The Biden Spending Plan needs Joe Manchin, and it was pretty visible as he commanded the spotlight this week on Capitol Hill. He kept shuttling from one meeting to the next, where he was getting pitches from the other Democrats, who were all scrambling to save their priorities on the floor of the Senate. Joe Manchin- the man with the Golden Thumb- as he could easily sink President Joe Biden’s economic agenda with as little as a thumbs-down.
Biden Spending Plan Depends Entirely On Joe Manchin
In order to appease the centrist Manchin, the Democrats had to slash out their initial $3.5 trillion Biden Spending Plan, simply because it would have never seen the light of day in the face of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. The slash brought the price down to $2 trillion that managed to clear the House after a lengthy stretch of infighting last month couldn’t bring out a resolution.
All of the 50 Democrats in the Senate have their own agendas, which they definitely need to coalesce around the plan if they are to overcome the opposition from the Republicans, as they muscle it through the chamber that seems to be pretty evenly divided.
Despite the slashing of the Biden Spending Plan, and the intense lobbying efforts being taken place, the White House and the Democrats don’t seem to be getting any closer to having Manchin onboard. Instead, he has simply become more skeptical about the scope and size of the entire plan. He single-handedly torpedoed the efforts of the other Democrats this week to pass the Build Back Better bill by Christmas by being concerned above the price tag at $1.75 trillion over ten years.
It can be understood that the Biden spending plan will definitely go through the chopping block in order to make sure that the cost of the plan doesn’t end up crashing through the self-imposed ceiling of Manchin.
