And so I support Joseph Manchin and a middle road.

[Geoist]

He enjoys 70% approval amongst WVa's 1.9 million people.

It's no wonder that state remains impoverished.

 

[Surrealistik]

The bill has practically been chopped in half to find that middle acceptable to Manchin.

Correction: it's been halved twice.

 

[Bullseye]

Why not break the bill don't and work it through both chambers as several pieces of legislation?

 

[Geoist]

Our country has made great progress in the last hundred years. But Trump and the attempted coup on our country was not a aberration but a result of our two party system and the extremists that control both parties. We need to get back to the center and not allow the reactionaries the chance to destroy our democracy. And so I support Joseph Manchin and a middle road.

I'd like your thoughts on this:

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

This source rates him 53 (with 100 being furthest left). He may be a centrist, but not a rightist.

Arbitrarily (to include Murkowski who beat a Republican with a write-in), here is the center of the Senate:

#44	0.70	Sen. Lee [R-UT]
#45	0.70	Sen. Graham [R-SC]
#46	0.69	Sen. Alexander [R-TN]
#47	0.69	Sen. Sinema [D-AZ]
#48	0.65	Sen. Paul [R-KY]
#49	0.64	Sen. McConnell [R-KY]
#50	0.64	Sen. Jones [D-AL]
#51	0.64	Sen. Portman [R-OH]
#52	0.62	Sen. Burr [R-NC]
#53	0.59	Sen. Manchin [D-WV]
#54	0.56	Sen. Collins [R-ME]
#55	0.56	Sen. Shelby [R-AL]
#56	0.50	Sen. Murkowski [R-AK]

Old man Paul must be so disappointed, by the way.

Burr, Shelby and Murkowski are the only ones in the whole bunch worth a damn.
Maybe Jones, but he will be primaried into dust.
The rest, including Manchin, can take a Terminator leap into the steel as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Individual]

Nonsense. Congress simply uses 'earmarks' so the Senators from each state retain some control over how the money for their state is spent. Then write legislation which is under-funded so each Senator has a pretext to deprive one or another program when the money comes through.

Earmarks are great. They were unjustly maligned by the Tea Party freaks who wanted to cut total spending but wouldn't touch Social Security or the military.

Abolishing the 16th would simply make the poor states (largely in the south) even poorer, and abolishing the 17th is a ludicrous defiance of the lessons of history. It's not even relevant to spending, since state legislatures can LESS be trusted to choose Senators who will represent the interests of the PEOPLE of the state, than the People themselves can.

Not sure what you're responding to.
Social Security, unlike other social spending programs is constrained relevant to the means produced by the incoming revenue stream and previously accumulated surplus.
National defense is solely a Federal responsibility.
Repealing the 16th would not make poor States poorer, and repealing the 17th would make Senators become more representative of their States and their constituents who elect their State governments.

 

[Bullseye]

It's no wonder that state remains impoverished.

And throwing other people's money is going to solve what exactly?

 

[Geoist]

And throwing other people's money is going to solve what exactly?

It's always 'throwing other people's money' when it's programs you cons oppose. Funny how you people never use that rhetoric when it comes to building the wall, funding the military industrial complex, or law enforcement.

 

[Individual]

And throwing other people's money is going to solve what exactly?

Keep the impoverished in place where their vote can be counted on.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

So chop it again until he accepts it. Better yet cross the aisle and get another vote. These people are not behind an iron curtain. The parties are controlling them.

And keep chopping until nothing's left, yes?
Sounds a lot like Richard Mourdock.

“Bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

As I have been arguing the parties divide the middle and rule from the extremes. So no, the middle has not been in power.

You've SAID that a couple of times, but you have yet to actually argue it, thus some folks, like me for instance, have no idea what some of your definitions are, for words like "extreme", just as an example. I don't know if wanting Medicare to have the right to negotiate drug prices sounds extreme to you, or if it's a thing about critical race theory, or climate change. Or it could be alternative energy and labor unions, maybe those issues sound extreme to you.

Since I have not seen your arguments, I don't have a frame of reference. Is there a way to learn more about that?

 

[Geoist]

So chop it again until he accepts it. Better yet cross the aisle and get another vote. These people are not behind an iron curtain. The parties are controlling them.

He voted for the $8 trillion military bill. Curious, did he make any demands to cut the spending on that one? After all, he's sooo very concerned about how the government spending is going to impact inflation.

 

[Integrityrespec]

So chop it again until he accepts it. Better yet cross the aisle and get another vote. These people are not behind an iron curtain. The parties are controlling them.

Are you for people who earn in the top 10% and 20% and down to the top 50% of wage earning households getting the child tax credit? People who earn more than twice the poverty level are in live for the giveaway, on up to tose who earn $150,000.

 

[Bullseye]

Keep the impoverished in place where their vote can be counted on.

Democrat's continual platform.

 

[Geoist]

When Anthony Scaramucci is on the left of Manchin on this issue, is Manchin really in the center?

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

He voted for the $8 trillion military bill. Curious, did he make any demands to cut the spending on that one? After all, he's sooo very concerned about how the government spending is going to impact inflation.

