Friendly fire Joe Biden's economic plan sinks in the US Senate
Joe Biden Summit: "Democracy does not happen by chance"
25% of West Virginia people over 65 need false teeth
.
But Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who represents that state in Washington, opposes the public-private health system Medicare including dental care among its benefits.
First, Manchin demanded that this measure be withdrawn from the
Build Back Better
plan
(BBB or, in Spanish, Volver a Construir Mejor), the health care, social services, and fight against climate change bill that Joe Biden wanted it to be. his political legacy. And, on Sunday, Manchin announced that it doesn't matter what the White House removes or puts on the BBB.
"I can't support it," Manchin told
pro-Trump television Fox News. The Democratic majority in the Senate is so tight that it was enough for a single senator from that party to refuse to endorse the BBB for it to no longer have a chance of surviving a vote.
For eleven months,
Biden had circumvented that minimum majority to launch his stimulus plan against Covid-19
, obtain the approval of his gigantic infrastructure plan, and obtain the ratification of dozens of left-wing judges, in order to compensate for Trump's policy in his four years placing right-wing judges (in the US, the separation of powers has a very
sui generis
sense
).
The Democrats were getting it all. Up to now. His worst enemy has not been a Republican, but one of his own: Joe Manchin.
And Manchin's "accomplice" is also a Democrat: Senator Kyrsten Sinema
, from Arizona, who once flagged her progressivism and sexual freedom - she is bisexual - but who, since she is in the Senate, has
not. has stopped moving to the right
.
In the end, no one knows the reason for Manchin's "no". Even those close to the senator acknowledge that it is a matter of ego.
Of Manchin feeling that the White House did not respect him enough
. Perhaps the foci of being the center of power in Washington cause some temporary blindness when representing West Virginia, a state that is the subject of cruel jokes throughout the United States because of the poverty and poor education of its inhabitants,
and that has never been able to exercise any power in the capital of the country
.
That is why Manchin's "no" may be "yes" tomorrow. In the event that party leaders tighten the bolts and threaten to render you irrelevant, you could back down.
It is a political ballet that, more than ideology, is danced to a music of power for power
. Yesterday, in fact, the senator himself began to back down, albeit timidly, and to suggest that perhaps he could endorse the BBB, provided that it once again took his demands into account,
That Manchin,
who represents the second poorest state in the United States
, can torpedo without any problem among his voters a proposal from his own party aimed precisely at helping the lower-income population reveals that the paths of power are inscrutable. People vote for identity issues. Race, sexual orientation, gender, and even accent - working class, southern, western, Appalachian, college, Northeast -
is what decides voter preference. West Virginia is poor, mining.
So Manchin voters oppose the Welfare State that most of them live on.
It can be argued
that there were more practical reasons in the senator's opposition, because West Virginia lives off coal
, and part of the BBB was going to the energy transition. But that idea has as a counterweight that the senator himself had already been in charge of liquidating the provisions of the bill that would affect that mining in his state. In any case, coal in the US is disappearing,
but not because of "econazis", as critics call ecologists, but because natural gas is cheaper
. With coal, Manchin could also have a conflict of interest, since both he and his family are millionaires thanks to their investments in that sector.
Manchin's decision to break the deck, after six months of direct negotiations with Joe Biden himself,
who had even invited him to his home in Delaware in October
, has driven a brutal rift in the Democratic Party. Biden, who has tried his best to keep that formation together, tried to convince the senator not to give the plan the coup de grace on Sunday. Manchin refused to get on the phone.
The White House has reacted furiously, accusing the senator of "breaking his commitments
. "
The Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, who has seen how his authority received a perhaps irreversible blow by the insurrection of the West Virginia senator, has decided that the BBB will be voted, also, in January.
If your idea is to publicly embarrass Manchin, it doesn't seem like he cares much
.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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