Joe Manchin's Symphony of Disingenuousness

[babylonsister]

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/building-back-america/infrastructure-summer-joe-manchins-symphony-of-disingenuousness/

The American Prospect
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Infrastructure Summer: Joe Manchin’s Symphony of Disingenuousness
He mumbles about inflation to try and stop a bill that’s primarily concerned with reducing inflation.
by David Dayen
September 7, 2021


Let’s say I didn’t know anything about the big budget reconciliation bill working its way through Congress this month. (Believe me, I’d love to say that; things would be much easier if I didn’t.) If non-aware me read through the entirety of Joe Manchin’s op-ed in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, which said that the bill is too expensive and just not right at this time, I wouldn’t know anything more about it. While Manchin ably demonstrates how a conservative Democrat representing a red state can preen about concepts like inflation and the deficit and spending trillions of dollars, he explains nothing about what the bill he opposes actually does, whom it would help, and what specific parts he disfavors.

Evidently, Manchin doesn’t want you to know too much about the bill he’s trying to kill. Or at least, he doesn’t want you to know why he doesn’t like it. Because if Manchin were truly concerned that we’ve let costs for working families run out of control and we must avoid passing a terrible future on to the next generation, he would be the first in line to pass the reconciliation bill.

snip//

The thing about these tax reforms and drug price reductions is that they are extremely popular. Adding tax increases makes the various infrastructure bills under consideration more popular, in fact. Manchin and his Republican colleagues made sure that the bipartisan infrastructure bill had no tax changes of any kind. He’s been murmuring about trimming tax reform for months. But now he doesn’t want to make a frontal assault on behalf of the rich people and corporate executives who fund political campaigns. So he talks about deficits and inflation, which have no real application to this legislation, to hide the ball on his real goal.

President Biden’s American Jobs and Families Plans, which include all the elements in the proposed reconciliation bill, are even popular in West Virginia. In May, Data for Progress found both favored by double digits, despite Biden’s unpopularity in the state. Manchin doesn’t want to actually come out against an unpopular policy in his own state. Instead, he leashes his opposition to some garbled nonsense about inflation, when in fact, this is an inflation-fighting bill. He doesn’t want people to know that he’s trying to prevent his rich pals from having to chip in to allow middle-class families to better keep up with the cost of living.

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Joe thinks he is the Great and Powerful Oz...

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain writing explosive op-eds, at least not until he is on the senate floor, held accountable for every word and every vote.

[LymphocyteLover]

4. He's just an asshole who only helps us in the most minimal way

[vanlassie]

2. You know we can SEE YOU, right, Joe?

[The Wizard]

3. Could he be under the influence of

the bribing class? Asking for a friend.

[Elessar Zappa]

5. I'm sure he is.

[2naSalit]

6. He's not fooling anyone...

And tfg helped give him permission to be blatant with his corruption.