C&B Break Down a Wild Day on Capitol Hill
30 Sep 2021
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CLAY: In the last hour, Joe Manchin addressed a huge scrum of media outside of the United States Capitol and effectively submarined the $3.5 trillion Bernie and Biden budget saying he will support no more than 1.5 trillion of that cost, meaning he lopped off, by himself, two trillion from the proposed budget. Why is this significant?
Weโre gonna walk you through it here. But letโs first play a clip of Joe Manchin saying the reason why his vote matters so much is thereโs only 50 senators and 50 votes for this reconciliation budget; and so if heโs not getting what he believes should be in that bill, then heโs not gonna support it. Here is Manchin saying that.
MANCHIN: We only have 50 votes. Basically, take whatever we donโt โ arenโt able to โ come to agreement with today, and take that to on the campaign trail next year, and Iโm sure that theyโll get many more liberal/progressive Democrats with what they say they want.
CLAY: Okay. So that is Joe Manchin just moments ago in the last hour outside of the Capitol. Whatโs gonnaโฆ? Letโs kind of set this in context, Buck. Right now, there is an infrastructure bill that the expectations were it would come before the House on Monday. They have pushed that now to today.
The last I have heard is that they are expecting to bring that bill to the floor of the House. It has already passed the Senate with bipartisan support. Now, the challenge is, the liberal elements โ the most liberal elements โ of the Democratic Party have said they donโt want to vote for these separately because their concern isโฆ
Hereโs Joe Manchin surrounded by media as he says he wonโt support more than $1.5 trillion in the Bernie/Biden budget. pic.twitter.com/qJZMNx9Zvc
โ Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 30, 2021
And I think itโs probably a valid one based on what you just heard Joe Manchin say. As soon as the infrastructure bill passes, there will not, then, be a 3.5 trillion or maybe even a $1.5 trillion bill that they can follow and they can pursue. So weโll see whether or not that comes to the floor or not. The big take-away here is Joe Manchin has lopped off $2 trillion from this expense.
Still a lot of money, but $2 trillion gone, Buck. And now the question is, โIs this going to torpedo the infrastructure bill, potentially the budget at large, and everything is just going to go up in smoke all at once on Joe Bidenโs legislative agenda?โ How would you assess it? Iโm trying to lay it out, โcause I know this is complicated for people out there who havenโt been following this legislative minutia and are a little bit confused as to what might be going on.
BUCK: So Iโm torn on this one, Clay, because on the one hand, thereโs, โOh, look, Democrat infighting. Isnโt this entertaining?โ And, yes, maybe it wonโt be a complete blowout of overspending. But, on the other hand, $1.5 trillion reconciliation package, half a trillion or a trillion dollars on infrastructure?
Whatever it ends up being, these are massive amounts of money. This is in addition to the federal expenditures that are currently, you know, locked into the budget and no one even really questions. Theyโre gonna raise the debt ceiling. The spending is going to continue. Inflationโs going to keep rising.
You have people that are arguing openly now for Modern Monetary Theory, and I mean elected officials, never mind talking head to just want to live in a fantasy world. But also, Iโm reminded of how, for anybody who wonders about things like do we really have to โ I donโt know โ account for every vote?
Are election audits something we really need to pay much attention to? Hat tip my Friend Charles Cook down in Florida. He had some fun numbers here remind everybody, Clay. As weโre looking at the trillions and trillions of dollars that hang in the balance, you have 13,471 votes in Georgia that prevented Purdue from getting to 50% back in November.
Without, remember, one Senate seat, this is not happening. But what, how many voters we talking about in Florida here, really, as well, right? You look at the difference between just one Senate seat in one state, you look at how close some of these races were, and what would be right now a total gridlock situation where thereโd be no additional spending.
Really, thereโd be fighting maybe just over a much more modest infrastructure package. Every vote counts, friends. Every election, every vote, every opportunity to stand in the way ofโฆI think itโs just basically ruinous. Thatโs where you have to see the Democrats for who they are.
Theyโre willing to roll the dice on this stuff because thereโs an emotional belief in a lot of this. Itโs the right thing to do, even if it means thereโs inflation, even if it means the economy staggers and falls. They think this is what is righteous, not necessarily what is sound or sensible.
CLAY: Well, I will say this. A part of me thinks that Joe Manchin is crazy like a fox in trying to blow this whole thing up while pretending that heโs not. Because, as you mentioned in the last hour, heโs also saying that he wants the Hyde Amendment in place. Which, for people out there who have not paid a lot of attention to the Hyde Amendment, it essentially prohibits the use of federal funds, tax dollars, to pay for abortions, right?
I think Iโm synthesizing that in a decent way. And Joe Biden flipped on the Hyde Amendment as a part of his presidential campaign. But I canโt imagine where we are right now with the Mississippi case soon to be in front of the Supreme Court, Buck. I just canโt imagine the Democrats in the House and Senate agreeing to that Hyde Amendment.
BUCK: And the Hyde Amendment point is important for of course whether or not thatโs actually gonna be a stumbling block here. But also I think today is the 45th anniversary of the passage of the Hyde Amendment back in 1976. Hat tip Michael New for this historical background: 107 House Democrats supported the first Hyde Amendment.
