BY STEPHEN GREEN | PJ MEDIA
Earlier this week I reported to you that Dems are
desperate to get this bill passed, so much so that they were willing to back
down a bit on their treasured tax hikes — because of Manchin’s opposition.
On Wednesday, Biden brought Manchin to the Oval Office for a little
presidential arm-twisting.
According to Axios, the meeting did not go well… for
Biden.
Hans Nichols reports that Biden “failed to persuade”
Manchin to vote for his spending orgy.
Defying
a president from his own party — face-to-face — is the strongest indication yet
Manchin is serious about cutting specific programs and limiting the price tag
of any potential bill to $1.5 trillion.
Please note that neither the $1.2 trillion compromise
infrastructure bill nor the $3.5 trillion progressive-preferred infrastructure
bill spends more than about $100 billion on actual infrastructure. The rest is
little more than a very long and expensive Democratic wishlist, although maybe
“little more than” is the wrong phrase to use concerning two very expensive
bills.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Axios noted that
“Biden’s analysis did little to persuade Manchin.” Rather, I should mention how
much that line made me laugh.
Biden doesn’t provide analysis and never has — even when
he enjoyed, as it were, full use of his faculties. Biden shouts, hectors,
bullies, and demagogues.
Biden met separately with that other holdout, Senator
Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who called the meeting “productive” but who might
prove even harder to budge than Manchin.
Mike DeBonis reported in Thursday’s Washington
Post that “some Democrats quietly fear her objections could be even
more nettlesome.”
Her
voting record also provides warnings. Notably, with Democrats eyeing $2
trillion or more in tax increases to offset their spending plans, Sinema has
publicly allied with Republicans on several tax bills. As a House member, she
was one of seven Democrats to support a GOP bill eliminating the federal estate
tax in 2015 and was one of only three Democrats who, in 2018, voted to
permanently extend individual tax cuts passed by Republicans the year prior.
Democrats can’t afford a single defection, even to pass
this tax and spending bomb through reconciliation. So far, there are two
holdout and it’s going to be very difficult to bribe them when their primary
objection is the size of the thing.
For Biden, this is an embarrassing place to be, assuming
he’s cognizant enough to feel embarrassment. His “give everything to everybody
forever” mock-infrastructure bill is the biggest single welfare state giveaway
in history, and would propel him up past LBJ and near FDR in the Democratic
pantheon.
And as I reported for our VIPs back in May, that’s
the explicit goal of the power behind Biden’s throne,
White House Chief of Staff “President” Ron Klain.
Biden generates no fear among party moderates (if that’s
the word) like Manchin and Sinema, and if he fails with this $3.5 trillion
monster, he’ll lose whatever love he still has with his party’s power-mad
progressives.
Thank goodness.
