Replies to post #419883 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Joe Manchin is key to Biden's agenda. Here's why he has so much influence.

Is good to know you are so positive on that score. zab seems to be. And blackhawks
seems pretty confident the Jan. 6 material will shift the balance in Dems favor.

Sure hope you guys get it right."

By Clare Foran and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN

Updated 1754 GMT (0154 HKT) July 28, 2022

IMAGE - Manchin's interests are 'his family and his own pocketbook' says Errol Lewis

Links

Manchin's interests are 'his family and his own pocketbook' says Errol Lewis 04:00

"This story was originally published on June 3, 2021. It has been updated with additional developments."

(CNN)Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia is one of the most powerful Democrats on Capitol Hill, the man who holds the key vote to much of President Joe Biden's agenda.

So when he announced his support on Wednesday night on an energy and health care bill -- a major breakthrough following more than a year of negotiations -- Manchin, often the singular target of enraged Democrats who view him as uniquely responsible for holding back the progressive movement, was now singularly responsible for delivering some of the parties' long-sought legislative priorities.

In a statement announcing the deal, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made sure to single out the mercurial Manchin.

"I thank Senator Manchin for his willingness to engage and his commitment to reaching an agreement that can earn the support of all 50 Senate Democrats," Schumer said.

The praise was a far cry from the terse words issued by the White House in December following Manchin's abandonment of the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan. The White House directly accused Manchin of making a "sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President."

It would be months before Manchin and President Joe Biden shared a substantive telephone call again, multiple officials told CNN, and the two spoke on Wednesday following the agreement. Biden was "incredibly gratified" by the announced deal, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told CNN's John Berman on Thursday.

Pressed repeatedly to detail Biden's engagement ahead of the deal, Bedingfield declined to read out any private conversations, but said, "a tremendous amount of effort by a lot of parties has gone into getting here, and it takes persistence and it takes hard work."

Weeks of negotiations

Wednesday's deal was the result of a weekslong negotiation between Manchin and Schumer. The West Virginia senator earlier this month appeared to squash any hope Democrats had to pass legislation to address the climate crisis. Manchin had previously said "unequivocally" that he would not support the Democratic economic package's climate or tax provisions, even after Schumer pared back the climate provisions to appease him.

The two senators quietly revived talks on July 18, however, and locked down the deal that was announced on Wednesday, which has earned the White House's endorsement.

While only some details have been disclosed, the measure would invest $369 billion into energy and climate change programs, with the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 40% by 2030, according to a one-page fact sheet.

The new package includes a number of provisions that the moderate West Virginia Democrat had privately scoffed at -- such as electric vehicle tax credits.

But there will be a lower income threshold for people who can use the tax credits, which Manchin had demanded.

The deal keeps changes to prescription drug prices that Manchin had previously agreed to, including empowering Medicare to negotiate the price of certain costly medications administered in doctors' offices or purchased at the pharmacy.

A Democrat in a red state

Manchin represents the deeply red state of West Virginia, where voters turned out strongly in support of former President Donald Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The Democratic Party once held major sway in the state, but its standing has eroded over the years. In 2017, the state's governor Jim Justice announced at a rally with Trump that he was switching parties from Democrat to Republican.

But Manchin has maintained a base of support in the state, and despite facing attacks from all sides, he has managed to keep winning reelection to the Senate, most recently in 2018. On Capitol Hill, he chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is a member of the Senate Democratic leadership team.

Before coming to Washington, Manchin served as the governor of West Virginia and before that served as a state legislator.

Manchin has previously said that he has an open line of communication with the White House and a good relationship with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Of Biden specifically, he told CNN last year, "Whenever he calls me, he calls and then we have a good conversation. We've had a good friendship and relationship for a long time. We understand each other."

"Kamala and I have been friends," Manchin told CNN at the time. "We sat together and had a great relationship ... and still do. And the vice president and President is and always will be invited, no matter who they may be, to the state of West Virginia, and I'll be there to meet them."

