The moderate Democrat laid out how he wants to work on President Joe Biden’s family plan, starting with tax reform.
Joe Manchin released a statement on Wednesday afternoon panning his colleagues’ spending plans as “fiscal insanity.” Then he started to lay out how he wants to work on President Joe Biden’s family plan. As all of Washington hangs on his every word, Manchin said he did want to clinch a reconciliation bill even as some progressives fear he’s trying to kill the whole thing. But rather than approach the effort as the multi-trillion-dollar social spending and climate change bill envisioned by his colleagues, Manchin said Democrats needed to start with gutting the 2017 Trump tax cuts and go from there. “I want to do a tax overhaul. One thing you understand that all Democrats agreed on, there’s not a lot of things we all agree on, is that the 2017 tax cuts are unfair and weighted toward the high end. Let’s fix that. That’s the reconciliation,” Manchin said. “I think we can get a good bill done. I really do, if we work in good faith.” The House will vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill that Manchin helped negotiate on Thursday, but Manchin’s remarks aren’t helping his bill succeed.
