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Joe Manchin Is Now Poised To Switch Parties
Democrats are melting down Chernobyl-style this weekend after U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., declared an end to negotiations over President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” budget reconciliation bill.
No one should be surprised. The bill was strewn with political paybacks, pork, and budget gimmicks that would have made Jeffrey Epstein blush. A massive tax cut for wealthy homeowners in high-tax states. Tax subsidies for the news media and trial lawyers. Billions for “tree equity” in reliably Democratic urban enclaves. Billions more for electric charging stations installed based on “equity,” likely where residents can’t afford or don’t own electric vehicles. A federal government takeover of prekindergarten child care, coupled with generous child tax credits whether you work or not. Luxurious tax credits for electric vehicles based on whether they were union made. Chevy Bolts and Nissan Leafs would qualify. Nonunion Teslas, not so much. Elon Musk predictably opposed the bill.
And don’t forget hosing down the economy with trillions more dollars, with inflation hitting 40-year highs.
Democrats tried mightily to add a massive immigration amnesty provision that would never pass muster with Senate budget and reconciliation rules.
The real killer, in my opinion, was this: How U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the ranking Republican on the Senate budget committee, asked the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to “score” the bill over 10 years. Why? Because no one expects new entitlement programs to end in three or five years. Name one that has over the past five decades — the cost: over $5 trillion. In reality, it would have been even more. Fortunately, we may never know.
But what interested me was not Manchin’s predictable knife blow to the bill’s prospects nor the Democratic meltdown that ensued. Manchin delivered the blow before a national audience on a GOP-friendly network, Fox News, just a couple of days after Congress adjourned for the year. Coupled with poll numbers in his native West Virginia — a deeply red state — showing strong support for Manchin’s position, Manchin may be preparing to begin the new year as a newly minted Republican. Or at least an independent senator who caucuses with Republicans, as independents Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vermont) and Sen. Angus King (Maine) now caucus with Democrats.
If I were a U.S. senator on the opposing end of his party’s major legislation, I would not go on national television to cut the cord. I might issue a statement. I would certainly make phone calls to the president and certain colleagues on my decision. I would not go on national television and launch a salvo unless I had something else in mind.
Manchin so much as challenged Democrats to drive him out of their party.
Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) on Monday dared Democrats to push him out of the party if they are unhappy with his views, one day after he announced he will not support President Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, effectively killing the bill.
Asked on Hoppy Kercheval’s West Virginia radio show if he believes there is still a place for him in the Democratic party, Manchin replied: “I would like to hope that Democrats feel like I do. I’m fiscally responsible and socially compassionate.”
“Now if there are no Democrats like that, they ought to push me where they want me,” he added.
Predictably, one of CNN’s reliably Democratic analysts, Kirsten Powers, called for him to go. For once, I agree with her. I will enjoy calling Sen. Mitch McConnell “senate majority leader” again while Republicans assume the chairs of every committee. Manchin no doubt would keep his perch atop the energy committee. Bills to federalize and undercut election integrity and “pack” the Supreme Court with up to six new seats would fade. Supporters of the senate’s “filibuster” would rest a little easier.
Manchin may have lit the match with his Fox News venue, waiting to see the response before making that decision. Given the vitriolic responses from even the White House, the stage is now set to move Manchin’s Senate desk to the other side of the chamber. Especially if Manchin, age 74, still has ambitions to seek another term in 2024 or perhaps another run for the governor’s office he once held. Some think he may run for president, but that is unserious.
Amateur hour at the Biden White House, whose response to Joe Manchin is essentially to call him a liar for opposing Build Back Better.
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Nice slogan, but we could probably point to enough outliers to make such a statement provably false. Off the top of my head, 2016-2018 says otherwise. Lowering taxes for the middle class, bringing back manufacturing, making us the world’s top exporter of gas and oil, . . . the economy was booming again . . . and it would have continued except apparently you weren’t happy with us being prosperous. And so now the country is being systematically destroyed by the people you put into power, inflation driving the cost of living too high for us to survive, energy prices soaring, and I could go on and on. And you did your part.
A switch would be great. Things are too precarious right now, the Democrats-in-office too desperate to solve their growing electoral problems through structural transformation (that word they like so much). We need more security than a 50-50 split provides, even with Manchin being a mensch.
What’s amazing is that he’s all alone in public. At best they’re a bunch of spineless cowards, at worst they actually go along with these far left, top down, semi-marxist and marxist, idiots.