Manchin told CNN in 2017 that his rapport with Trump, however, was better than his relationship with former President Barack Obama, of which he said, "there was none."

Manchin broke with Democrats in the midst of a highly contentious Supreme Court confirmation fight over Brett Kavanaugh to vote with Republicans in support of the nominee.

He also supported Trump's first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, but he opposed what he described as the "rushed confirmation" of Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's final nominee to the high court.

Manchin also stood with Democrats in opposition to Trump and GOP efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and push through a Republican tax bill.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/15/politics/joe-manchin-biden-agenda/index.html

[fuagf]

Joe Manchin Plays the Role of Wrecker, Again

No, missed that post somehow
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169529247 .. thanks.

Why do you and others say Manchin will be gone in November? I only see his present term ends on Jan. 3, 2025 ..
https://ballotpedia.org/Joe_Manchin_III

The senator from West Virginia delivered a crippling blow to what was left of Joe Biden’s climate-change agenda.

By John Cassidy
July 15, 2022

IMAGE - Manchin standing behind President Biden during a bill-signing ceremony, in March. The senator announced this
week that he will not stand behind Biden’s green-energy initiatives.Photograph by Samuel Corum / Bloomberg / Getty

Last month, I wrote a column that was headlined “Is Joe Manchin About to Play the Role of Democratic Spoiler Again .. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/is-joe-manchin-about-to-play-the-role-of-democratic-spoiler-again ?” In retrospect, a better headline might have been “Will Lucy Pull Away the Football from Chuck Again?” Of course Manchin did. In a meeting on Thursday with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the senator from West Virginia delivered a crippling blow to what was left of Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, saying he wouldn’t support any new legislation to tackle green energy or reverse the Trump-G.O.P. tax cuts.

This stunt scuttled months of efforts on the part of Schumer and other Democrats to rescue something from the original Biden plan, which Manchin deep-sixed this past December. Then, in a step earlier this year that again raised hopes, Manchin indicated he would support a narrower bill that included tax credits for green energy and higher taxes on the rich. On Thursday, without warning, Manchin reversed his position again, with his spokesman citing high inflation as the reason.

Manchin told Schumer that he is still willing to vote for a Democratic bill to limit prescription-drug costs and extend subsidies to people who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Democrats should go ahead and pass such a bill quickly, before Manchin changes his mind again. If they don’t, Big Pharma will continue to gouge Medicare, and millions of purchasers of Obamacare policies will receive notices of higher premiums going into the midterms.

Passing the two health-care-reform bills is the right thing to do. But Biden’s broader Build Back Better plan—which amounted to an ambitious effort to expand the social safety net and tackle glaring market failures, particularly regarding climate change—now seems as dead as Monty Python’s parrot.

In assessing how things have come to this sorry pass, legitimate questions can be raised about the White House’s political strategy. At $1.9 trillion, was the February, 2021, stimulus bill too big—not in an economic sense, although that, too, is a legitimate question, but in terms of soaking up political capital in an evenly divided Senate? As the momentum for an expansive Build Back Better bill slowed during the course of 2021, why didn’t the Biden Administration change course earlier, and prioritize certain elements of the package? As early as last summer, Manchin proposed limiting new spending to $1.5 trillion.

Video From The New Yorker
Black Gold: Can the Oil Industry Adapt to a Changing World?
https://www.newyorker.com/video/watch/the-new-yorker-documentary-black-gold

But focussing on Biden’s tactics obscures one central and overwhelming fact. For the past eighteen months, he has effectively been leading a minority government, with Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema .. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/pick-me-girls-and-the-identity-politics-of-kyrsten-sinema .. acting as enthusiastic wreckers of his progressive proposals. Although the Senate is nominally divided fifty-fifty, the real tally is fifty, forty-eight, and two. The Manchinema Party holds the balance of power, and it has used this position to sabotage the policy agenda that Biden was elected on.

