Manchin’s $3.5T nix sparks a slow Bern
Sen. Joe Manchin confirmed Sunday that he will not vote for President Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending plan that will drastically reshape the nation’s social safety net — prompting Sen. Bernie Sanders to rip the decision as “not acceptable.”
Manchin (D-W.Va) — who holds a key vote in the narrowly divided Senate — was asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer saying he will move “full speed ahead” with the package.
“He will not have my vote on $3.5 [trillion] and Chuck knows that, and we’ve talked about this,” he responded. “It’s not going to be $3.5 — I can assure you.”
In another interview Sunday, Manchin questioned why Democrats were pushing the legislation through at a breakneck pace.
“We don’t have the need to rush into this and get it done within one week because there’s some deadline we’re meeting or someone’s going to fall through the cracks,” Manchin said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I want to make sure that children are getting taken care of, that people are basically having an opportunity to go back to work. We have 11 million jobs that we haven’t filled, 8 million people still unemployed. Something’s not matching up there,” he said.
Sanders (I-Vt.) appeared on CNN after Manchin and lashed out at the West Virginia lawmaker for setting the ceiling so low.
“No, it’s absolutely not acceptable to me. I don’t think it’s acceptable to the president, to the American people, or to the overwhelming majority of the people in the Democratic caucus,” Sanders told host Dana Bash.
“This is a consequential bill, it is hard to put a bill like this together. At the end of the day I believe we will,” Sanders said.
The $3.5 trillion, 10-year plan would address a number of Biden’s priorities including education, climate change and immigration reform, and would expand the social safety net.
Manchin urged Schumer (D-NY) to slow down and give lawmakers more time to discuss the spending bill and how it will be funded.
“Don’t you think we ought to hit the pause and find out the vulnerability that we have right now?” he said on CNN. “We don’t know what happened with this COVID. It’s awful, coming back the way it is with a vengeance. We don’t know about inflation. We know it’s running rampant right now. I can tell you in West Virginia inflation’s running rampant. And on top of that the challenges we’re going to have — geopolitical challenges — shouldn’t we be prepared?”
Sanders said he’s willing to give lawmakers more time to discuss the package but insisted time is ticking.
“But there is a sense of urgency,” he said. “And a sense of urgency is that we live in a country today where the wealthiest people and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well, while workingclass people are struggling all over this country in terms of health care. You got 90 million people uninsured or underinsured.”
For the package to pass through the process of reconciliation in the 50-50 Senate, all 50 Democratic senators would have to approve it.
Vice President Kamala Harris would act as the tiebreaker. No Republicans are expected to vote yea.