In his op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Joe Manchin proclaimed that he won’t vote for a reconciliation package carrying a $3.5 trillion price tag.*
*What he actually says, if you can make it around the paywall, is he won’t vote for it “without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on existing government programs.”
Our dubious-Democratic senator makes several fair points amid several misconceptions.
Among the fair points Manchin makes is “If I can’t explain it, I can’t vote for it.” Democrats supporting the reconciliation package haven’t done a good job of making clear what exactly that $3.5 trillion will cover. At the time of this writing, the various congressional committees are supposed to be finalizing their proposals for what should go in the bill. Right now, we have a lot of wonderful sounding promises without any substance. That’s a failure on the part of Democrats to adequately explain and present details of the proposal to policymakers and the public.
That said, Manchin should be significantly more supportive of the bill’s goals, considering a number of the promised measures are set to help West Virginians. Among them are universal pre-K and child tax credits (both of which help working families in particular), free two-year community college, home care for seniors and disabled individuals, lower prescription drug prices and boosting American manufacturing as well as job-training programs.
In the op-ed, Manchin slams his fellow Democrats for “making budgetary decisions under artificial political deadlines.” (A vote on the package is scheduled for Sept. 27.) This is a somewhat fair point. There will only be about a week between committees presenting their proposals and voting on the final bill. On the other hand, Congress’ session ends with the year and we’re about to hit holiday season, with one or both chambers out of session 34 days between now and Dec. 31. Sept. 27 may seem arbitrary, but time is running out.
Where Manchin misleads is on claims of wrecking the nation’s fiscal status. Too many lawmakers (and media sources) have been throwing out this $3.5 trillion number as if it’s a one-time expenditure. But it’s not. That $3.5 trillion will be spread out over the next 10 years and will be at least partially offset each year by revenue coming in.
Manchin also frames the $3.5 trillion as if it will bankrupt America and leave the country without any financial resources to fight future pandemics or natural disasters. However, many of the measures planned for the final bill are designed to shore up the nation’s health care systems, provide financial security for American families and address climate change, including weatherizing new and existing infrastructure to better withstand extreme weather.
We’re not sure whether Manchin is posturing for his corporate backers and right-leaning West Virginia voters or if he’s trying to protect is own financial interests. The reconciliation package does plan to divert America’s energy consumption away from fossil fuels and toward renewables; we know that Manchin makes millions of dollars a year from his investments in coal and the fossil fuel lobby.
But we also know that a couple of the package’s proposed funding mechanisms could hurt Manchin’s pocketbook. Besides corporate taxes, Democrats have proposed increasing taxes on America’s wealthiest. One of the key components of Democrats’ plan was to boost the IRS’s enforcement power — including the ability to audit millionaires (like Manchin) and billionaires — but it has so far been blocked by Republicans. According to a statement from the U.S. Treasury: “the tax gap totaled nearly $600 billion in 2019 and will rise to about $7 trillion over the course of the next decade … .”
If Manchin’s concerns are truly about America’s financial well-being — not his own — he’ll support the bill’s measures that boost the middle class and lift low-income families out of poverty, and he’ll support the existing funding structures that will help balance the budget.
