Sen. Joe Manchin deserves credit for derailing President Joe Biden’s plans
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When the history of President Joe Biden’s administration is written, one key factor will be how a president who billed himself as a traditional blue collar Democrat managed to alienate the single most important example of traditional blue collar Democrats in the United States Senate.
The attached article from the Washington Post, titled “How the White House lost Joe Manchin, and its plan to transform America,” tells a story of Democratic failures, but from a conservative perspective, it may show that we have one man, and only one man, to thank for President Joe Biden’s failure to fundamentally transform America.
That man is Senator Joe Manchin III.
From the article:
A breakthrough seemed close. It was mid-December, and President Biden had been negotiating for months with Sen. Joseph Manchin III over Biden’s sweeping plan to reconfigure the American economy. House Democrats had already approved $2 trillion for Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, and pressure was mounting to push the measure through the more narrowly divided Senate.
But first Biden had to overcome resistance from Manchin (D-W.Va.), the Senate’s most conservative Democrat.
On Dec. 14, the pair seemed to make progress. Manchin had offered to support a $1.8 trillion package, a step toward the White House position, while Biden agreed to jettison a budget gimmick that Manchin believed disguised the true cost of the plan. The tenor of their conversations was “peachy,” according to one person briefed on the talks, and the two sides agreed to put out a statement saying they would continue talking.
And then, incredibly, it all fell apart.
Here’s the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/06/05/biden-manchin-white-house/?fbclid=IwAR3r59wO9jdQvdPRAFhARSOcjj31ngD9cT-N3qedFzFm8Yu6431YQdwRogk
Obviously the Washington Post reporters and editorial staff consider that to be a bad thing. Most readers of my work will consider it to be a good thing, and many will consider it to be a VERY good thing.
So what happened?