There He Goes Again (Manchin Edition)

[WHITT]

From a video clip on Meet the Press:

SEN. JOE MANCHIN: To get onto reconciliation, you have to vote to proceed. I have told them I will not vote to proceed until we try.

MIKE ALLEN: Do you believe that you can get ten Republicans on an infrastructure bill?

SEN. JOE MANCHIN: I sure do.

The only way he's going to get 10 Repubs to vote for an infrastructure bill, is if it's full of corporate welfare and imposing the costs on consumers.

The Repub version of infrastructure investment is they throw taxpayer's money at the private sector to build a road, then they charge you a toll every time you go to and from work for the rest of your life. They take YOUR water, then sell it back to you at massive rate increases for the rest of your life. They build a bridge, then charge you a toll for the rest of your life. On, and on, and on.

Manchin could get some Repubs to vote for that, but very few Dems will.

Machin also claims raising the corporate income tax to 28% is "too high". Time to call his bluff. Bring the bill to the floor, and if he's the only Dem to vote against, that's on him. Walk away until he's ready to vote for the damn bill.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. 28% is too LOW, Joe!

Who are you kidding?

[WarGamer]

6. Corporate taxation isn't efficient.

Let's start from the top.

A Corporation is a legal entity taking a business and chopping up it's value and ownership into millions/billions of tiny bits called SHARES.

Who owns shares of stocks?

Billionaires, Millionaires and retired High School Librarians own shares of stock.

What happens when taxation is levied against a Corporation? The Corporation desperately tries to maintain share value for the investors and will raise consumer pricing, reductions in workforce, reduce compensation and offshore parts of the business.

So who pays for increased Corporate Taxation?

Consumers, shareholders and retirees.

So... HOW do we get that cash?

Your next door neighbor the retired cop has a pension system that owns Ford Stock. Do you want to give his pension fund problems?

How about the CEO of Ford, who owns 586,000 shares of Ford? Will he be affected by the Corporate tax? Not really.

So why not get straight to the point and go after the cash where the cash actually IS.

Wealth Tax. Tax the net worth of high net worth individuals including their "unrealized wealth" sitting in brokerage accounts.

Wealthy folks LAUGH at marginal income tax rates. They LAUGH about Corporate taxation.

Send the long arm of the IRS directly into their accounts and listen to how they squeal.

[Phoenix61]

20. Citizens United says they are people.

They don’t get it both ways. If they have to actually pay taxes they won’t have so much money to spend on buying votes.

[WarGamer]

22. A corporation is a legal entity representing millions or billions of "owners".

[Carlitos Brigante]

2. It's that he's this stupid. It's that he thinks the rest of us are. nt

[brush]

3. Is Manchin gaslighting us or is he that maive/stupid?

The man has been in Congress too long to believe ten republicans are going to help Democrats pass a bill that will just about insure millions of good jobs, which will lead to a successful mid-terms for Democrats and a re-election of Biden.

Manchin needs to wake the fuck up, or stop pretending...whichever it is.

[Walleye]

5. The Republicans will make a deal only to go back on it, we know that

They don’t believe in keeping their word

[Walleye]

4. Dammit! The GOP is not going to vote for any of our bills no matter what's in them.

We all know that. Is Manchin deceived or is he lying

[OnDoutside]

10. Of course he knows that he won't even get 1 Red vote. This is just a process, so he can then say

"I tried". That's all.

[Walleye]

11. OK. Senator. I tried to stop it from raining and it didn't work

[OnDoutside]

15. Exactly. He'll let the process play out and then vote to push HR1/HR4 through. He has to in any

case because it would be of huge benefit to himself, whether he goes for re-election or Governor of WV.

[OnDoutside]

17. Actually, this paragraph from the NY Koch piece gives an idea of the pressure he is under

With so little public support, the bill’s opponents have already begun pressuring individual senators. On March 20th, several major conservative groups, including Heritage Action, Tea Party Patriots Action, Freedom Works, and the local and national branches of the Family Research Council, organized a rally in West Virginia to get Senator Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat, to come out against the legislation. They also pushed Manchin to oppose any efforts by Democrats to abolish the Senate’s filibuster rule, a tactical step that the Party would probably need to take in order to pass the bill. “The filibuster is really the only thing standing in the way of progressive far-left policies like H.R. 1, which is Pelosi’s campaign to take over America’s elections,” Noah Weinrich, the press secretary at Heritage Action, declared during a West Virginia radio interview. On Thursday, Manchin issued a statement warning Democrats that forcing the measure through the Senate would “only exacerbate the distrust that millions of Americans harbor against the U.S. government.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-koch-backed-effort-to-block-the-largest-election-reform-bill-in-half-a-century

[Walleye]

18. I know it's hopeless. But he could try to explain it to his constituents instead of caving to pressu

[OnDoutside]

19. But he hasn't caved. He's playing the game of giving Republicans

enough rope, so his republican leaning voters can see that he's tried to be inclusive. I'm confident that he will get there, and as I said previously Manchin stands to gain more than all other Democrats in seeing HR1/HR4 pass into law.

[Walleye]

21. That does make me feel better about the whole thing. I won't lose faith in him yet

[OnDoutside]

23. Whatever about other aspects of the Filibuster, if a Democrat can't

vote for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, then what's the point being a Democrat, even moreso that it helps his own re-election. So yes, I think staying the course on this is the best approach, he will get there.

[Fiendish Thingy]

7. Can't bring the bill to the floor with a filibuster, but Schumer could force a cloture vote

Which would still put Manchin on the spot.

(Schumer could attempt the nuclear option, but that would still require Manchin’s vote, and could waste political capital better saved for the fight for voting rights)

In any case, the bill has yet to be written. Manchin can try and propose a watered down bill for the senate side; he’ll probably get a lot of Republican input, and then they will still vote no.

This bill is too important to just “walk away” from until Manchin gets in line. If he obstructs, he must be punished.

[Walleye]

12. Nobody has proposed an alternative bill. They make a living opposing anything

[WHITT]

16. Check His Quote

He's referring to the reconciliation bill.

[agingdem]

8. and you were sure about that bipartisan gun control thing, too...

only you could do it...oh wait...

[OnDoutside]

9. "until we try." That's fine, do the dance, but he will vote Dem when it comes down to it.

[2naSalit]

13. He needs some comeuppance.

He extorted a job for his wife and still he's being a fuckwad about passing absolutely necessary legislation. He's on Biden's leadership team and still he pulls this shit. He needs to learn that the rest of us are not accepting of his childish bullshit games. This is real fucking life and death for many of us and he's pulling this shit. I think he needs to have a few welcoming committees at some of his haunts to remind him of who is in danger here.

Maybe, if WV had anything to offer, we could boycott the state but...

[dsc]

14. Let him try but frankly I don't see any way 10 GOP senators will vote for a general tax increase

I could see them voting for a gas tax maybe but no way will they vote for a tax on income. And without that, then the deficit peacocks will whine and moan about it not being paid for. To be fair, some Democrats who actually do care about the deficit who will also be upset, but the GOP deficit peacocks have nothing to say that we should take even remotely seriously.