Rep. Cori Bush attacked fellow Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin for opposing the Biden administration’s massively expensive budget deal.
“Senator Manchin must support the Build Back Better Act,” the Missouri Squad member tweeted on Monday. “I do not trust his assessment of what our communities need the most.”
Manchin said he couldn’t endorse the $1.75 trillion spending plan until it’s clear how the bills’ passage will affect the national deficit and already skyrocketing inflation.
“Simply put, I will not support a bill that is this consequential without thoroughly understanding the impact that it’ll have on our national debt, our economy, and most importantly all of our American people,” Manchin commented on Monday.
“Joe Manchin’s opposition to the Build Back Better Act is anti-Black, anti-child, anti-woman, and anti-immigrant. When we talk about transformative change, we are talking about a bill that will benefit Black, brown and Indigenous communities,” Bush lashed out later in the day.
“Those same communities are overwhelmingly excluded from the bipartisan infrastructure bill. We cannot leave anyone behind,” she continued. “Senator Manchin must support the Build Back Better Act.”
And without his support, the spending plan won’t pass. The Democrats have 50 votes in the Senate, and Manchin’s is required for the measure to succeed. His party is currently keeping the bipartisan infrastructure bill he negotiated captive, until they’re sure the Build Back Better plan will get enough support to pass.
“Holding this bill hostage is not going to work in getting my support for the reconciliation bill,” Manchin said of the coordinated Democratic effort. “This is not how the United States Congress should operate or in my view has operated in the past, the political games have to stop.”
Despite his remarks, White House press secretary Jen Psaki thinks Manchin can be won over.
“Experts agree: Seventeen Nobel Prize-winning economists have said it will reduce inflation,” she stated in response to the West Virginia senator’s remarks. “As a result, we remain confident that the plan will gain Sen. Manchin’s support.”
