Manchin won’t support $3.5T reconciliation package; Sanders calls that ‘not acceptable’
amid packed September negotiations.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., “will not have my vote on the 3.5,” Manchin said during a Sunday interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Manchin confirmed he is a “hard no” on supporting the package during an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
While he declined to outline his upper limit for potential spending, the senator said, “it’s not going to be at three and a half, I can assure you” told CNN.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called Manchin’s position unacceptable, arguing that many progressives and the White House had already compromised on provisions seen as priorities.
Manchin in op-ed says Democrats should ‘pause’ on their $3.5 trillion budget plan, citing concerns over inflationdeal focused on infrastructure projects, which Democrats reached with some Republican support in early August.
The separate $3.5 trillion spending package focuses on social spending programs like universal Pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, expanded federal health care benefits, a universal child tax credit; climate change policies and greater investments in K-12 and higher education.
Pelosi set Sept. 27 deadline; Manchin is skeptical
Manchin further added that there was “no way” that lawmakers could broker a deal on the reconciliation package by Sept. 27, a deadline House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., set for the lower chamber to vote on the separate bipartisan infrastructure package.
Sanders argued “agreements had been made” about the process by which Democrats would pass both a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a larger social spending package, which Manchin and other moderates were now reneging on.
“We want a physical infrastructure, we have to rebuild our roads and our bridges … human infrastructure is more important,” Sanders argued. “We have got to do that in this unprecedented moment in American history, two bills go together.”
Divergent politics in a search for compromise
Manchin and Sanders, who in many ways represent the ideological poles of the Democratic Party, have papered over their ideological differences for the sake of Biden’s agenda in multiple cases this year.
In a September op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Manchin wrote that he could not support the reconciliation package, citing concerns over the federal government’s debt and rising inflation.
Sanders remained confident, however, the party would still pass both the bipartisan infrastructure package and Democrats’ reconciliation bill.
“I think we’re gonna work it out, but it would really be a terrible, terrible shame for the American people if both bills went down,” Sanders said on ABC News.
“At the end of the day, I believe we’re going to pass them both,” he told CNN.
Follow Matthew Brown online @mrbrownsir.