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‘Americans Will Pay the Price’: One Democrat Is Angry at Joe Biden

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin now regrets having signed onto the “Inflation Reduction Act.” He signed the legislation last July, claiming it would tackle inflation by “aggressively producing more energy, get more supply, and bring prices down.”

President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the passage of gun safety bill S. 2938, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, Saturday, June 25, 2022, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the passage of gun safety bill S. 2938, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, Saturday, June 25, 2022, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott)

Manchin Regrets ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ Vote – West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin now regrets having signed onto the “Inflation Reduction Act.” He signed the legislation last July, claiming it would tackle inflation by “aggressively producing more energy, get more supply, and bring prices down.”

The $793 billion legislative package was supposed to have addressed health care and climate, raise taxes on high earners and corporations, and reduce the federal debt. The bill succeeded the $3.9 trillion Build Back Better infrastructure and social support legislation and the $1.75 trillion version that he blocked in the fall of 2021.

Manchin now admits to having been naïve about the Biden administration’s objectives.

“Our national debt stands at nearly $31.5 trillion, or close to $95,000 for every man, woman and child, and represents 120% of our gross domestic product. Annual budgetary deficits have averaged $2.71 trillion since October 2019. Since Covid-19 began, we have added more than $8 trillion to the national debt,” Manchin wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. “Despite explicit direction from Congress to pay down our debt in the Inflation Reduction Act, the administration seems more determined than ever to pervert that law and abuse existing authorities to increase spending.”

Manchin claims that President Joe Biden agreed the law was supposed to have paid down the national debt and generate $738 billion in new revenue and $238 billion to debt reduction.

A Win for China

China uses the runaway U.S. national debt as an excuse for its pursuit of de-dollarization and ending the greenback’s almost 80-year reign as the world’s reserve currency. The Chinese Communist Party propaganda mouthpiece, The Global Times, blamed the U.S. government’s inability to balance its books for the push to end the dollar’s status.

“Actually, Washington has only itself to blame … given that the US has been aggressively using deficit financing to combat the economic ravages of COVID-19 pandemic, the sustainability of its debt might be called into question too,” The Global Times said. “Since the US is stubbornly tethered to impeding and hurting other economies, its competitors have no obligations to embrace the outdated Bretton Woods system and help the US maintain the dollar hegemony. 

“The dollar’s decades-long dominance has placed America in a strong position to dictate the terms of global trade and finance for the last 70 years. It’s high time for a change.”

Brazil and China agreed to conduct transactions in Chinese Yuan this week. Saudi Arabia also reportedly is considering doing likewise.  

Manchin expressed anger with the administration’s failure to follow the law’s intent to expand fossil-fuel production and using regulatory measures to support “Green energy” instead. 

“The administration is attempting at every turn to implement the bill it wanted, not the bill Congress actually passed. Ignoring the debt and deficit implications of these actions as the time nears to raise the debt ceiling isn’t only wrong, it’s policy and political malpractice,” Manchin wrote. “I believe the only person who can rein in this extremism is Mr. Biden.”

Manchin wants Biden to come to the table and negotiate with “fiscally minded Republicans and Democrats to negotiate common-sense reforms to out-of-control fiscal policy.”

“The second step is for Mr. Biden to instruct his administration to implement the Inflation Reduction Act as written and stop redefining its credits and other subsidies. That alone would save the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars in needless spending,” Manchin wrote.

Thus far, Biden has failed to deliver, and Manchin claims failure might “score political points with left-wing partisans, but generations of Americans will ultimately pay the price.”  

China stands to benefit from inaction.

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John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award in 2008 for his reporting.

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John Rossomando is a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award in 2008 for his reporting.

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