Status: 07/28/2022 04:34 a.m
For months he had blocked important projects of the Biden government – but now the democratic Senator Manchin has surprisingly given in. The Democrats announced in the evening that they had agreed on the package worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
The Democrats in the US Senate have surprisingly agreed on a large legislative package that provides for spending on energy and health care, climate protection and higher taxes for the super-rich and corporations. The majority leader of the House of Representatives, Chuck Schumer, announced the agreement together with his party colleague Joe Manchin. For months, the latter had blocked a comprehensive package of reforms that President Joe Biden and other Democrats are seeking. The reason given by Manchin was that he was concerned that high inflation would intensify. Now the more conservative senator apparently gave in.
Manchin and Schumer said the proposed package would generate around $670 billion in revenue over 10 years. “The investments will be funded entirely by closing tax loopholes for wealthy individuals and businesses,” they said in a joint statement.
Bidens speaks of “historical importance”
However, the package is only a fraction of what US President Joe Biden originally wanted to push through for climate and social affairs. Manchin, who is a senator from West Virginia, had torpedoed Biden’s plans and shot up a social and climate package worth billions. Biden has now declared that he supports the agreement. If the law is passed, it will be of “historic importance”. According to the agreement, around 370 billion dollars are to be invested in programs for energy security and climate change alone.
Many White House projects stand or fall with Manchin because the Democrats only have a wafer-thin majority in the House of Representatives – so Biden needs all the votes of his party friends for the success of his projects. Manchin’s behavior also fueled internal factional fighting and a crisis of confidence within the Democratic Party. Biden also put the tugging in a bad light – after all, he hadn’t managed to keep his own party together.