Manchin, in particular, has revelled in his role as tormentor of progressives and defender of fossil fuels. Time and again, he has suggested he might agree to a certain set of policies, only to derail their passage. Last year, he insisted on the elimination of a central element of Biden’s plan to slash carbon emissions: a set of financial incentives for power utilities to convert most of the nation’s electricity grid to clean energy over the next ten years. After the White House reluctantly agreed to strip out this proposal, which would have particularly affected coal-burning power plants, Manchin could have declared victory. Instead, he switched his attention to other bits of the package that he didn’t like, including a range of tax incentives for green energy.

In the recent negotiations on a slimmed-down spending bill, Manchin outdid himself in mendacity. Back in March, he floated a package that would reduce the cost of prescription drugs, reverse some of the Trump tax cuts, and use the proceeds for deficit reduction and green-energy programs. “The revenue producing [measures] would be taxes and drugs,” Manchin told Politico. “The spending is going to be climate.”

As negotiations got going, according to a Capitol Hill source, Manchin indicated his agreement to a climate and energy package worth three hundred and seventy-five billion dollars over ten years, but he continued to object to two specific proposals: tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles and direct payments to green-energy producers. In the interest of reaching an agreement, Schumer ultimately withdrew these two elements—a concession that enraged environmental groups—but even that wasn’t enough for Manchin. On Thursday, he scuttled the entire climate-change package.

Why? Manchin’s reference to inflation made no sense. In devoting only half of the money that would have been raised from tax increases for new spending, and keeping the rest for deficit reduction, the proposal that Democrats were working on would have had a deflationary impact in budget terms. The obvious answer is that Manchin, yet again, is protecting the fossil-fuel industry, which has donated heavily to his campaigns and still plays a big role in West Virginia’s economy. But there are unanswered questions here, as well.

Thanks to Manchin’s earlier lobbying, the parts of Build Back Better that would have affected the coal industry most directly had already been eliminated. If he’d followed through on his support for a narrower green-energy package, Manchin could probably have used his leverage to extract concessions on expanding oil and gas drilling, something he has been calling for recently. “He could have asked for anything!” Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton energy expert who has modelled the climate impact of the Build Back Better proposals, commented on Twitter ..

He could have asked for anything!

Instead he has nothing now, and he'll be a nobody after November.

His constituents have nothing.

We all have nothing.

So utterly SENSELESS!

— Jesse D. Jenkins (@JesseJenkins) July 15, 2022

. “Instead he has nothing now, and he’ll be a nobody after November. His constituents have nothing. We all have nothing. So utterly SENSELESS!” Yes. Senseless for Biden, the Democrats, the environment, and even for Manchin, who, yet again, has forfeited the opportunity to make a more positive contribution. What a woeful legacy he will leave behind him. ?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/joe-manchin-plays-the-role-of-wrecker-again

[fuagf]

Perhaps it’s time to kick Joe Manchin out of the Democratic party

"And you can put me on record right now that we will find out that the bill can
not be altered very much if at all. munchkin and mitch puts that in all their bills."

They could pass other legislation which undid what Manchin forced
on them though, eh. Without Manchin in control of the levers.

Robert Reich

At every opportunity, Manchin has sabotaged Democrats’ agenda. What’s going on here? It’s spelled m-o-n-e-y


‘Manchin has not only taken more campaign contributions from oil, gas and coal companies than any other senator but has one of the largest war chests from all big American corporations.’ Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

Wed 20 Jul 2022 20.15 AEST
Last modified on Thu 21 Jul 2022 03.14 AEST

After putting a final spear through the heart of what remained of Biden’s and the Democrat’s domestic agenda, West Virginia’s Democratic senator Joe Manchin .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/joe-manchin .. now rejects any tax increases on big corporations or the wealthy – until inflation is no longer a problem.

