poorer the family, the greater chance the CTC will be spent on necessities. As Bloomberg reported, “Another report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found 91% of households making less than $35,000 per year used the money to pay for food, shelter, clothing and other necessities. Black and Hispanic families were more likely to use their credits on education-related costs, such as school supplies.”

Manchin might care more about his business donors and richer constituents than he does poor children. But even for those interests, the demise of the child tax credit would be painful. Economist Mark Zandi tweeted:

Without BBB, the economic recovery will be vulnerable to stalling out if we suffer another serious wave of the pandemic; an increasingly likely scenario with Omicron spreading rapidly. Detractors of BBB worry about inflation, but without it, the worry is more likely to be growth.

— Mark Zandi (@Markzandi) December 20, 2021

Call it the Manchin economic slump.

Will any of this matter to Manchin? It remains to be seen what, if anything, he would support — or whether Democrats could take him at his word if he made his preferences clear. Meanwhile, the senator’s take on poor children and their struggling parents is appalling — even more appalling than misleading his colleagues and the White House about his support for the bill.