โEvery budget proposed by President Obama included the Hyde Amendment, and yet this year all House Democrats decided they would vote for a budget that didnโt include it,โ end quote. Clay, the Democrat Party has moved to absolutism on the issue. It used to be just considered that was a concession they were gonna make. Weโre not gonna actually take your tax dollars and pay for abortion.
The Democrat Party of Joe Biden โ this is a new thing โ is the Democrat Party that rejects the Hyde Amendment. So the fact that Manchinโฆ Oh, theyโre gonna say, โOh, whatโs he doing?โ No, the extremists are the people that want to dramatically change everything and act like they have a mandate when they on donโt.
The radicals are not the people that are saying, โHold on. Letโs look at whatโs really going on.โ Itโs the people that are saying, โShut up. Put 2,200 and whatever pages through, spend trillions of dollars, and break from traditions in the Congress of the past that had been used to cool the temperature down a little bit.โ Those are the radicals. Theyโre Democrats.
CLAY: Well, and this is why in real time Iโm so fascinated to react to this, because, again, the Joe Manchin official statement going public just happened in the last hour. And, Buck, I want to know how it changes the calculus of the infrastructure bill, in addition to the fact that Joe Manchin may have blown up the Bernie-Joe Biden budget, which he certainly has in many ways.
Has he blown up infrastructure? And so is his calculated decision hereโฆ? I mean, is he setting up everything to blow up? โCause, remember, he wrote a Wall Street Journal piece saying we need a strategic pause. Heโs been very focused on inflation, which I think, to his credit he should be.
And now is he trying to basically get it all into 2022? You know, he said, โHey, Iโm sure if this stuff is so popular, they can run on it in 2022.โ He knows. Heโs not an idiot. He knows that theyโre not gonna have the House next year and theyโre not gonna be able to pass this.
BUCK: This was a great moment from his press conference out on the steps of the Capitol, Joe Manchin pointing out โcause this brings it home for people. We keep talking about inflation, 3%, 5%. It was gonna be transitory or transient or whatever. No, itโs actually now longtime and real and rising. Dollar General. Iโm sure a lot of you been there. Iโve been there. Dollar Generalโs got some great stuff. Itโs no longer Dollar General, Joe Manchin points out.
MANCHIN: Iโll give you a perfect example. In West Virginia, I just saw on today on to where the $1, we call general dollar store, Dollar General. Theyโre no longer Dollar General. Theyโre a Dollar and a Quarter, a Dollar and 50 Cent General. Thatโs hard for West Virginians. A lot of people do shop there.
BUCK: There you go. I think that makes it real for people, Clay.
CLAY: Well, unlike Jen Psaki, he seems to understand that when businesses have higher costs, they have to raise prices. Remember earlier this week we played Jen Psaki saying, โIt would be so unjust and inequitable for any business to raise prices.โ Thatโs how inflation works.
When the business has to pay more money for their product, they pass that cost along to consumers, which becomes a default tax increase. And thatโs what many of you are seeing all over this country right now when weโre talking about 5% inflation.
So I think Joe Manchin is right here about the way that he is responding to the Biden budget. And I wonder, Buck, again, one, is he trying to submarine all this, torpedo it? Two, is the antipathy going to become so pronounced against Joe Manchin that he really thinks significantly about changing parties?
BUCK: I donโt think heโs submarining at all. He think he knows heโs in the captainโs chair, my man. Heโs at the helm. I think he figures theyโre gonna have to come toward him and that the more moderate Democrats now have cover among their constituencies and the radical Democrats got their whole, โOh, but we tried so hard. We tried for that 3.5 trillion.โ
But everyoneโsโฆ Clay, theyโre going to spend a mind-blowing amount of money if they pass any of this. And Democrats will just have to accept that and live with it because, alternatively, what is the Biden agenda in the year 2021? What is worked well with Joe Biden and the Democrats in charge?
CLAY: I would sayโฆ I would give credit to Joe Biden potentially for this idea, if I thought he was capable of coming up with it. Is it possible Biden never wanted the three-five? He didnโt want to have a fight with the liberal wing of his base over not wanting the three-five and heโs had a secret handshake agreement with Joe Manchin on exactly how much Joe Manchin will support for months, knowing they needed his vote in order to get through in reconciliation?
And so Joe Biden staying quiet has known about this all along, and heโs letting Joe Manchin take the flak from the left wing of his party, which actually helps Joe Manchinโs chances of reelection in 2024 because he can say, โI stood up to my party.โ
BUCK: And what about Bidenโs interest in all of this? If you get the 3.5 trillion started to go through โ and people say, โOh, but theyโre spending,โ then you get all the people that pretend theyโre wonks and theyโre all just echoing what some nerd from the Washington Post is saying โcause he read it fromโฆ
What will end up happening is that the markets will start to react to the increase in the government spending earlier on, right? Youโll start to see this reflected in what expectations will be at some level it becomes a psychology dictates the market. And what is a real problem for Joe Biden and the Democrats going into the midterms in general?
Gas prices, food prices, inflation.
So theyโre almost saved from their worst spending ideas and influences by going with this middle pathway where they can say to their left wing socialist base, โWe got a lot, but itโs not our fault. We tried.โ Right? So thisโฆ I still feel like this ends up beingโฆ I know probably isnโt. I feel like this ends up being almost a political win for Democrats, assuming they pass the pared-down version.
CLAY: Weโll see.
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