Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) threw cold water on Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation, yet again. The “swing” vote lawmaker encouraged fellow Democrats to practice a “strategic pause” rather than rush to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars, in a new op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.
“The nation faces an unprecedented array of challenges and will inevitably encounter additional crises in the future. Yet some in Congress have a strange belief there is an infinite supply of money to deal with any current or future crisis, and that spending trillions upon trillions will have no negative consequence for the future. I disagree,” Manchin writes. “An overheating economy has imposed a costly “inflation tax” on every middle- and working-class American. At $28.7 trillion and growing, the nation’s debt has reached record levels. Over the past 18 months, we’ve spent more than $5 trillion responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Now Democratic congressional leaders propose to pass the largest single spending bill in history 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.”
He goes on to encourage true debate on the package, and what Congress should spend money on.
“We must allow for a complete reporting and analysis of the implications a multitrillion-dollar bill will have for this generation and the next. Such a strategic pause will allow every member of Congress to use the transparent committee process to debate: What should we fund, and what can we simply not afford? 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," he continues.
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Both the House and Senate passed framework for the budget proposal. In addition to opposition from Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), no Republicans have supported the Democrats' proposal thus far.
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