So What Exactly Did Joe Manchin Do To the Covid Relief Bill?

Some Democrats are furious over his eleventh hour changes, but the bill moved along anyway.

Photo: Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

One of the truisms about a Senate split down the middle is that any senator in that middle can play spoiler. Today, that senator is Joe Manchin, a moderate (some would say conservative) Democrat from West Virginia, whose 50th vote is crucial for passage of any Democratic legislation—or Republican amendment. Manchin is the target of much ire from the left lately because of his dogged support for the filibuster and his opposition to a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour (though he is joined on those two matters by Arizona Senator Krysten Sinema, who appears to want to fill the shoes of the state’s late maverick senator, John McCain—right down to her seemingly insensitive “gladiator style” thumbs down yesterday on the minimum wage inclusion vote, which drew howls from the left).

Prior to yesterday, it was understood that Manchin was opposed to a $15 per hour federal minimum wage plan, noting that he would prefer a lower rate of $11 per hour. What was less understood, and which took up a record 11 hours and 50 minutes of negotiation and debate time, was Manchin’s opposition to the House bill’s unemployment insurance benefit amounts.

The House covid relief bill had added $400 a week to the checks of those currently receiving state benefits, good through August 29, 2021. Manchin believed that amount was too much, would overheat the economy, and would encourage people not to seek work. Initially, things looked very bad for the UI benefits as the Senate approved an amendment from Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, on a 50-49 vote with Manchin joining, to pull back unemployment insurance benefits to mid-July. (There were only 99 senators as Dan Sullivan of Alaska had flown home for a family funeral).

Later, however, an overriding amendment was proposed that would reduce the unemployment benefits down to $300 a week, but was good through September 6. In addition, the first $10,200 in aid that the jobless received in 2020 would be considered tax-free, giving a boost to the poorest and hardest hit Americans.

The proposal sparked some heated debate between Senator Portman and Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden. Complained Portman, “Suddenly, if you’re on unemployment insurance you don’t have to pay taxes. But if you’re working, you do have to pay taxes. How does that work?”

Wyden responded that the tax break only included modest relief for jobless Americans, adding of the GOP’s opposition: “The party that claims to want to help workers on their taxes won’t lift a finger.”

The White House stepped in at this point. According to the Washington Post’s sources, Biden spoke personally with Manchin on Friday to shore up Manchin’s support for the override, which the White House had approved given the alternative. The UI benefits overriding amendment passed 50-49, this time with Manchin voting with the Dems.

“The president supports the compromise agreement, and is grateful to all the senators who worked so hard to reach this outcome,” said Press Secretary Jen Psaki. “It extends supplemental unemployment benefit into September, and helps the vast majority of unemployment insurance recipients avoid unanticipated tax bills. Most importantly, this agreement allows us to move forward on the urgently needed American Rescue Plan.”

Manchin issued a supporting statement on the unemployment benefits compromise saying it “enables the economy to rebound quickly while also protecting those receiving unemployment benefits from being hit with [an] unexpected tax bill next year.” He did not mention that he had been instrumental in knocking the amount back by $100 a week.

With the UI benefits matter settled, the Senate began a long “vote-o-rama” of amendments, mostly raised by the GOP seeking to pare down the bill or score political talking points. These included an attempt by Susan Collins to replace Biden’s bill with a smaller $650 billion, an effort by Marco Rubio to tie school funding to their reopening, and a demand by Tim Scott demanding transparency in state nursing home investigations. All were defeated, with Manchin now on the Dem side.

When it’s over, the American Rescue Plan very likely will largely remain intact, with two key exceptions: the $15/hour minimum wage will remain out of the bill, and the UI benefits will be reduced but their tax impact softened. Nancy Pelosi has said the House will pass the Senate version of the bill, no matter what, though this is likely to anger some progressives.

Critics of Joe Manchin, who is a multi-millionaire, argue that he is out-of-touch with the economic anxieties and needs of his constituents and the American people generally, and that he doesn’t understand how something like a few more dollars an hour or one hundred dollars more in UI benefits weekly could be life changing for so many millions. Manchin defends his positions on grounds of fiscal restraint and opposition to too much government assistance, and he notes that he is there to represent the more moderate views of government supported by his own constituents.

It’s often noted that no Democrat except Joe Manchin could hope to win a statewide contest in West Virginia, which voted for Donald Trump by a whopping 38 points. This is probably true, and in some ways Dems are lucky to even have someone mostly on their side from a state so deeply red. In this sense, Manchin is something of a political unicorn, which, for better or worse in an evenly split senate, gives him all the cards he’ll ever need.