Negotiations over President Biden’s budget proposal have taken a turn for the worse. Two conservative democrats, Senator Joe Manchin (WV) and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), who previously approved the framework of the $3.5 trillion budget proposal have changed their minds.
In doing so, their recent efforts are stripping working people of relief day by day and the democratic establishment will likely concede to their demands. These negotiations are displaying our government’s subservience to corporate interests and must be remembered in elections to come.
Senators Manchin and Sinema have called for several changes to the budget proposal. Their priorities include heavily restricting access to the expanded child tax credit, removing climate change action, keeping the federal government from negotiating drug prices, and maintaining the Trump corporate tax rates.
Senator Manchin’s resistance to investing in green energy shouldn’t be surprising. In 2018, when seeking reelection, Manchin received upwards of $500,000 from the energy industry. Only 3 months ago, a phone call between the senator and an Exxon Mobile lobbyist was leaked that displayed Manchin’s true intentions. In this call there was discussion about how to best use financial levers of power to swing votes pertaining to proposed climate action. He claims to represent West Virginia accurately because it is a state that voted heavily for former president Trump. However, this call made clear that his opposition is not at the direction of his constituents but in fact his donors.
Together Manchin and Sinema have targeted the issue of maintaining inequities in our tax system. Manchin, along with fighting against climate measures, has spearheaded the fight against the child tax credit. Sinema, who teaches a weekly fundraising class at Arizona State University, has taken lead on the fight against returning the corporate tax rate to its position before the Trump tax cuts. Together these issues display corporate forces hold over our government.
The Trump tax cuts overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy in this country and by doing so shifted much of the burden of taxation to the working class. This was executed under the guise of “trickle-down” economics or the idea that giving the wealthiest people money to sprinkle down on us will work out better than people having money themselves.
The child tax credit, when expanded by President Biden, was an example of the opposite philosophy. This action was a relief of the tax burden facing the working class with plans to readjust the wealthy’s future contributions.
Manchin claims that his opposition to the child tax credit is moral. He believes that the child tax credit will breed an “entitlement mentality” among the American public. However, Senator Manchin has yet to make the same claim about the Trump tax cuts. According to Senator Manchin, the government cutting taxes is only an entitlement when it starts benefiting those without lobbyists.
Senator Sinema has largely avoided the media, and her own constituents, throughout negotiations so it’s hard to reconcile her past with her current position. Senator Sinema’s support for the Trump tax cuts seems to be directly at odds with a position she took on Twitter as a state official in 2011 which stated, “Asking big corporations & the rich to pay their fair share is common sense, not class warfare.” I largely agree with this statement and would support a senator acting on this notion.
However, it seems Senator Sinema cares little about an accusation of hypocrisy and is now one of two people in the United States standing in the way of her 2011 position.
Unfortunately dealing with an evenly divided senate in our polarized time leaves the governing party with no option but to obtain unanimous support. That means, regardless of the demands of the American people the democratic party must bend to the proposed changes in order to pass any budget.
There are few, if any, short-term solutions to preserving the child tax credit, investing in our climate, or evening the taxation playing field. At this point, what people who agree with the Biden agenda need to focus on is how to remove these blockers from the democratic party over time without losing the majority in either house of congress.
One way to achieve this is to push all democratic candidates to refuse donations from political action committees. As Senator Manchin displays, the relationship between donors and politicians has the potential to corrupt the integrity of the political system.
Here in the Champaign area, we have a chance to help mold the democratic party in the interest of working people. With the new proposed legislative maps for Illinois, we will join counties that voted as heavily in favor of President Biden.
Since it’s unlikely to become a republican district anytime soon, this safe democratic district is one of the best places to nominate a candidate that will push the party away from corporate interests without risking republican control.