On Wednesday afternoon, a couple of weeks after declaring that he couldn’t back a narrow resurrection of a Build Back Better bill that raised taxes and addressed climate change, Senator Joe Manchin said to the world, “Eh, what the heck.”
After all, he and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had agreed on a course of action about it.
The statement came as quite a surprise to everyone, especially considering that these very, very, very last-minute talks had been successfully concealed from people of such high rank as Schumer’s deputy.
Now we will find out if it can negotiate the difficult path that it must go to reach President Joe Biden’s desk.
In addition to the policies that Manchin had already agreed to, such as enabling Medicare to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs and extending enhanced subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, the deal would also impose a minimum tax of fifteen per cent on large corporations, strengthen the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to enforce tax laws, and eliminate a tax loophole that hedge fund managers adore.
“Energy security and climate change” will receive a budget allocation of $369 billion from the spending side of the budget. According to the projections provided by Democrats, the bill would bring in $300 billion more than it would spend to reduce the deficit.
In return, it would appear like Manchin will receive two significant victories.
First, because this piece of legislation is known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, he is allowed to maintain his claim that he was responsible for the death of the “Build Back Better” bill. In the streets, you can hear the children singing it over and over again.
Second, Senator Manchin and Representative Schumer said in a joint statement that “we have struck a deal with President Biden and Speaker Pelosi to pass comprehensive permitting reform legislation by the end of this fiscal year.” (Manchin is in favour of constructing a shale gas pipeline.)
Because legislation of this nature cannot be passed using the reconciliation process, unlike the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, this means that Senator Manchin’s excellent fossil fuel bill will have to be postponed until the fall.
(This is a more in-depth review, but to summarise: bills that pass through reconciliation must solely address tax and spending issues for Democrats to circumvent the filibuster requirement of 60 votes.)
How the announcement was made, as well as the level of discretion with which the negotiations were conducted, has caused some people to wonder whether Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was, to put it bluntly, taken advantage of.
Earlier in the summer, McConnell attempted to take a hostage by stating that a long-simmering bipartisan industrial policy bill wouldn’t pass if Democrats went ahead with a sweeping partisan reconciliation bill.
McConnell’s statement was part of an effort to prevent Democrats from passing a sweeping partisan reconciliation bill.
This did not strike us as McConnell’s most subtle threat; a large portion of corporate America wanted the “CHIPS” plan, as it is colloquially known, to be passed regardless of whether or not Democrats were successful in passing a package that would reduce the cost of prescription pharmaceuticals.
However, in the wake of Manchin’s rejection of a more comprehensive reconciliation package a couple of weeks ago, the Senate voted to approve a version of the CHIPS bill earlier in the afternoon on Wednesday.
A few hours later, Manchin and Schumer made the announcement that they had reached an agreement to reconcile their differences.
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If Manchin and Schumer pulled a long, complex joke on McConnell by claiming that climate change and taxation were off the table until CHIPS was approved, then I have to say that they deserve a round of applause.
But it’s possible that Manchin just changed his mind a few days ago for the same baffling reasons that he always gives, which no one can fathom.
You might be thinking that Manchin is just engaging in the same circular argument that never leads anywhere at this point.
The wording of the law has not even been made public. The one different thing, though, is that this is the very first time that Manchin has pledged in writing, and made public, that he will vote in favour of this reconciliation package. That’s not chump change at all.
What other difficulties might manifest themselves? Oh, buddy …
The lawmaker is donning a pair of latex gloves as she gets ready to “clean” the text to confirm that it complies with the regulations regarding budget reconciliation. We’ll have to wait and watch if the Republicans can effectively challenge anything and throw a wrench into the entire process.
It will be necessary to conduct an accurate scoring of the bill’s revenues and expenditures.
Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a moderate from Arizona, is an opponent who must be faced.
Although she was never as much of a roadblock to Build Back Better as Manchin was, she did have some particular concerns about particular elements, such as closing the carried interest loophole.
Sinema, along with the rest of the people, was taken aback by the arrangement. According to her office, Sinema “will need to evaluate the wording.” [citation needed]
The House may also have some issues. A group of Democrats, most of whom are located in the Northeast and are led by Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, have stated on multiple occasions that they will not vote for a reconciliation bill unless it either raises the cap on state-and-local tax deductions or eliminates the cap entirely.
Manchin highlighted in his own statement that was released on Wednesday that the arrangement did not contain such adjustments to the Gott Gang and that he was disappointed by this (forgive us).
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Joe Manchin is the only Democrat in Congress who is completely insulated from the pressure exerted by the party leadership.
The fact that he represents one of the most conservative states in the country makes him a peculiar figure. If Manchin is on board, everyone else, whether it’s Gottheimer or Sinema, cannot withstand the pressure from Schumer, Pelosi, Biden, and Democratic voters. This has always been the logic.
