Joe Manchin: Pseudo-Democrat

Paul Krugman nails pseudo-Democrat Joe Manchin:

    

....Manchin asserted that the Congressional Budget Office determined that the cost of the bill is “upwards of $4.5 trillion.” No, it didn’t. That was a Republican-demanded estimate of outlays — not the considerably smaller impact on the deficit — under the assumption that everything in the legislation would be made permanent, which isn’t what the bill says. 

And if Congress did vote to extend programs like the child tax credit, it would probably also vote for revenue offsets. The budget office analysis of the legislation as actually written — which found it roughly deficit-neutral — is a much better guide to its likely fiscal impact than this rigged hypothetical.

As for Manchin’s claim that we have a “staggering” national debt, maybe it’s worth noting that federal interest payments as a percentage of G.D.P. are only half what they were under Ronald Reagan, and that if you adjust for inflation — as you should — they’re basically zero.

What about inflation? The proposed spending in Build Back Better is spread over multiple years, so it wouldn’t do a lot to raise overall demand in the near term — the first-year addition to the deficit would be just 0.6 percent of G.D.P., which isn’t enough to make much difference to inflation in any model I know. 

Besides, the Federal Reserve has just made it clear that it’s ready to raise interest rates if inflation doesn’t subside, so government spending should matter even less.

....I’ll leave it to others to speculate about his personal motives. What I can say is that the letter he released to explain why he said what he said on Fox News doesn’t read like a carefully worked-out policy statement; it doesn’t even read like a coherent ideological manifesto. Indeed, it feels rushed — a grab bag of Republican talking points hastily trotted out in an attempt to justify his abrupt betrayal and to portray himself as a victim.

America — not a senator who’s taking heat for a broken promise — is the victim in this story.

Rob's comment:

Odd how whoever edits the online version of Krugman's column waters down the hed. This morning's hard copy: Behind a 'No,' Manchin's Role Backing Coal versus the wordy online hed that doesn't mention coal: Behind Manchin’s Opposition, a Long History of Fighting Climate Measures.