Senator Joe Manchin Feels Betrayed by President Biden, Told Ya So Joe

Betrayed by Biden

This railroad bait-and-switch job was easy to predict. I certainly wasn’t the only one confident that Manchin was being played as a sucker.

I wish I was wrong, but Senator Manchin discusses Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Betrayal

America is fast approaching another needless emergency—the raising of the national debt ceiling. This impending crisis isn’t an accident but a result of the inaction of various actors who refuse to confront fiscal reality, sit down, negotiate and make hard decisions for the sake of our nation’s future. While all parties have a responsibility to negotiate in good faith, recent actions make clear to me that the Biden administration is determined to pursue an ideological agenda rather than confront the clear and present danger that debts and deficits pose to our nation.

Our national debt stands at nearly $31.5 trillion, or close to $95,000 for every man, woman and child, and represents 120% of our gross domestic product. Annual budgetary deficits have averaged $2.71 trillion since October 2019. Since Covid-19 began, we have added more than $8 trillion to the national debt. Despite explicit direction from Congress to pay down our debt in the Inflation Reduction Act, the administration seems more determined than ever to pervert that law and abuse existing authorities to increase spending.

When President Biden and I spoke before Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act last summer, we agreed that the bill was designed to pay down our national debt and shore up America’s energy security. It was designed to generate $738 billion in new revenue, with more than $238 billion dedicated to debt reduction, the first serious piece of legislation in more than two decades that the Congressional Budget Office estimated would have done that.

Yet instead of implementing the law as intended, unelected ideologues, bureaucrats and appointees seem determined to violate and subvert the law to advance a partisan agenda that ignores both energy and fiscal security. Specifically, they are ignoring the law’s intent to support and expand fossil energy and are redefining “domestic energy” to increase clean-energy spending to potentially deficit-breaking levels. The administration is attempting at every turn to implement the bill it wanted, not the bill Congress actually passed. Ignoring the debt and deficit implications of these actions as the time nears to raise the debt ceiling isn’t only wrong, it’s policy and political malpractice.

Political Malpractice

Political malpractice? Now that’s a hoot. 

Lies are standard policy, especially from this president who ran as a moderate and a healer but morphed into Elizabeth Warren on steroids.

Meet Gina Raimondo, Social Policy Planner

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is another case in point.  

Please consider Gina Raimondo, Social Policy Planner

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has one heck of a deadpan. Semiconductor companies that want federal funds under the Chips Act are being told to follow mandates from the Biden Administration on everything from child care to union pay for construction workers. Ms. Raimondo is insisting with a straight face that this is only about helping chip makers be successful.

“There is zero ‘social policy’ that we’re trying to achieve here,” she told the Journal in an interview. “We want them to show us a workforce plan, including how they think about child care, not because we have a social agenda but because we know [that] they’re struggling to hire workers.” You’re trying too hard, Madam Secretary.

When the Commerce Department began rolling out the rules in February, news reports noted President Biden’s grand ambitions to subsidize child care. Once it became clear those ideas would fail on Capitol Hill, as the New York Times reported, “Ms. Raimondo gathered aides around a conference table. She told them, she said, that ‘if Congress wasn’t going to do what they should have done, we’re going to do it in implementation’ of the bills that did pass.”

The rules are even framed in a way that puts social policy at the top. “Child care is critical to expanding employment opportunity for economically disadvantaged individuals, including economically disadvantaged women,” reads one of the notices from Ms. Raimondo’s bureaucracy. “The Department requires that any applicant requesting CHIPS Direct Funding over $150 million provide a plan for access to child care for facility and construction workers.”

Told Ya So Joe

Flashback July 22, 2022 MishTalk: Will the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 Do Anything at All?

I suspect Manchin is getting railroaded. The Administration will find a way to restrict oil and gas projects but fast approve what Progressives want.

In general, the best we can hope for is “nothing at all”. 

There’s also a very real possibility there’s some language tucked in this deal that only a couple of lobbyists understand.

Finally, as I have stated before, Congressional legislation has a way of acting opposite to the title and stated intent.

A New Green Deal Trade War Accelerates Between the US and EU

Flash forward to Feb 6, 2023 MishTalk: A New Green Deal Trade War Accelerates Between the US and EU

Tit for Tat (And Now Another Tit)

Perhaps CBAM is the EU’s way of striking back at the US for Biden’s IRA.

More likely, it’s just economic stupidity across the board as noted in Al Gore and John Kerry Aim to Hijack the World Bank for Climate Agenda.

Subsidies, tariffs, sanctions, and trade wars all have a cost. The result will be more inflation, more nationalism, and higher costs for consumers. 

I wish I was wrong about Manchin, but I wasn’t.

This post originated at MishTalk.Com.

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