Manchin rejects Biden’s social policy bill
WASHINGTON — Sen. Joe Manchin said Sunday that he could not support President Joe Biden’s signature $2.2 trillion social safety net, climate and tax bill, dooming his party’s drive to pass its marquee domestic policy legislation as written.
The comments from Manchin, D-W.Va., a longtime centrist holdout, dealt the latest and perhaps a fatal blow to the centerpiece of Biden’s domestic agenda, barely a day after senators left Washington for the remainder of the year after Democrats conceded they could not yet push through any of their top legislative priorities, from the social policy bill to a voting rights overhaul.
“I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation,” Manchin said on “Fox News Sunday,” citing concerns about adding to the national debt, rising inflation and the spread of the latest coronavirus variant. “I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there. This is a no.”
In a statement released shortly afterward, he was more scathing toward his own party, declaring that “my Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country even more vulnerable to the threats we face.”
“I cannot take that risk with a staggering debt of more than $29 trillion and inflation taxes that are real and harmful,” he said.
It amounted to Manchin’s most definitive rejection of the sprawling measure, which party leaders muscled through the House in November, after maintaining a drumbeat of concern about its cost and ambitious scope. With Republicans united in opposing the legislation, Democrats needed to secure the vote of all 50 senators who caucus with their party for the measure to pass an evenly divided Senate, effectively handing each lawmaker veto power.