Senator Joe Manchin says no to US$2 trillion social bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
- Manchin’s opposition deals a potentially fatal blow to US President Joe Biden’s leading domestic initiative
- The bill carries investments for helping families with children, including extending a more generous child tax credit, creating free preschool and bolstering child care aid
Manchin told Fox News Sunday that he always has made clear he had reservations about the bill and that now, after five-and-half months of discussions and negotiations, “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation.”
The White House had no immediate comment. Biden was spending the weekend in Wilmington, Delaware.
The legislation’s apparent collapse is sure to deepen the bitter ideological divisions within the Democratic Party between progressives and moderates. That would call into question whether Democrats will be able to join together behind any substantial legislation before the November congressional elections. And it adds a note of chaos just as Democrats need to demonstrate accomplishments and show a united front before the fall campaign.
The bill carries huge investments for helping millions of families with children, including extending a more generous child tax credit, creating free preschool and bolstering child care aid. There is help for people to pay health care costs, new hearing benefits for Medicare recipients and provisions limiting price increases on prescription drugs.
Manchin’s opposition puts it all on hold indefinitely. The West Virginia senator cited several factors weighing on the economy and the potential harm he saw from pushing through the “mammoth” bill, such as persistent inflation, a growing debt and the latest threat from the omicron variant.
US inflation surges to near-40 year high, testing Biden
“When you have these things coming at you the way they are right now, I’ve always said this … if I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can’t vote for it,” he said.
“I tried everything humanly possible. I can’t do it,” he said. “This is a no on this legislation. I have tried everything I know to do.”
Though Manchin has been Democrats’ main obstacle all year to pushing the massive package through the narrowly divided Congress, his declaration was a stunning repudiation of Biden’s and his party’s top goal. A rejection of the legislation had been seen by many as unthinkable because of the political damage it could inflict on Democrats.
It is rare for a member of a president’s own party to administer a fatal blow to their paramount legislative initiative. Manchin’s decision called to mind the famous thumbs-down vote by Senator John McCain, that killed former President Donald Trump’s 2017 effort to repeal the health care law enacted under former President Barack Obama.
01:59
Biden warns Putin of strong economic sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine
Last week, Biden all but acknowledged that negotiations over his sweeping domestic policy package would likely push into the new year. But the president had insisted that Manchin reiterated his support for a framework that the senator, the White House and other Democrats had agreed to for the flagship bill.
On Sunday, Manchin made clear those were Biden’s words, not his own. The senator criticised fellow lawmakers for a bill that “hasn’t shrunk” after he initially agreed to a US$1.5 trillion framework and said social programmes must be paid for more than 10 years instead of just a few years to win his support, a non-starter due to cost.
For instance, just extending the child tax credit programme for the full 10-year budget window would cost well over US$1 trillion. That would consume most of Biden’s bill, crowding out other key initiatives on health care, child care, education and more.
“We should be up front and pick our priorities,” Manchin said.
A report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office earlier this month said that if many of the bill’s temporary spending boosts and tax cuts were made permanent, it would add US$3 trillion to the price tag. That would more than double its 10-year cost to around US$5 trillion. Democrats has called the projections from the Republican-requested report fictitious.
Senator Bernie Sanders criticised Manchin for withdrawing his support and urged Democratic leaders to bring the bill to the floor anyway and force Manchin to oppose it.
“If he doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing for the working families of West Virginia and America, let him vote no in front of the whole world, ” Sanders told CNN’s State of the Union programme.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Manchin’s decision is a “sudden and inexplicable reversal” that will throw millions of children back into poverty,
Manchin’s statements are “at odds with his discussions this week with the president, with White House staff and with his own public utterances,” Psaki said. His comments “represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the president and the senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate.”
Psaki said that Manchin, just five days earlier, delivered a proposal to Biden in person.
“While that framework was missing key priorities, we believed it could lead to a compromise acceptable to all,” she said.
