Manchin is already backpeddling. If Pelosi follows through on reinstating earmarks, we could go back to old school politics. Manchin might want some pork for West Virginia in exchange for stimulus checks.
why would you need 11? wouldn't you just need a simple majority? or is it because of a fillibuster? if that's the case you have the house, the senate, the presidency, the past presidency wanting and still nadda lol
Reinstating earmarks would be a huge step forward in terms of lubricating the wheels of our government. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the experiment of eliminating horse trading in Congress turned out to be a huge mistake. We need tit-for-tat to get things done. Otherwise all the machinery seizes up and we suffocate. Pork is a necessary evil.
Joe Manchin is really going to get his rocks off as the Susan Collins to be the swing vote with all the attention. Make DC a state and tell him to go join the Trumplicans. .
You're going to simultaneously call Manchin a Trumplican but also need him to vote for DC Statehood? Come on man... Manchin is definitely to the right of the Democratic Caucus but there's an ocean that separates him from even the most liberal member of the Republican Caucus.
Make DC a state first (which is the right thing to do) and then you don't need to let Joe Manchin limit what Biden and the Dems can do. Until then you can always have Manchin threaten to switch parties if you don't kiss his ass enough. Or would the corporate Dems be happy to use Manchin as an excuse to not to do much that their donors aren't interested in? Like they did when McConnel was the Senate Majority leader.
Interesting to see Manchin appeal to FDR. Sort of like when McConnel recently called the $2,000 socialism for the rich. Reminds me of when racists love to selectively quote from Martin Luther King or the comfortably well off selectively quote from the Bible to justify tax cuts and social spending cuts for the poor.
I fully support an infrastructure bill because we sorely needed in this country. With that in mind, infrastructure projects do not happen over night, so you can't just put people to work immediately, especially since money has to be distributed to the states and then the states has to distribute to the local jurisdictions. It's a long dragged out process that will take time to execute. The idea is great, but some help is needed now. I hope someone tells that to Joe.
I think he's being honest to who his constituents are. He has a vested interest in a jobs program because there are parts of West Virginia that simply don'tt have any. Southern West Virginia is starting to look like a third world country in some parts with the collapse of coal mining. There's a longer term crisis there as each recession wipes out more jobs that never come back. The massive increase in drug addiction paired with a massive population decline is ruining his state. I suspect the Democratic caucus will come to an agreement on something. Maybe the income formula/phaseout requirements need to be a little more nuanced but his larger argument isn't totally unreasonable. No it isn't a quick solution (which is why you still need a cash stimulus) but he's really looking for a longer term answer because his state has been in a crisis long before Covid hit. And if we're really only going to get one reconciliation bill a year, he definitely has to find a way to get his priorities into that bill.
I don't disagree with his approach and I'm glad he's already bringing up an infrastructure bill. I'm just saying that for an infrastructure bill, in order to get people to work, it's not going to be a fast tracked approach. It takes time to get infrastructure jobs going, even for projects that have been shelved until funding becomes available. Even funds for maintenance are not going to happen overnight. It's a long drawn out bureaucratic process to hand out funds for any sort of infrastructure and considering that help is needed immediately, not just 6 months to 1 year from now. This is really a long term solution, not a short term solution. For now, the focus should be on helping people immediately. I wish there was a way to specifically reach those that actually need help and not just hand out checks across the board, but when individuals need help, the government is simply not efficient enough to get such a task done, so it's best just to give everybody a check.
He doesn't have to until 2024. He may have been sincere if he said that, but politicians have changed their minds before. I think he realized that he stepped in it when he made his original statement about the stimulus checks. His state is one of the poorest in the country, and I'm sure he got a lot of blow back because of it. - As for an infrastructure bill, bring it on. The country desperately needs massive improvements to our infrastructure. An enormous number of dams, bridges, highways, waterways, mass transit . . . you name it, large amounts of those things and plenty others I didn't mention need rebuilding or replacing. Texas is loaded with infrastructure that desperately needs work. Those are also good paying jobs. It's a win-win, as far as I'm concerned. Heck, it would also produce tax revenue. They are also jobs that, more often than not, don't require a 4 year degree from an institute of higher learning.
I agree but he better get behind the immediate agenda which is to get Trump out via any legal means necessary. I'm just so tired of these flip-flopping politicians that want to state how honorable things should be when they leave office but are doing nothing to bring that to fruition.
Yeah, posturing w/o pork is Dark Money territory. Bit sad, but bacon needs to be brought home. Maybe then we can pass a law to fix Citizens United? Worry about scrotus fallout later...
This is Manchin's chance to make a real difference, instead of thumping his chest as he declares just how conservative a Democrat he is. We have 2 years, actually less, to accomplish a great deal. What we don't need is a lot of political posturing, although we'll get it anyway, and from far more pols than simply Senator Manchin. That should be paramount. I wonder if it's possible.
