Joe Manchin Was All Talk

P er William Shakespeare, “that which we call a rose/by any other name would smell as sweet.” And so it is with acts of our federal government. Having struggled for a year and a half to pass a law named “Build Back Better” — and having shrewdly declined to offer the public a package titled “The Climate Change and Health Care Act” — the Democratic Party eventually hit upon a neat idea: It emblazoned the anvil with a new title. And, lo and behold, that did the trick.

Inadvertently summing up the ruse, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that “Senate Democrats united behind the Inflation Reduction Act to address healthcare, taxes and climate change and to let Medicare negotiate drug prices.” Similar headlines were on offer in the New York Times (“Chuck Schumer Delivers on Climate Change and Health Care Deal”), the Washington Post  (“After passage of climate bill, long road awaits”), and the Guardian (“Senate passes $739bn healthcare and climate bill after months of wrangling”). One looks forward to next year’s ploys: the Good Things Act, the Happy Act, and the Sunshine and Puppies Act.

The Democrats know that their bill has nothing to do with inflation; they just don’t care. And why would they, when sleight of hand has worked so well for them of late? In March of last year, the party insisted that its “American Rescue Plan” was a vital and timely Covid-mitigation measure right up until the moment it was signed into law, at which point all mentions of Covid-19 were expeditiously dropped and the package was instantly recast as what it had been all along: the gigantic, inflationary, pork-laden, social-spending bill that Democrats had coveted for a decade.

On the Post’s cheerleading op-ed page, progressive-bellwether columnist E. J. Dionne is no longer trying to hide the ball. Taking a victory lap that never mentions the word “inflation,” Dionne rejoices in the news that:

On a straight partisan vote, Democrats approved the largest investment in history to fight climate change married to first steps toward controlling prescription drug costs and helping Americans buy health insurance.

The bill also raised corporate taxes and increased tax enforcement to begin what should be a sustained effort to reform the tax code by way of bringing revenue closer to long-term alignment with spending.

Demonstrating that he still possesses a little of the curmudgeonly spirit for which he has become so famous, Senator Bernie Sanders couldn’t help but point out during debate on the measure that the party with which he caucuses has been flatly lying about its work. On the floor of the Senate, Sanders mocked the “so-called Inflation Reduction Act” for being a cynical misnomer: “According to the CBO and other economic organizations that study this bill,” Sanders said, “it will, in fact, have a minimal impact on inflation.”

Sanders voted for the bill anyway — which is comprehensible, given that his primary objection was that it didn’t go far enough. But what was Joe Manchin’s excuse? Just three weeks ago, Manchin outlined his priorities: “Inflation, inflation, inflation. Gas prices, gas prices, gas prices. Food prices, food prices, food prices. And energy [prices].” Expanding on this, Manchin explained that, “For more than a year, leaders in Washington have ignored the serious concerns raised by myself and others about the rising cost of inflation,” and submitted that it was “past time we put our country first and end this inflation crisis.” A week later, with no improvement in the economic conditions about which he was so worried, Manchin signed on to a bill that did absolutely none of those things, that was loaded up with transparent accounting tricks, and that, because its spending is front-loaded and its supposed deficit-reduction measures are delayed, is likely to make inflation even worse.

There are two plausible explanations for this conduct. The first is that Joe Manchin is so chronically gullible that he was hornswoggled into supporting a bill he had insisted he opposed by Chuck Schumer’s last-gasp decision to change its name. (“The ‘Inflation Reduction Act’! Who could be against that?”) The second is that Joe Manchin is a fraud. I suspect the latter is the case. On inflation, on spending, and on the Senate’s preference for budgetary gimmicks, Manchin talks a good game, but, when push comes to shove, he doesn’t seem to follow through. Pull away the rhetoric and the affect, and one uncovers a man whose role within the 117th Congress has been to enable passage of the American Rescue Plan — the $2 trillion 2021 extravaganza that supercharged inflation in the first instance — and then to enable passage of a cynical, artifice-filled follow-up that only pretends to ameliorate the problem he helped create. When asked, Manchin likes to say that he won’t vote for anything he can’t explain to voters “back home.”

He’s got a lot of explaining to do now.