This is rich, in every sense of the word. Raising taxes on big American corporations and the wealthy would not fuel inflation. It would slow inflation by reducing demand – and do it in a way that wouldn’t hurt lower-income Americans (such as those living in, say, West Virginia).

As a 76-year-old let me say: Joe Biden is too old to run again Robert Reich
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/17/as-a-76-year-old-let-me-say-joe-biden-is-too-old-to-run-again

[i[]Insert: As an 80y-old i second the motion.\

Manchin’s state is one of the poorest in America. West Virginia ranks 45th in education, 47th in healthcare, 48th in overall prosperity and 50th in infrastructure.

Tax revenue from corporations and billionaires could be used to rebuild West Virginia, among other places that need investment around America.

But Manchin doesn’t seem to give a cluck. After all, the Democrats’ agenda – which Manchin has obliterated – included pre-K education, free community college, child subsidies, Medicare dental and vision benefits, paid family leave, elder care, and much else – all of enormous value to West Virginia. (On a per-person basis, West Virginians would have benefitted more than the residents of all but two other states.)

It’s not as if Manchin has championed anything else Democrats have sought. Remember Manchin’s “bipartisan compromise” on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act? Nothing came of it, of course.

Nothing has come of any of the fig leaves Manchin has conjured to cover his unrelenting opposition to every other Democratic goal.

What’s going on here? It’s spelled m-o-n-e-y.

Few if any American-based global corporations or billionaires reside in West Virginia, but lots of money flows to Manchin from corporations and billionaires residing elsewhere.

Manchin has not only taken more campaign contributions .. https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/industries?cid=N00032838&cycle=2022 .. from oil, gas and coal companies than any other senator (as well as dividends from his own coal company), he has one of the largest war chests from all big American corporations.

If the Democratic party had any capacity to discipline its lawmakers or hold them accountable (if pigs could fly), it would at least revoke Manchin’s chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

To continue to allow this crucial position to be occupied by the man who has single-handedly blocked one of the last opportunities to save the Earth is a thumb in the eye of the universe.

I’m told the Democrats don’t dare take this step for fear Manchin would leave the Democratic party and switch his allegiance to the Republicans.

Why exactly would this be so terrible? Manchin already acts like a Republican.

Oh, no! they tell me. If Manchin switches parties, Democrats would lose control over the Senate.

Well, I have news for Democrats. They already lost control over the Senate.

In fact, the way things are right now, Biden and the Democrats have the worst of both worlds. They look like they control the Senate, as well as the House and the presidency. But they can’t get a damn thing done because Manchin (and his intermittent sidekick, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema) won’t let them.

So after almost two years of appearing to run the entire government, Democrats have accomplished almost nothing of what they came to Washington to do.

America is burning and flooding but Democrats won’t enact climate measures.

Voting rights and reproductive rights are being pulverized but Democrats won’t protect them.

Gun violence is out of control but Democrats come up with a miniature response.

Billionaires and big corporations are siphoning off more national wealth and income than in living memory and paying a lower tax rate (often zero), but Democrats won’t raise taxes on big corporations and the wealthy.

Which means that in November’s midterm elections, Democrats will have to go back to voters and say: “We promised a lot but we delivered squat, so please vote for us again.”

This does not strike me as a compelling message.

By kicking Manchin out of the party, Democrats could at least go into the midterms with a more realistic pitch: “It looked like we had control of the Senate, but we didn’t. Now that you know who the real Democrats are, give us the power and we will get it done.”

Maybe this way they’ll pick up more real Democratic senators, and do it.

* Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few .. https://bookshop.org/books/saving-capitalism-for-the-many-not-the-few/9780345806222 .. and The Common Good .. https://bookshop.org/books/the-common-good-9780525436379/9780525436379 . His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It .. https://bookshop.org/books/the-system-who-rigged-it-how-we-fix-it/9780525659044 , is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com .. http://robertreich.substack.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/20/joe-manchin-democratic-party-kick-out