Senator Joe Manchin at NETL. July 7, 201. Photo Simon Edelman, Energy Department.
Senator Joe Manchin has said that spending trillions more dollars right now, after spending $5.4 trillion since last March, would be “fiscal insanity.” He’s standing up against pressure from nearly his entire party. Paul Sacca reports in The Blaze:
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia broke from his own party to torch the $3.5 trillion social welfare and climate change spending bill. Manchin proclaimed that the government spending trillions right now would be “fiscal insanity.”
“Every Member of Congress has a solemn duty to vote for what they believe is best for the country and the American people, not their party,” Manchin declared in a statement released Wednesday. “Respectfully, as I have said for months, I can’t support $3.5 trillion more in spending when we have already spent $5.4 trillion since last March. At some point, all of us, regardless of party must ask the simple question — ‘how much is enough?'”
“What I have made clear to the President and Democratic leaders is that spending trillions more on new and expanded government programs, when we can’t even pay for the essential social programs, like Social Security and Medicare, is the definition of fiscal insanity,” Manchin continued.
“Proposing a historic expansion of social programs while ignoring the fact we are not in a recession and that millions of jobs remain open will only feed a dysfunction that could weaken our economic recovery,” Manchin said. “This is the shared reality we all now face, and it is this reality that must shape the future decisions that we, as elected leaders, must make.”
Manchin proposed that “any expansion of social programs must be targeted to those in need, not expanded beyond what is fiscally possible.” He also recommended that the tax code “be reformed to fix the flaws of the 2017 tax bill and ensure everyone pays their fair share but it should not weaken our global competitiveness or the ability of millions of small businesses to compete with the Amazons of the world.”
The Democrat suggested, “The amount we spend now must be balanced with what we need and can afford — not designed to reengineer the social and economic fabric of this nation or vengefully tax for the sake of wishful spending.”
Manchin sounded the alarm that spending trillions would cause even more inflation that would hurt American families.
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