Take a Deep Breath. Manchin Is Up to His Three Usual Tricks.

With the news out yesterday that Sen. Joe Manchin was withholding his support for the Build Back Better plan (once again), many began to wonder whether the twin infrastructure deals—one “hard” and one “soft”—were ever going to pass Congress. The timing of Manchin’s splash of cold water was poor, coming on the eve of the critical gubernatorial election in Virginia and the less-watched but important one in New Jersey. In both states, Democratic governors are seeking second terms, but they are facing headwinds from a country unsure about Joe Biden’s presidency. 

The timing was also lousy given Biden’s need to lead on the question of climate change at the Global Climate Summit in Glasgow. With his whole agenda hanging on Manchin’s vote, with that senator widely seen as beholden to fossil fuel interests and interested mostly in preserving the energy-producing status of his home state of West Virginia, Biden’s hand in Scotland was significantly weakened by the announcement.

How do we understand this eleventh-hour antic? I’ve asked many times through this process, “What’s Manchin up to?”—and his balking yesterday is not much different. It’s a deep breath moment, which will occur more regularly as negotiations come to a close.

It’s useful to recall that Manchin pretty much always trots out the same three moves. I call these, “We need more data,” “What’s the rush?” and “You need to compromise.”

We Need More Data

Manchin has complained for months that the cost of the bill was too high, which is why his baseline ceiling of $1.5 trillion in new expenditures has more or less set the range for what’s possible in an evenly divided Senate. That’s less than half of the $3.5 trillion President Biden and the Democrats in Congress wanted. Manchin has warned that the new programs would produce an inflationary effect in an economy already hit by supply chain inflation and that this needed to be understood before he votes yes.

The last time he delayed consideration of the Build Back Better plan, he also cited his concerns over the economic impact of the bill, and since then he has built on that—but this time, he comes armed with studies and reports from the “Penn Wharton Budget” model, which is an outfit helping him sort through the numbers. (Kyrsten Sinema carries around her own set of spreadsheets, as if she can do her own research, too.)

According to Manchin now, the Build Back Better plan is filled with “shell games” and “budget gimmicks” that, once understood, reveal a true cost of closer to $3.9 trillion. And, he claims, the taxes proposed will only raise closer to $1.5 trillion, not the $1.9 trillion that was budgeted. These predictions come straight from his Penn Wharton model, which shows the projected costs and revenues per year over a typical ten-year timeframe.

This needs to be teased out a bit. The fact is, you can tweak the figures using assumptions (like Penn Wharton does) about what happens if the expenditures become permanent. Different assumptions can lead experts to conclude that the plan is fully paid for. Still other economists claim it will have a positive, not negative, effect on inflation. Indeed, as White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki noted, “Seventeen Nobel Prize-winning economists have said it will reduce inflation."

One thing everyone can agree on: Before the Senate parliamentarian can even rule on the bill as proper under the reconciliation rules, a study by the Congressional Budget Office needs to happen. Without a baseline on which to operate, it’s hard to agree what the likely economic costs and impacts would be. Even so, the CBO numbers won’t necessarily be the end of discussion; when Manchin’s hard infrastructure bill rang in $256 billion over according to the CBO, he had no problem disregarding that report and voting for the bill because it fit his own priorities.

What’s the Rush?

With the missing data as his defense, Manchin gets to play another of his favorite cards: delay. He needs more time, he argues, for his experts to crunch the numbers and for him to be able to understand and make a decision. Never mind that it has been months and the other staff members for other senators have done the same work and are looking at the same data sets and assumptions. 

As I wrote earlier, the Democratic leadership foresaw this move by Manchin and countered by tying passage of his own infrastructure bill to the soft one. If he has any sense of urgency about needing his state’s roads, bridges and highways fixed, or bringing broadband to his constituents, this is strong pressure to move things along and get to a vote on both bills. (U.S. News ranked West Virginia #50 in the nation for infrastructure. It also scores in the high 40s in rankings for healthcare, education and the economy.)

Manchin is now using the need to see the legislative text of the bill as a reason to delay announcing his support or opposition, and to some extent this is a fair ask. After all, the progressives refused to throw their weight behind the bill when the text was only 90 percent written in the House. Because the text will take several more days to draft, it is possible that the soft infrastructure bill will not receive a vote today as initially hoped—not because the progressives don’t like it, but because Manchin has not guaranteed that he’d support it. (It’s also possible the progressives take Biden’s word as good and vote both bills through anyway based on the existing text and framework.)

If a vote doesn’t happen, Manchin’s delay may push the bill much farther into November, particularly as progressives try to work some programs that had gone on the chopping block back into the bill, including paid parental leave and the lowering of prescription drug prices. So we all need to take a breath, sigh, and repeat that “This is the legislative process.” 

Which leads us to Manchin’s final, typical play.

You Need To Compromise

In his press conference, Manchin reiterated his demand that the House pass the bipartisan infrastructure deal first. His frustration that supporters of the Build Back Better plan were holding the other bill hostage, and that this tactic was not going to work in getting his support for the reconciliation bill. This seems to me an indication that Speaker Pelosi’s plan is actually working because it certainly has unsettled Manchin.

Manchin also accused progressives of being intransigent about the process. “While I have worked hard to find a path to compromise, it is obvious compromise is not good enough for some in Congress,” Manchin said in prepared remarks. “It’s all or nothing, and their position doesn’t seem to change unless we agree to everything. Enough is enough.”

This statement doesn’t reflect reality. The other 96 percent of Democrats in the Senate have come down from their initial number of $3.5 trillion and cut whole, important programs (such as free community college and paid parental leave) out of the budget in an effort to reach his baseline number. But Manchin has barely moved off his top line. If anyone isn’t compromising, it is Manchin. He probably knows this and is now pounding the table in an effort to exact more concessions.

Given the above, it’s fairly clear that the substance of what Manchin has said is nothing new at all, repeating the same three criticisms he has had for months. Democrats in Congress and President Biden have been meeting him at every moment and have consistently sought to find a common workable ground. That is why the compromise number is where it is, around $1.85 trillion. 

And if Manchin’s tone yesterday upset many people, it isn’t hard to presume this is more of a rhetorical device than anything, designed to spook negotiators into easing up on the pressure to include more of their programs in the final bill.

For its part, the White House seemed nonplussed by the outburst and gently guided the conversation back to the positive. “It is fully paid for, will reduce the deficit, and brings down costs for health care, childcare, elder care, and housing,” Jen Psaki said about the Build Back Better plan Manchin had just attacked. “We remain confident that the plan will gain Senator Manchin’s support.”