Beckley Register-Herald – In true populist form, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has said on numerous occasions that he will not vote for legislation that he cannot explain to his constituents. Such has been his approach to President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act that our senior senator wants to trim by a couple of trillion dollars. Read the full op-ed.
But Manchin has been hard to pin down on specifics of what he wants to see in the final bill, which is convenient. We understand that it is easier politically to be against spending large sums of money than to be for progressive policy prescriptions, especially representing a conservative state. But now, in a recent story in Axios, our senior senator has said that Democrats must pick one of three major policies in the bill – the expanded child tax credit, paid family medical leave or subsidies for child care – and kill the other two.
That is no way to put your fingerprints on a transformative moment in United States legislative history where Congress has the opportunity to lift millions of families out of poverty and have them contribute significantly to a resurgent economy. Nor, it seems, is the senator paying enough attention to what such a bill could do for those constituents of his back home.
