Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin’s agreement late last month to back the disingenuously named Inflation Reduction Act came as a shock to Republicans and likely to members of his own party as well.
Up until then, the West Virginia senator had been the one vote standing between the Democrats’ passage of needless and expensive climate change legislation and fiscal sanity.
Then, one day in July, a beaming Manchin joined Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to announce his support for a $740 billion bill which, contrary to its title, will do nothing to reduce inflation. It will, however, subsidize green energy programs, raise taxes on the middle class, and dramatically expand the size of the IRS.
In order to secure Manchin’s vote, President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders promised to facilitate the approval of a gas pipeline in West Virginia. This would require passage of legislation that would “overhaul the permitting process for energy infrastructure,” according to The American Prospect, a liberal website.
Apparently, progressives in the House are not keen on supporting a measure that “could undercut the IRA’s down payment on clean energy by accelerating approval for energy projects that could ramp up U.S. fossil fuel production and exports of natural gas,” The American Prospect reported.
He’s done! West Virginians are going to tell him where to put his votes. He is dumber than I thought for doing what he did to his own state and people. They won’t forget come election time.