(TheRedWire.com) – Moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has been a beacon of consistency over the last six months. He repeatedly told Democrats the government-sparked inflation was too high, and he would not vote for expensive multi-trillion-dollar legislation the country didn’t need. In October, he worked with President Joe Biden to get the social and climate change Build Back Better bill from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion. House Democrats were unwilling to sacrifice their agenda items, so they used accounting gimmicks to satisfy Manchin’s demands. Apparently, that didn’t work.
To cut the overall budget number, Democrats reduced the Child Tax Credit payments from ten years to one year. Recently, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said if the program were made permanent within 10 years, it would cost nearly $1.5 trillion by itself. Once Manchin learned of the number, rumors swirled that he wanted to strip the program.
I had asked if it was true he wanted CTC out of BBB.
“I've always been for child tax credits,” he said.
So I asked if he wants it to continue paying parents $300 a month, and he said he was not going to "negotiate" with me and that I'm bullshit
— Arthur Delaney 🇺🇸 (@ArthurDelaneyHP) December 15, 2021
On Thursday, December 16, a reporter posed a question making it appear Manchin doesn’t support the child tax credit. The West Virginia Senator shot back and said he’s always supported the measure. When the reporter pushed more, Manchin said he wouldn’t negotiate with the reporter and said the reporter and the question were “bulls***.”
Many suggest since the CBO number came out, the child tax credit became a sticking point. On Friday, Democrats and Biden acknowledged negotiations were falling apart and said a deal would not get done for the remainder of 2021. At the moment, it’s hard to see how Build Back Better will pass into law in 2022.
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