After the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that prices rose in October and are currently hovering at notable heights, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and a jolly band of Republicans glommed on to the news, proclaiming with certainty that the inflationary spike is here to stay.
In reality, there are multiple theories about what’s causing the spike and how long it’ll last. But the bigger immediate concern for Democrats is that Manchin will use inflation as an excuse to derail the reconciliation package — even though, as economists told TPM, that is simply not something the reconciliation package would do.
The White House has been trying to preempt his possible objections by insisting that the spike is temporary, caused by a combination of changed consumer spending during the pandemic and a snarled and overburdened supply chain.
There is some uncertainty here: the nature of the spike, and whether we can get the COVID-19 virus tamped down enough to fix the problems. But there is virtually no uncertainty around whether the reconciliation package will cause inflation — it won’t. Despite what Manchin, or credulous reporting, suggests.
On The Calendar
- President Joe Biden is set to sign the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Monday at a big ceremony. It’s not clear how many Republicans will attend — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) RSVP’d no.
- Remember when we were trying to game out what leverage points Democrats not named Manchin or Sinema had left? Biden’s signature was one of them, but he is clearly not going to use it as a reconciliation cudgel.
- The House is slated to vote on its version of the reconciliation bill next week.
Manchinema Corner
- Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) sidles up to a rebrand in a rare interview with her hometown paper. “That wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t have those deep, trusting relationships with members of my own party,” she said of tax compromises she reached with the likes of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
- Sinema is one of very, very few lawmakers who won’t answer hallway questions at the Capitol, severely limiting reporter access. In this piece, she seems to be trying to reframe herself as a middle-of-the-road, compromise type. Her bosom buddy Democratic lawmakers, though, are unlikely to forget the obstacles she’s thrown up to the reconciliation bill — especially the ones that protect extremely wealthy Americans from tax hikes.
- Manchin, meanwhile, did an interview with Talkline, a radio show on West Virginia’s MetroNews.
- During the interview, he said he’ll decide on running again in 2024 after the 2022 midterms.
- He also blamed the bipartisan infrastructure plan not being fully paid for on the White House not letting him put a fee on mileage for electric cars and Republicans refusing to raise the corporate tax rate.
- He added that he can’t support expanded Medicare benefits out of a fear that it’ll drive the program to insolvency.
Paul Krugman addresses the main argument that inflation is not a consequence of current or anticipated US fiscal policy and is likely a transitory, albeit rather painful, consequence of pandemic supply chain disruptions but companies have clearly succeeded in passing the increased costs along as their profits attest so we’ll need to see how consumers deal with this if the situation endures much longer. Remember that a majority of the US economy is related to consumption so this is not a small thing.
Right now I could just wish that news media reported inflation and the economy generally better than they do: really most of the reporting is so bad the perps should be arrested for disturbing the peace.
Newsreaders are a lot easier to train and have a lot better “ROI” than investigative journalists. It’s like the value brought in by the marketing department at a company vs. the costs of the engineering department.
Clearly we need to be expanding the budget for newsreaders and constraining the profligate costs of the journalists.
Why does the Right, and Joe Manchin, not understand that the whole entire world, is dealing with a -say it with me-Fucking Global Pandemic? Factories have been shut down, those that produce raw materials have been shut down-or had limited operations.
This was like my electricity last night, blipping on and off, this was like rolling blackouts for almost 24 months.
Another O/T
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/molotov-cocktail-guilty-plea-capitol-attack/2021/11/12/c8aa6434-43c7-11ec-9ea7-3eb2406a2e24_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR0vsQc1-gzJjtP6TB0zrOaxWxylTMkT8eJUUBGho0Ok_aVmkNTA2O-T-qk
So molotov cocktail guy enters guilty plea, claims that the gas in the mason jars was old, so he didn’t think that they’d cause a fire. Who makes molotov cocktails years ago, and leaves them sitting around the garage.
Did realize that they caught this guy while looking for the person who left pipe bombs, and they still haven’t been found.
The way that Manchin uses it, “inflation” is the off-the-shelf nonsense response to questions about any bill that he wants to reduce or doesn’t want to pass, and for whatever real reason he might have. To my mind the question he doesn’t want to address is who he sees as being his real constituency.
Give the guy grudging credit, Manchin does understand how to suck the most clout out of being the single majority vote.