Sen. Pat Toomey on Sunday criticized Democrats’ plan to force a tax and spending bill through Congress along party lines and contended that Sen. Joe Manchin III was duped by his own party.
The Pennsylvania Republican argued that Democratic leaders’ promises for reforms long sought by the oil and natural gas industry in order to secure Mr. Manchin’s support won’t come to fruition.
“All of this spending is unnecessary; it’s going to exacerbate inflation. It is not going to reduce the deficit. What did Senator Manchin get for this?” Mr. Toomey told CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I like Joe very much, but I think he got taken to the cleaners. He’s agreeing to all this bad policy in return for which he’s been promised there’s going to be some kind of pro-energy infrastructure bill sometime in the future.”
On the same network in a separate interview, Mr. Manchin, West Virginia Democrat, pushed back against such criticism by highlighting energy provisions that he argued Republicans have previously supported.
“They wanted more energy, I want more energy, we’re going to be producing more energy,” Mr. Manchin said. “There’s an agreement that we’re going to be drilling and doing more than we can to bring more energy to the market that reduces prices. They like that.”
The legislation, which Democrats plan to pass along party lines, includes $369 billion for energy and climate, as well as tax increases on the nation’s wealthiest individuals and large corporations. Democrats say it would reduce the deficit by $300 billion in the next decade.
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Critics have pointed to an independent analysis by the Penn-Wharton Budget Model saying the bill will “slightly increase” inflation until 2024 then decrease thereafter and a nonpartisan congressional committee predicting it would raise taxes on Americans across income brackets.
“This is going to do a lot of harm, and there’s not going to be a corresponding benefit,” said Mr. Toomey, who is not seeking reelection.
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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