Yeah, Joe Manchin’s an asshole, but…

by | Dec 20, 2021 | Editor's Blog | 10 comments

Joe Manchin blew up Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda yesterday and he did it in the most insulting way possible. He went on Fox News and told the conservative base that the bill is dead. He left the White House scrambling and Democrats in Congress fuming. Even if he was going to make the announcement, he could have done it in a more neutral setting. It was the media equivalent of giving his own party the finger. 

That said, Manchin may be an asshole, but he’s been consistent in his demands and they aren’t totally unreasonable. He’s been saying that the package needed to be trimmed down and that every program in it needed to be funded for the full ten years. Many programs were partially funded and put the burden on future Congresses to either find additional funding or scrap them. Agree with it or not, there’s merit in that position.   

But Manchin damaged Biden’s credibility with the progressives in Congress. The president went to the House and promised Democrats that if they passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill as a stand-alone, he would ensure that Build Back Better got passed. Manchin has made him out to be a liar. He didn’t have to do that. He could have killed or altered the bill in less dramatic fashion. Again, the guy is an asshole. 

All of that said, Democrats have botched their social spending package from the beginning. They never sold it to the American people. They just assumed that people knew what was in it and what they were trying to accomplish. The bill spent half its short life as the “reconciliation bill” and the last few months as Build Back Better, which sounds more like the infrastructure bill. Instead of building broad support for the measure, they acted like they had a mandate that isn’t there. 

I know more about what was in the bill today than I did on Saturday and I follow politics fairly closely. I did a brief, informal poll of a handful of politically aware friends and they couldn’t tell me what was in it, either, other than child tax credits and that it clean energy provisions. Manchin got away with what he did because Democrats failed to make it politically painful for him to do it. 

Smarter politicos would have named the bill after something it does, not some broad theme with vague goals. They also would have been running ads in West Virginia educating Manchin’s voters about the benefits of the bill to his constituents. Maybe they actually did that, but I haven’t heard anything about it. Regardless, Democrats never built broad support for the bill and they never explained to the American public how they would benefit from it.

Democrats should learn from what just happened and try to salvage something. Manchin has not said he won’t vote for anything; he just won’t vote for the Build Back Better framework. They should push for a more modest bill and sell the components of it as they develop it. Play by Manchin’s rules since he holds all of the cards. Explain to the people of West Virginia the benefits of the proposals so Manchin can’t say he couldn’t justify the expense to his constituents, like he did with BBB. 

Democrats have a narrow majority in Congress for another year. They should try to get something that more reflects their advantage than trying to get something that’s as transformative as Build Back Better. If they do, maybe they can build on their success for the midterms and live to fight another day. 

10 Comments

  1. Chris Foster

    Take it from a lower income tax paying citizen with three children, the ctc has helped me and lots of other tax paying citizens keep food on the table or buy clothing and help aid in raising 3 children. But you wouldn’t know anything about that would ya Joe? You self righteous arrogant pompous asshole. And No not all U.S. citizens are spending it on drugs you f****** moron

  2. Morris

    “Manchin got away with what he did because Democrats failed to make it politically painful for him to do it.”
    Democrats couldn’t make it politically painful for him. What would have made it politically painful for him would have been if he had voted for it. Manchin, a fairly popular incumbent, squeaked by in 2018. Trump won WV by well over 2 to 1 in 2020. Biden is unpopular nearly everywhere now, but especially in WV. Manchin represents WV, not Biden or the Democrat party. Seems he figured that out.

  3. Andy Stevens

    Perhaps folks like the writer and his ilk need to move to West Virginia, become permanent residents, and vote Joe out of office. Apparently, the folks who actually live in West Virginia think he’s doing exactly what they sent him there to do.

    • cocodog

      I think that is already in the wind, without the help of folks moving there just to vote his self-serving tail out of office. Wait until WV voters connect the dots on BBB bill re. what child credit deduction could continue to do for roughly 60% of the current residents.

    • Don garr

      Manchin represents a state that is an outhouse filled with low IQ dumbass

  4. cocodog

    Big Joe, according to CNN “has holdings valued at between $1 million and $5 million in Enersystems, Inc., the coal brokerage business he founded”. According to his most recent financial disclosure form that covers 2020 activity. he made more than $491,000 from his Enersystems holdings. That figure is more than twice his $174,000 annual Senate salary. Voting against any legislation that would to diminish to flow of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere or other clear air and water measures would be expected.

