They shouldn't be surprised.
This week, all eyes are on Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia for his refusal to toe the party line on President Biden's "Build Back Better" bill. Manchin isn't capitulating on two matters in particular: Biden's climate plan and the child tax credit, the latter of which, Manchin argues, should be contingent on parents' finding work. "While a bad idea in general," Paul Krugman writes, this "is an especially bad idea for a state like West Virginia, where jobs are hard to find." In fact, he says, "it's sheer cruelty." So what explains Manchin's obstinacy? |
It seems he believes in a "conservative producerism that treats the market as a crucible in which ordinary workers prove their moral worth," Jamelle Bouie argues. But this shouldn't be a surprise — Manchin's conservative outlier status is not new, Michelle Cottle notes. "He has made clear during his decade plus in the Senate that he is an anti-abortion, pro-gun, coal-coddling politician who is a big-government skeptic," she says. "The more surprising thing may be that he has remained a Democrat." |
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