October data released this week showed inflation reaching a three-decade high, with prices on energy, food, cars, and more skyrocketing. While President Biden acknowledged “inflation hurts Americans’ pocketbooks,” he nevertheless doubled down on wanting Congress to pass his Build Back Better agenda.
But Sen. Joe Manchin, a key Democratic vote, signaled his party may not get the quick passage they’re hoping for on the $1.75 trillion spending package.
“By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not ‘transitory’ and is instead getting worse,” he tweeted. “From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day.”
By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not “transitory” and is instead getting worse. From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day.
— Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) November 10, 2021
According to Axios, the inflation data “validates the instinct of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to punt President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda until next year—potentially killing a quick deal” on the reconciliation bill.
The data released Wednesday set the president and White House staff scrambling. Slowing down work on the massive tax-and-spending plan is against the fervent desire of the administration and House progressives.
- With a limited number of legislative days left in the year, Manchin is content to focus on the issues that need to be addressed, Axios is told.
- They include funding the government, raising the debt ceiling and passing the National Defense Authorization Act.
- Manchin, like a group of House moderates, also wants to see a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the true cost of each of Biden’s proposed programs, as well as the tax proposals to fund them.
The big picture: Progressives have long worried that after centrists got their $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, they'd find excuses not to move on the budget reconciliation package. (Axios)
Manchin’s statement Wednesday is not the first time he’s sounded the alarm about inflation.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal in early September, Manchin said Democrats wanted to pass the massive spending bill “with no regard to rising inflation, crippling debt or the inevitability of future crises. Ignoring the fiscal consequences of our policy choices will create a disastrous future for the next generation of Americans.”
Rather than rushing to pass the legislation, Congress ought to “hit a strategic pause on the budget-reconciliation legislation,” he said.
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