Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) feels vindicated by Wednesday’s historically high inflation numbers and is prepared to delay implementation of President Joe Biden’s remaining Build Back Better agenda until 2022, according to a report in Axios.
Earlier this month, Manchin said in a statement, “I, for one, also won’t support a multitrillion-dollar bill without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on our economy and existing government programs.”
On Wednesday, after it was revealed that America is experiencing the highest inflation in three decades, he re-iterated those sentiments.
“By all accounts, the threat posed by record inflation to the American people is not ‘transitory’ and is instead getting worse,” he said. “From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know the inflation tax is real and D.C. can no longer ignore the economic pain Americans feel every day.”
The Washington Post explains: “His comments signaled a concern that more government spending could exacerbate inflation, alarming some Democrats that he would pull back from supporting the $1.75 trillion social safety net and climate package that is currently pending in Congress.”
Axios adds: “Manchin, like a group of House moderates, also wants to see a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the true cost of each of Biden’s proposed programs, as well as the tax proposals to fund them.”
At an appearance in Baltimore on Wednesday, Biden acknowledged that inflation is “worrisome, even though wages are going up.”
In a separate statement, he insisted:
Going forward, it is important that Congress pass my Build Back Better plan, which is fully paid for and does not add to the debt, and will get more Americans working by reducing the cost of child care and elder care, and help directly lower costs for American families by providing more affordable health coverage and prescription drugs—alongside cutting taxes for 50 million Americans including for most families with children. 17 Nobel Prize winners in economics have said that my plan will “ease inflationary pressures.”
