Nancy Pelosi delayed voting on Biden’s radical spending plan for months. Until, suddenly, she forced a vote just before Thanksgiving. Moderate Democrats who vowed to block it caved, voting for the toxic bill that will raises taxes, kill jobs, and destroy entire industries. But the story is far from over.
Pelosi claimed that “90%” of this unpopular, controversial bill was supported by Democrats in both the House and Senate. Apparently, she has been ignoring that major battles going on over this bill in the upper chamber. We all know about how moderates like Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema have opposed this bill. But now it appears that even socialists like Bernie Sanders might jeopardize its future.
Senators from Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the most conservative Democrat in the chamber, to Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, are already on-record opposing various provisions and are preparing to rework the House-passed bill…
Manchin has repeatedly said that he opposes paid family and medical leave’s inclusion in the package, though he has also said he would support a bipartisan bill establishing it in the future…
Sanders, who has long opposed raising the SALT cap, was even blunter. “I think it’s bad politics, it’s bad policy … The bottom line is, we have to help the middle class, not the 1%,” he said. [Source: Daily Caller]
Manchin is largely opposed to entitlement programs created by the bill, especially those which will raise taxes on Americans. But it appears a major sticking point among many senators is the SALT deduction increase, which was strongly supported by Pelosi and House Democrats.
Sanders is opposed to it, because like the good socialist he is, he wants to hammer the wealthy with massive new taxes. Manchin supported the SALT cap in Republicans’ 2017 bill, so it stands to reason he will also oppose this change in Biden’s bill.
With an increase in the SALT deduction, rich Americans living in high tax (blue) states will pay far less in federal taxes. That means, the federal government will have to find somewhere else to pay for its bloated, out-of-control spending bill. Guess where they’ll end up? The middle class.
If Sanders is really a supporter of middle-class families, as he claims, he cannot support this bill. If Manchin is opposed to increase taxes and massive spending, he cannot support this bill.
There are other Senate Democrats who share similar sentiments. If they go ahead and pass this bill, largely in the form Pelosi gave it to them, then they can kiss their reelection chances goodbye. Democrats from swing and red states will have a hard time convincing middle-class folks to vote for them, when they just raised their taxes and took away their jobs.
And that’s not even factoring in the long-term problems we’ve seen from this bill. Pelosi might have strong-armed House Democrats into voting for this toxic bill, but it might be DOA in the Senate.
Author: Sam Peterson