    You can’t fault a man for taking care of business, but when he transitions from private enterprise into government and uses his government position to protect and improve his personal interests that is called gaming the system. When a politician loses sight of his public duty to act in the best interest of the folks who sent him to the senate that should be grounds for removal. Of course, this type of behavior has become common in government, particularly during the last administration. Trump tried to use his hotel business to hold governmental meetings and conferences, diverted US Airforce flights to locations where the crews had to stay at his golf course in Scotland while their aircraft was being serviced and refueled.

    There is also the case of Republican Senator Burr dumping his stock interests based on information he acquired during Senate hearings. Some have argued Burr was not really an insider, as that term is understood in the law, but merely a bystander who happen to be in the right place at the right time. The only difference, between a bystander is a senator sitting in committee has the legal authority to compel testimony under penalty of perjury. Moreover, receives information not normally available to the public from government agency briefings.

    Granted the filibuster can be an annoyance when a political party seeks to further legislation that may make the opposing party look bad, but what appears more pressing and important to sustain and improve our democracy is tougher ethics laws.

  5. Rick Gunter

    Joe Manchin sold out to special interests He receives more political contributions from the fossil fuel industry than any other member of the Senate and perhaps the entire Congress. He benefits from coal mines.

    Another point. Democrats should be hammering day and night against the Senate Republicans. When has not a single GOP senator come forward for this bill? Put their tails on record and let them explain their vote to their constituents.. While Manchin is despicable, and he broke his word with the President after promising to vote for the Build-Back-Better framework, he is not the only senator responsible for this treachery. The GOP is beyond redemption. If somehow a bill still passes, and it might, trust the GOP to brag about what they did for the voters when not one of them voted for anything except to make their fat-cat donors wealthier. Yet again, the focus is not on the right target. The GOP needs to be taken down. Any voter who wastes their vote on a Republican does this country a disservice.

  6. cocodog

    Tom, the label applied to Joe Mansion is a compliment compared to what I have in mind. He acts like the current breed of republican running around congress, he lied when he told Biden he would support the BBB legislation, then he followed that up with a false and misleading written statement reassuring Biden and other members of his party that he would vote in favor of it. His state is among the economically depressed states that could benefit from the BBB, yet he refuses to assist his constituents. Mansion drives an expensive foreign car and resides on a luxury houseboat, where he entertains republicans such as Senator Graham and other republicans, while his constituents struggle to survive. His excuse for changing his mind is the media has put out too much negative information, which makes him look bad. I am sure his voters have formed a negative opinion without the help of the media. His actions speak for him. If he fails to make the grade next time around, he has nobody to blame, except himself. Those folks that pay him to protect their dirty coal business will drop him as soon as he leaves office.

  7. Jim Neal

    Re. Joe Manchin. You can not negotiate with a liar.

    Manchin gave verbal and written assurances to the President and members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, only to blindside them all with his pathetic appearance on cable news. He made the President, the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader “liars” only to the extent that he made commitments to them, they trusted him, and he betrayed their trust.

    Manchin never intended to vote for BBB. He played rope-a-dope with his Party and the American people. Manchin’s not difficult to unpack. He’s a shill. He’s loyal to his self-interest as owner of a dirty coal business that pads his bank account by $500,000 yearly. He’s loyal to his conservative Democratic and Republican contributors- billionaires from Wall Street and corporate America. He does not give a rat’s ass about West Virginians which is the saddest part of this story. Manchin held all the cards and could have made his state- one of the most impoverished and hungry in the nation- a land of promise. It would have been a fair deal to ask for expansive investment in a state which helped drive (through coal mining) the industrial growth of the US in return for implementing the urgent, non-negotiable concessions necessary to transition American from fossil fuels. Not a stretch either: West Virginia is about the size of Phoenix, or 500,000 residents smaller than the borough of Queens in New York. But no, Joe Manchin is in the game for himself, his family and his mega donors.

    Negotiate? Hell no. First there needs to be consequences for Manchin beyond the blistering press release from the White House yesterday. President Biden spent Saturday in seclusion mourning the anniversary of the death of his first wife and their daughter in a terrible car crash 49 years ago. The next morning Joe Manchin had an aide notify the White House that the Senator was going to stab the President in the back.

    Thomas, I’m sick of pandering to the lowest common denominator. It will not work. One thing the Republicans excel at- and why they are “winning”- is that they understand how to exercise power. It’s time to remind Senator Manchin that the Democratic Party will not survive beyond 2024 by dropping lumps of coal in the stockings of working class and poor Americans, while he eats cake with Lindsey Graham and John Thune on his $700,000 yacht harbored in the Potomac.

    • JCD

      Joe Manchin is a Republican plant.

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