Manchin Willing To Negotiate Build Back Better If Poor People Won't Be Helped

Reports on Monday suggested that Senator Joe Manchin might be willing to continue negotiations on the Build Back Better Act, as long as poor people don't get the help that they need. Manchin still insists that we need to dramatically scale down the extended child tax credit - an item that has provided substantial relief to millions of Americans this year. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening and why Manchin is hellbent on making people suffer.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Joe Manchin, according to a new report from Axios released this past weekend, is signaling that he is not done maybe negotiating the Build Back Better act. Now last month after this bill was effectively killed, at least for the year 2021, the Biden White House said, we're not done. We're gonna come back. We're gonna keep these talks going and Manchin at the time was a little iffy on it. But now apparently he's saying, all right, you know what, we can continue to talk. But as Axios reported, he still has one firm condition. Joe Manchin does not want that extended child tax credit to reach as many needy Americans as it had reached this past year. He either wants, actually, I think he wants both the amount of the tax credit scaled down so you get less cash and of course he wants to lower the income cap for those who qualify. So not only will you likely be receiving less money, but fewer people are going to be receiving any money at all. And that apparently is Joe Manchin's red line.

I'm willing to negotiate some of these other things as long as we help kill the one provision that puts cash directly in the hands of the people who need it the most in this country. Can you imagine being that kind of a monster to be that open and honest about wanting to screw over poor people here in the United States? And of course his rationale for it is absolute. Oh, we can't do it because of inflation. Has nothing to do with it. Inflation was taking place, by the way Joe, Long before the tax credit started going out there and the tax credit has no, had no effect whatsoever on inflation since being dolled out. That that's not how that works dumb. Also of course, we do know that millions of people, millions of children were lifted out of poverty because of this child tax credit, a 31% reduction, all because of this one payment that Joe Manchin says has to go. And the problem here is that the Democrats are likely gonna go along with this plan because they really have put themselves between a rock and a hard place.

Either you don't pass, Build Back ever, uh, Build Back Better, sorry, and you get shellacked in the midterms or you pass it, you don't give the people what they want, but you may not lose as much in the midterms if you can show that you actually did something good. Both are pretty bleak prospects and there's no guarantee on either one of them. And that is the gamble that the Democratic party is now having to, to take because Joe Manchin holds the cards. They have let this one man from West Virginia, a guy who represents less than half a percent of the entire population of the United States, control the destiny and the financial future of American citizens. Joe Manchin has all the power in this country right now and it's disturbing, it's unnatural and it is definitely not the way the Senate is supposed to work, not the way our government is supposed to work. But it is what it is. And either Joe Manchin kills that extended child tax credit, or he kills the entire Build Back Better bill.