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Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’

24 points| discocrisco | 4 years ago |apnews.com

97 comments

order

syki|4 years ago

Democratic senators represent 40 million more people than Republican senators and their agenda can't be passed. The last time Republican senators represented more than half the population was 1996. Rural, low population states have far too much power in the present system. This is not sustainable.

I know Manchin is nominally a Democrat but it's not him that is blocking the legislation it is him and all 50 Republican senators (Sinema from Arizona).

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/gop-senators-havent-...

cm2187|4 years ago

The point of having two chambers is that they are selected in a different way, otherwise you might as well have only one. The senate is a way for smaller states to not be in a permanent structural minority and have no say on the direction of the country. Many countries have a similar system.

Also even the house is not a proportional system. I know some people like proportional systems but let’s keep in mind they often come with political instability.

errcorrectcode|4 years ago

Gerrymandering is completely out of control. Mostly R's are locking-in their wins for the foreseeable future.

I don't think it's a D/R thing in particular. He's completely corrupt by WV coal and other corporate interests paying him to be an insurgent DINO to do their bidding. Sinema is clearly a nutter and possibly corrupt too. The D's and R's also contain too many corrupt, plutocrat sycophants to name individually here. The system is what's broken, and it's doubtful it can be fixed from within.

mozman|4 years ago

I am an independent and I do not support this bill. Can we please not make it sound so black and white?

Republicans aren’t evil, and neither are democrats. Both groups exist and have the right to fight for their agendas. Accept it.

rafale|4 years ago

The US is a republic, not a democracy. And for good reasons. Otherwise, politicians will try to one-up each other with promises of freebies. It's easy to win elections when you promise free healthcare, free education, free childcare,... The average person will vote in their immediate interest and not worry about the big picture. The big picture: nothing is free.

pandaman|4 years ago

This would be a tragedy if the majority of people wanted some laws for themselves but were held back by the minority from implementing them. Luckily, this is not the case in the US, which is a federation: if the majority of e.g. Californians want some laws for themselves then they can just make them the laws of California. The consequences of that is that if e.g. Texans want some laws for California then they need to convince the majority of the states too, which is not easy and that is by design.

DennisAleynikov|4 years ago

population density isn't how our legislature is set up. not sure why people always bring this incredibly irrelevant statistic up.

yucky|4 years ago

Is it possible that the people those Senators (including Manchin) represent, aren't interested in a "New Deal" style bill that nobody fully understands?

kcplate|4 years ago

> Democratic senators represent 40 million more people than Republican senators and their agenda can't be passed.

Sorry, but it needs to be said that this is a fundamental misunderstanding of who the senate represents. The senate represents the states, not the people. That is why there are only 2 per state. The house represents the people and is proportional to the population.

phkahler|4 years ago

>> Democratic senators represent 40 million more people than Republican senators and their agenda can't be passed. The last time Republican senators represented more than half the population was 1996. Rural, low population states have far too much power in the present system. This is not sustainable.

Spending insane amounts of money like that is not sustainable. We are already looking at greater than 10 percent annual inflation and trillions of federal debt. Guess who owes that debt back? We do. People need to stop seeing the government as some kind of external magical entity that can grant gifts to whomever it wants if only it had cooperation from [my]party.

xqcgrek2|4 years ago

Joe Manchin is taking the hit for a lot of other Democrats would would vote against this insane irresponsible bill, but can't let their intensions be publicly known.

It was a foregone conclusion this bill would fail in this way once it was split up from the real infrastructure bill.

DennisAleynikov|4 years ago

Manchin demonstrating once again that we do live in a democracy, at least a representative one.

thghtihadanacct|4 years ago

... And its clear who Manchin represents

tacosbane|4 years ago

The Democrats have 49 seats in the Senate! They should be able to do whatever they want!

votepaunchy|4 years ago

There are 48 Democratic Party senators and 50 in their caucus.

marricks|4 years ago

It’s funny because he argued for a year saying he would if he got A, gets it, then says he needs B… on and on until like L then when its finally in front of him to vote he acts like he never could anyways. People like this are the skeeziest.

Then again, there seems to always need to be 1 democrat who will stand in the way of getting things done everyday people want. It was Joe Lieberman when democrats last had the senate. Who knows what the senate leaders would actually allow to happen but it’s easier to have all that hate on one Joe.