I blame the total collapse in our institutions on the data crunchers. Both sides have gotten very, very good at telling their base what they want to hear and overpromising to the Nth degree. And then when it doesn’t happen, the professional pols and campaigners shrug it off. But the voters don’t. And worse than that, the parties keep on promising. And keep on fund raising. And keep on promising. And keep on fund raising. Off the same damn issues, year after year, cycle after cycle.
All this really accomplishes is creating frustration and a sense that the system is broken. Nothing can get done or will get done and therefore any means necessary means any means necessary, including violence. Why doesn’t Biden just call him in on the carpet and give him a good LBJ-style wigging? Because Biden didn’t carry 44 states and have a filibuster-proof 68 seats in the Senate like LBJ did in 1965?
Add to the equation the fact that big money donors are pursuing agendas that cripples the average voter. The Chamber of Commerce Crowd pursues cheap labor strategies like unchecked immigration and manufacturing by totalitarian states. The high tech, non-industrial class embraces “environmental” causes that carry a huge price tag only they can really afford. That’s how you end up with the Latino conundrum.
“We let you in for free and called you Latinx. That’s what you wanted, right? What do you mean you want to keep your gas-powered F-150? You don’t need cheap gas! We’re going to build you a bullet train between Chicago and LA. What do you mean you want to continue to eat beef?”
And on the other side, “Why do you want America first? Our transnational beliefs helped you waltz right in. And now you want to be #%@^$ Americans with the same nationalistic pride as those hicks in West Virginia and Alabama?!?!”
The data crunchers poll the proles, but they never ask them the right questions to begin with. They talk to us but they don’t listen. That’s how we have come to pre-revolutionary America. Pat Caddell saw this coming a decade ago. Too bad nobody listened to him, either.
That didn’t work out so well….
I don’t see where your comment has anything to do with what Kelly and I are discussing here. I am also not asking for an explanation.
I have an idea to break open the Democrat party. I oppose all of the so-called “Build Back Better” bill with one exception, the Child Tax Credit. I have a ten nieces and nephews, who have been busy in the bedroom, and now I have a half-dozen great nieces and nephews, and more will likely be coming soon! (Funny how that works.) Kids are expensive, and other than my one niece who is a medical doctor, all my other nieces and nephews are pressed to bring these joyous bundles of love into the world, and keep them feed and clothed.
When the Democrat passed their $1.9 billion bill with a $1,400.00 Covid payment and many, many other things, the Republican Senators offered an alternative, and voted unanimously on a Republican alternative to whose centerpiece was:
“Expanding the Child Tax Credit. An amendment to further expand the Child Tax Credit, which Rubio and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) successfully increased as part of the 2017 tax reform. Specifically, the amendment would strike Democrats’ attempt to convert the Child Tax Credit to a “child allowance” and replace it with an expansion of the existing Child Tax Credit to $3,500 ($4,500 for children under age 6), refundable to the extent of payroll tax liability.”
See Rubio blowing his horn at https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/3/rubio-files-budget-amendments-to-open-schools-help-working-class-families-and-america-s-middle-class
My suggestion is this. Offer this to Manchin and ask him to be a co-sponsor of this bill. It could be named the “Joe Manchin West Virginia Child Tax Credit Bill”! Or better yet, if Manchin becomes a Republican, the “Republican Child Tax Credit Bill.” Manchin didn’t want the piles and piles of social spending that were good for only 2 or 4 years but would run out. What would Democrats do in the House if they were offered a stand-alone Child Tax Credit bill? Vote against it?
I’m constantly amazed when I see voters, especially older voters who should know better, believe every single damn thing that a politician promises as if it were the gospel truth. There are some politicians who have a proven track record of honesty, but if you don’t have that record, the default position should be total skepticism.
Isn’t this just a continuation or expansion of another welfare program? I wouldn’t be for it. The National Debt will eventually explode and collapse the whole system.
We aren’t procreating enough W-2 slaves. They should have started paying bounties or something 30 years ago.
I find it really distasteful, but the system requires something like this and we should have done it a long time ago. They knew the actuarials for Medicare were off by a factor of 100 in 1974
What influence do you have on the Democrat Party?
I wouldn’t rule out personal pique as a reason for the public criticism.
Manchin saw the coming disagreement months ago and attempted to work with party leadership to get ahead of it. Schumer stabbed him in the back, that type of betrayal is likely to make anyone publicly outraged.
