Sunday 19th December 2021
Resistance in their own ranks
Democrat Manchin torpedoed Biden’s trillion package
For months, Joe Biden has been trying to convince the Democrats in the US Senate of his trillion dollar social and climate package. But a party colleague takes a stand – a nasty surprise for the US president a year before the congressional elections.
One of US President Joe Biden’s core domestic political projects may be on the verge of collapse. Despite months of persuasion, the Democrat did not succeed in getting all party colleagues on board in the Senate for his planned trillion-dollar social and climate package. The Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who has long delayed the project, has now announced his no. For Biden and his party, this means a real problem a year before the congressional elections. The White House responded with incomprehension and anger.
Senator Manchin says no to the US president’s social and climate package.
(Photo: picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Manchin told Fox News television that he had always had reservations and could not vote for the project. “I just can’t do it. I’ve tried everything humanly possible.” When asked if his decision was final, the West Virginia state senator replied, “This is a no to this legislation. I’ve tried everything I can.” Biden knows his concerns. There are urgent problems such as Corona and the rising inflation rate that one must now focus on. Shortly afterwards, Manchin published a similar written statement.
Since the Democrats only have a wafer-thin majority in the US Senate and the Republicans reject the package, the President in the Chamber depends on the Senator’s vote. It is unclear whether the project can still be saved – or at least parts of it.
White House angry with “inexplicable U-turn”
The White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki reacted in an unusually sharp tone: Manchin had promised to hold further talks in the coming days and to look for a compromise. Should this mean an end to these efforts, it would be “a sudden and inexplicable about-face and a breach of his obligations to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate”. The White House will continue to press him to see “if he changes his position again to keep his earlier promises and keep his word,” said Psaki. The fight for the package is too important. They will “find a way to continue next year”.
The draft for the legislative package provides, among other things, to reduce the sometimes immense costs of childcare for many families, to relieve families of tax and to expand health services. More than $ 500 billion has been earmarked for the fight against the climate crisis, including investments in renewable energies and tax incentives for the purchase of electric cars.
The House of Representatives passed the package in November with a narrow majority of the Democrats. The approval of the other Congress Chamber, the Senate, is missing. Democrats reacted angrily to Manchin’s announcement. Democratic MP Ayanna Pressley accused him of irresponsibly hindering the president’s agenda. Senator Bernie Sanders told CNN that Manchin would have to explain to the people of West Virginia why he was depriving them of important social improvements.
Serious setback before important elections
It is unusual for a core project of the President to be torpedoed in such a way from within its own ranks. Biden threw all his political weight into the scales in order to get the project through. The social and climate package, as well as the package of major infrastructure investments that has already been agreed, are among the core concerns of his presidency – they should be something like his legacy. The fact that Biden now seems unable to enforce this despite an – albeit wafer-thin – majority in both chambers of Congress, scratches his authority. Before the congressional elections in November 2022, he and his party would need the package as a success, especially since they could lose their majority in both chambers.
In addition, Manchin’s announcement exacerbated internal wing battles and a crisis of confidence within the Democratic Party. Liberal democrats supported the previously agreed infrastructure package on the premise that moderate democrats would also agree to the social and climate protection package.