Jennifer Rubin - Manchin to kids in poverty: Let them eat cake

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:
Jennifer 'pro-voting' Rubin
@JRubinBlogger
the senator’s take on poor children and their struggling parents is appalling — even more appalling than misleading his colleagues and the White House about his support for the bill

Opinion | Manchin to kids in poverty: Let them eat cake
Manchin may not care about poor children, but he might not like getting blamed for an economic slump.
washingtonpost.com
7:27 AM · Dec 21, 2021

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/21/manchin-kids-poverty-let-them-eat-cake/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/k9udO

As hard as it is to believe, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III reportedly blew up negotiations for the Build Back Better bill not over provisions to address climate change or tax proposals affecting wealthy Americans, but over the child tax credit that has lifted millions of children out of poverty. That makes even less sense considering Manchin’s home state of West Virginia is among the poorest states in the country.

The West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy reports: “Congress temporarily increased the Child Tax Credit (CTC) for more than 65 million children nationally, including 346,000 in West Virginia where it reaches 93 percent of children.” Reducing or eliminating it would amount to driving “50,000 of the lowest income children in the state below the poverty line or deeper into poverty.” (Manchin’s state ranks 47th in food security.)

Nevertheless, The Post reports: “Sen. Joe Manchin III last week made the White House a concrete counteroffer for its spending bill, saying he would accept a $1.8 trillion package that included universal prekindergarten for 10 years, an expansion of Obamacare and hundreds of billions of dollars to combat climate change. . . . But the West Virginia Democrat’s counteroffer excluded an extension of the expanded child tax credit the administration has seen as a cornerstone of President Biden’s economic legacy.”

Manchin was also apparently afraid that poor parents would use the money for illegal drugs, and HuffPost reported that “Manchin has also told colleagues he believes that Americans would fraudulently use the proposed paid sick leave policy, specifically saying people would feign being sick and go on hunting trips.” It’s rare for a politician to express such contempt for his own constituents, let alone poor children.

*snip*

[Buns_of_Fire]

1. They'd just piss it away on yachts and Maseratis.

Once upon a time, there was such a thing as "noblesse oblige". All the billionaire inbreeding seems to have bred it out.

[Poiuyt]

6. I'm sure there are some billionaires who feel a sense of obligation to help

but most want to keep amassing their fortunes.

[GemDigger]

2. This man is so far removed from the real world that he will never help the poor.

He lives in a tiny little bubble with people who have too much money to think properly and with compassion.

[Hortensis]

3. In WV the child tax credit "reaches 93 percent of children." Or has.

Economic fallout's going to be extremely quick in WV all right as those tax credit checks just stop.

And with it political fallout on Manchin, hopefully bigger than he imagined. The WV families of those 93% of children are also unlikely to be pleased with his contempt for them.

As for his colleagues, from Rubin's column yesterday:

No Christmas cheer for Joe Manchin. What did he expect?

Maybe Manchin, who has been treated with kid gloves by his former Senate colleague in the Oval Office, did not imagine the White House would release a blow-by-blow account of the negotiations, going so far as to mention Manchin had put his recent proposal in writing.

And perhaps Manchin expected moderates in the House and Senate to ride to his defense. Instead, prominent moderates, including Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), expressed shock and dismay. After all, Democratic moderates had gone out on a limb to accommodate Manchin’s demands, allowing him to practically write the energy provisions of the bill. He then made them look like fools, offering up Republican talking points to criticize them as fiscally irresponsible.

Nancy Pelosi ... Schumer... The Senate will vote in January on a “revised version of the House-passed Build Back Better Act — and we will keep voting on it until we get something done.” Voting rights... filibuster...

Manchin’s colleagues will be sure to bring up with him Goldman Sachs’s announcement that BBB’s failure would have “negative growth implications.” As Barron’s reported, “The bank’s economists now expect gross domestic product growth to be 2% in the first quarter of 2022, down from a previous forecast of 3%. In the second quarter they see 3% growth, down from 3.5%, and their third-quarter forecast was lowered to 2.75% from 3%.”

[CentralMass]

4. K&R

[Celerity]

5. K & R

[Hekate]

7. "It's rare for a politician to express such contempt for his own constituents" Exactly what I said...

The guy is disgusting, if for that alone.