Democratic Senator Joe Manchin penned a devastating op-ed in the Wall Street Journal dismantling Democratic arguments for the necessity of Bernie Sanders’ $3.5 trillion partisan wishlist.
Senator Joe Manchin: Why I Won’t Support Spending Another $3.5 Trillion
Manchin thinks it’s irresponsible to spend so much during a period of high inflation, and will further undermine the American economy: “Inflation continues to rise and is bleeding the value of Americans’ wages and income… While my fellow Democrats will disagree, I believe that spending trillions more dollars not only ignores present economic reality, but makes it certain that America will be fiscally weakened when it faces a future recession or national emergency.”
Manchin is critical of Democrats’ lack of transparency and the mad rush to pass a bill without proper vetting: “I, for one, won’t support a $3.5 trillion bill, or anywhere near that level of additional spending, without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on existing government programs… Establishing an artificial $3.5 trillion spending number and then reverse-engineering the partisan social priorities that should be funded isn’t how you make good policy.”
Worst of all, Manchin hasn’t even heard a coherent argument for why Democrats are hell-bent on ramming through this bloated spending bill: “I have always said if I can’t explain it, I can’t vote for it, and I can’t explain why my Democratic colleagues are rushing to spend $3.5 trillion.”
Manchin isn’t the only Democratic Senator to say there’s no way he would support such a massive spending bill: Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema also recently reiterated she is a hard no on the Bernie Sanders-authored plan.
Since Senator Manchin doesn’t even know WHY Democrats are rushing to pump trillions into bloated government spending programs, shouldn’t vulnerable Democrats like Maggie Hassan, Catherine Cortez Masto, Raphael Warnock, and Mark Kelly tell us their rationale for rushing ahead with this reckless spending?