Senator Joe Manchin said negotiations with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the $739 billion spending bill dragged on for months over concerns the legislation would further stoke inflation rates already high
The moderate West Virginia Democrat, whose opposition to President Biden’s $2 trillion Build Back Better Act sank the measure in December, said he began working with Schumer on the scaled-down package in the spring, part of a process that was occasionally interrupted by rising inflation rates. .
“On this one, we started in April and kept working, and working, and working and coming back. And all of a sudden, inflation went from six, to 8.1, to 9.1 and I said, ‘Hey. Chuck, listen, we’d better wait and see what happens in July, the numbers will come in August before we do anything else,” Manchin told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired Sunday.
“And that’s when Chuck got upset with me, and I get it. And he’s like, ‘Oh, here we go again,’ and whatever. I said, ‘No, Chuck.’ I said, ‘I’m very careful.’ I won’t be responsible for inflaming inflation rates. I just won’t do it,” Manchin said, a crucial vote in the 50-50 Senate.
He said that as tensions cooled, he and Schumer went back to the drawing board to narrow it down further.
Record gas prices seen across the country in 2022. Win McNamee/Getty Images Food prices have soared in recent months. Corbis via Getty Images
“But the bottom line was that we narrowed it down and cleaned it up to 739. There’s nothing inflammatory about this bill,” Manchin said.
Manchin, who revealed that Biden was excluded from talks on the spending measure, announced the deal on the Lower Inflation Act with Schumer last Wednesday after the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by a 0.75% in an effort to cool inflation.
The next day, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy contracted 0.9% in the second quarter after falling 1.6% in the first quarter, meeting criteria for a recession.
Democrats will try to pass the spending plan, which faces intense Republican opposition in the House and Senate, through reconciliation, a legislative tactic that will allow them to bypass the usual 60-vote threshold to pass legislation.
With Manchin on board, all eyes have turned to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to see if she will cast the 50th vote, allowing Vice President Kamala Harris to break the tie.
Sinema, which has opposed parts of Biden’s domestic agenda, has yet to comment on the legislation.
Asked if Sinema will vote yes, Manchin said the Arizona lawmaker was “a friend of mine” and said the provisions he was looking for are included in the bill.
“She has tremendous, tremendous input into this bill. These are things that everybody has been working on for the last eight months or more. And she basically insisted that there be no tax increases. We’ve done that. It was very, very adamant on that, and I support her and I agree with her,” Manchin said.
“He was also very important in making sure that we had drug prices that Medicare could compete on certain drugs to bring them down so that there was no impact on individuals, on Medicare everywhere. He’s done all of that,” he said. … “And I would like to think that I would be supportive of that, that I respect her decision. She will make her own decision based on the content.”