It’s also not as if he has reason to fear for his seat by publicly standing against this bill.
Now that is a secure seat.
It would be a welfare program, except that it would directly benefit the unborn generations which will be saddled with the National Debt.
The problem with the Democrats is all of the strings they want. For example, the “Pre-Kindergarten benefit” would not apply to church day cares, only an army of non-religious child care facilities.
Not a lot as I am a Republican.
They should just give them a bounty. They could turn it into an annuity or something.
If you want to learn more about this stuff, listen to the Mike Green interview on gestalt university. He’s definitely more of a Democrat, but he lays out all of the problems of society really well. There is a transcript. It’s really messy and complicated, but he lays everything out.
This is a good example of where we really are. There are slices of this country that actually require more central planning because we either did too much before, or we screwed up what we have already done. Boilerplate Republican policy is not going to work for a whole bunch of reasons.
Manchin has quashed the idea of party-switching before. He is an old-school liberal but not a New Age Commie like the new Dem Party. He does not like the GOP either.
If he switches (or declares himself an independent) he would likely see that as a form of betrayal. Only if the Dems are actually stupid enough to force him out would he go that route.
Figure that there is probably a lot in the BBB he would vote for had it been broken up. His fiscal conservatism is rather limited.
I don’t know what the long game is for him. He is 74 years old and nobody in WVa could beat him in any race for any office. Ironically, he would likely be the strongest possible Dem nominee in 2024.
I’m a little torn because on the one hand I see this as our best case scenario for the midterms, but having one of the chambers (which goes to the 2nd paragraph of your comment) would be invaluable. Of course, if we take the 2020 election as a model, McConnell may work hard to place the GOP in the minority again.
Kelly, with all respect to your experience and knowledge, McConnell’s “insider” understanding of the Senate isn’t exclusive and another majority leader might get the same results with a solid Parliamentarian. Heck, we’ve had a few good results with the D’s Parliamentarian this time around. Can we really forget his Obamacare failure? Other than the tax cuts and judges, both things that made McConnell look good, our most recent previous President pretty much had to make a go of it on his own. Can we forget the failure to support him?
Had those two leaders worked together, it could have been a colossal sword swipe through the chaff of the Federal Government. Neither of them are blameless, but a McConnell willing to help a President navigate Washington…oh, the places they could have gone.
I think that is faulty logic. You are just giving benefits to unborn children who will eventually have to pay it all back + the interest + all the bureaucratic expenditures that will be used to implement the program. For ever dollar of benefits they will probably be paying back twice that amount in interest and “penalties.” This is no different than how any other welfare program works.
I thought Obamacare was not repealed due to the lone holdout of John McCain – a similar circumstance that the Democrats find themselves in with Joe Manchin.
Well, if one is espousing the qualities of a Majority Leader, the failure of one to get his members to repeal a key program that cuts to the core of what the GOP’s policy stance is supposed to be seems to work against the notion.
We can talk about the personal aspects of McCain’s vote and extend that discussion many other places, but the bottom line is a GOP-majority Senate failed to come through on a major policy deliverable, something that goes to the heart of what is supposed to differentiate R from D. Perhaps we should view it as a good thing because it made it easier, ironically, for the new GOP coalition to turn its back on the old.
It is one of the few things McConnell attempted without being absolutely certain of the outcome. That is possibly why his acumen is overstated: he never starts things that aren’t already done.
Then your answer is what? Don’t ask them where they stand and if they do say don’t believe them? Just let them do as they damn well please and forget it?
Oh, well, my answer is torches and pitchforks. Hot coals and firebrands. Tar and feathers.
I can’t understand why they didn’t just stand down and hold town halls for a year. All of those liars. They had eight years and three months to get ready. Could they put any less thought into it?
I had another win today with my little experiment on Twitter. If somebody on the right says they like John McCain, make them explain it. Word salad every single time. It never fails. He absolutely did not net out for conservatives and libertarians. And just for the record I am not against RINOs as long as they don’t do a lot of damage.
They’ll take that as a dare, you know.
Occasional Arizona Republic writer Marianne Jennings wrote this shortly after McCain’s funeral, and I’ve saved it ever since:
[continued due to word limit]
[part 2]
It makes me crazy. The ACA is nothing but a scam to for single payer and it’s definitely working. What on earth is in the heads of these jerks?