Aye, and whenever fiscal hawks are in a really good mood [sarc] (or drunk) they like to bring in the Unfunded Liabilities Monster, which wants to take away Social Security, labor pensions, anything and everything that is a public good or service, because of the MASSIVE unfunded liabilities, and the UFM also needs money, it loves you, it's all powerful, and it always needs more money, to put away in a lockbox so future generations a century from now or thirty years from now can pay the UF's.
And the UFM promises NO politician will EVER open that lockbox and take all the money out and spend it on something else,[/sarc] when in reality that money is the capital investment in our society and civilization.

Money used today will be spent by people living today.
Money used in the future will be spent by future generations.
Unfunded liabilities are algorithms and formulas, they're not money, but they're a brilliant scheme for misappropriating money.
And Joe Manchin is a master of preaching about unfunded liabilities.

 

[Gateman_Wen]

This source rates him 53 (with 100 being furthest left). He may be a centrist, but not a rightist.

Arbitrarily (to include Murkowski who beat a Republican with a write-in), here is the center of the Senate:

#44	0.70	Sen. Lee [R-UT]
#45	0.70	Sen. Graham [R-SC]
#46	0.69	Sen. Alexander [R-TN]
#47	0.69	Sen. Sinema [D-AZ]
#48	0.65	Sen. Paul [R-KY]
#49	0.64	Sen. McConnell [R-KY]
#50	0.64	Sen. Jones [D-AL]
#51	0.64	Sen. Portman [R-OH]
#52	0.62	Sen. Burr [R-NC]
#53	0.59	Sen. Manchin [D-WV]
#54	0.56	Sen. Collins [R-ME]
#55	0.56	Sen. Shelby [R-AL]
#56	0.50	Sen. Murkowski [R-AK]

Old man Paul must be so disappointed, by the way.

Ive offered my opinion/take on the subject. I actually don't care about charts from organizations I'm not familiar with.

 

[btthegreat]

Our country has made great progress in the last hundred years. But Trump and the attempted coup on our country was not a aberration but a result of our two party system and the extremists that control both parties. We need to get back to the center and not allow the reactionaries the chance to destroy our democracy. And so I support Joseph Manchin and a middle road.

Manchin is not 'middle of the road'. He is a blockade in the middle of the road. If you have not noticed, nothing is getting through the blockade. There is no point to having the road, if no one, and nothing can use the damn thing.

 

[Craig234]

The bill has practically been chopped in half to find that middle acceptable to Manchin.

It was chopped over 2/3 as I understand, from $10 trillion to the $1 trillion infrastructure and $1.75 trillion BBB. Manchin had indicated he'd agree to $6 trillion IIRC leading to the initial cut.

 

[Craig234]

It is amazing how a two party system resembles a fascist or communist one party system when a member challenges their party.

It's not about the parties, it's about the donors the Republican Party serves. Democrats have a much smaller problem with it, they are more focused on the American people; look at who the BBB benefits versus who Republicans' top priority, the tax cuts for the rich, benefited. You falsely claim there are Republican votes available. Manchin made the same false statement, was in charge of getting 10, and got zero.

 

[Craig234]

he prevented a lot of progress just to wet his ambitions. He's dung, and those who fall for him need educated....

It's more like, he was effectively a sleeper agent for wealthy interests, where his serving them didn't have a big impact before, but now that his one vote can kill the administration's agenda, they activated him to use his power for them to do it.

 

[Craig234]

Taking moderate action during multiple crises isn't wise.

Killing a $10 trillion bill to benefit the American people to $0 after decades where the wealthy have taken tens of trillions is not a 'moderate action'.

 

[reflechissez]

I don't agree. He has American constituents as real as either you or me. We need to understand that there are people all across this country concerned about raising and educating their families and are not political extremists or bigots. We must stop accepting the boogey men that the two parties throw at us as mainstream.

What does this mean?

 

[Antiwar]

Killing a $10 trillion bill to benefit the American people to $0 after decades where the wealthy have taken tens of trillions is not a 'moderate action'.

I completely agree. I say a fully funded BBB or an even better funded than that Green New Deal would be moderate action, considering we're facing the consequences of thousands of years of humanity degrading Earth's ecosystems. And we're still funding the **** out of US militarism, which is very destructive to the environment.

 

[btthegreat]

It was chopped over 2/3 as I understand, from $10 trillion to the $1 trillion infrastructure and $1.75 trillion BBB. Manchin had indicated he'd agree to $6 trillion IIRC leading to the initial cut.

I still say what needed to happen was for Dems and Biden to keep Manchin on the defensive on Manchin's voting rights compromise legislation that got zero republican support. They did the right thing by racing to support the compromise including Stacy Abrams and Biden and leaving Manchin to justify his own stance that voting rights could pass without filibuster reform if he could not get even one Republican to bite.
They needed to wash their own hands of voting rights responsibility and hang Manchin with complete ownership, complete accountability because he's the guy who said he could find no less than 10 GOP votes for compromise.

Every conversation in the media coming out of the White House, Pelosi, and Schumer needed to remind us all that Manchin's bill was still sitting mothballed waiting for those Republicans, and he needed to focus his time in coming up with that compromise and those 10 votes so that Americans could have access to the ballot for midterms. He needs to own at least this bill as his personal testament to how well the Senate can function without filibuster reform. Its his face everyone should see as the face of failure on voting rights rather than Biden.

Instead we moved on to other priorities, and we have this man getting more attention pretending to be Mr. Fiscal Responsibility than he is getting as the voting rights failure he actually represents. We would have that bill in law but for his refusal to compromise on the filibuster.