Sen. Joe Manchin III said he won’t support President Biden’s $1.75 trillion social welfare and climate bill until he knows its true cost and castigated the Democrats’ far-left faction for holding a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package hostage in the meantime.
Mr. Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat and key swing vote for the White House’s legislative agenda, announced Monday at the Capitol that he would not bow to extortion by House progressives.
“The political games must stop. As you’ve heard, there are some House Democrats who say they can’t support this infrastructure package until they get my commitment on the reconciliation legislation,” Mr. Manchin said. “Holding this bill hostage won’t work to get my support for the reconciliation bill.”
His announcement raised another roadblock to the passage of Mr. Biden’s domestic agenda despite months of negotiations. House Democratic leaders had hoped to advance the infrastructure legislation as soon as Tuesday.
Mr. Manchin said he is suspicious that Democrats are engaged in “shell games, budget gimmicks” on the larger reconciliation package, the full cost of which hasn’t been scored yet by the Congressional Budget Office.
“To be clear, I will not support the reconciliation legislation without knowing how the bill would impact our debt and our economy and our country,” Mr. Manchin said. “We won’t know that until we work through the text.”
After Mr. Manchin refused to budge, the White House and congressional Democratic leaders scrambled to save the deal. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement that the final package would allay all of Mr. Manchin’s concerns.
“Senator Manchin says he is prepared to support a Build Back Better plan that combats inflation, is fiscally responsible, and will create jobs. The plan the House is finalizing meets those tests — it is fully paid for, will reduce the deficit, and brings down costs for health care, child care, elder care, and housing,” she said. “As a result, we remain confident that the plan will gain Senator Manchin’s support.”
Last week, Mr. Biden announced, that after months of delay, he had the basis for a deal. The $1.75 trillion “compromise framework” fell far short of the $3.5 trillion that far-left Democrats initially proposed.
Dropped from the package were plans to expand Medicare, provide free community college and a federal guarantee of paid family leave for every worker. Mr. Biden made the concessions in hopes of bringing on board moderate Senate Democrats, namely Mr. Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
Since Democrats are planning to push the package through Congress along party lines using budget reconciliation, a process allowing spending measures to pass the 50-50 Senate by a simple majority, Mr. Biden can not afford any disunity.
Far-left Democrats are displeased with that reality, however. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernard Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont, said he was working overtime to expand the package.
“That bill is still being worked on literally today. It will be worked on tomorrow,” Mr. Sanders told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I believe we’re making some progress in making it even stronger than it is.”
Mr. Sanders and other far-left lawmakers are pushing to reinsert paid family leave and a $100 billion scheme to clear the immigration backlog. The latter is contingent upon the policy being permissible under the narrow rules governing the reconciliation process.
Democrats are also eager to expand Medicare benefits to cover dental and vision services, as well as letting the program negotiate the price of prescription drugs.
“We are making regular progress to lower prescription drug prices as we work to refine the agreement,” said Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat.
To ensure moderate Democrats go along with such ambitions, far-left lawmakers view the bipartisan infrastructure package as their only leverage.
The $1.2 trillion measure, which Mr. Manchin and Ms. Sinema helped craft, passed the Senate resoundingly over the summer. Within the House, the measure has hit a wall, mainly consisting of opposition from the 98-member Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Progressive lawmakers are pledging to block the infrastructure deal until moderates in the Senate send the reconciliation bill their way.
“I need a Senate vote. I need a Senate vote,” said Rep. Cori Bush, a Missouri Democrat. “Right now that’s still where I stand.”
The standoff stems from widespread distrust among progressive and moderate Democrats. Far-left lawmakers believe that moderates, like Mr. Manchin, have no ambition to pass the reconciliation bill and are likely to water down or kill it within the Senate.
Mr. Manchin says such tactics amount to political gamesmanship and unwillingness to reconcile ideology with reality.
“While I have worked hard to find a path to compromise, it is obvious compromise is not good enough for some in Congress,” he said.
“It’s all or nothing, and their position doesn’t seem to change unless we agree to everything. Enough is enough.”
The intransigence of progressives was evidenced last week when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced to postpone for the second time a vote on the infrastructure package. Far-left Democrats said that it would be improper to pass the infrastructure bill, without the reconciliation package.
Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, is eyeing holding a vote on both bills, but the odds remain long that progressives will compromise.
• Haris Alic can be reached at halic@washingtontimes.com.
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