After a report showing that inflation has hit consumers, Democratic Senator Joe Mnuchin’s motto may be to “slow back down.”
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Wednesday that the inflation rate rose 6.2 percent in the 12 months ending in October. According to CBS News, this is the largest monthly increase in 30 years.
As a result, the West Virginia senator, who has expressed concerns about trillions in federal spending fueling inflation, is reluctant to sign the Democratic spending grabbag before Congress today.
According to Axios, Manchin wants to shelve the progressives’ pet project package until next year.
For now, he wants to focus on the key issues he sees as passing the budget, raising the debt ceiling, and passing the National Defense Authorization Act.
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A thorny question is what the package of liberal programs is worth.
Manchin, like some moderate Democrats in the House, is skeptical that the package’s value is actually being sustained by supporters. He wants to see the Congressional Budget Office analyze the actual costs of the programs and how much tax increases Democrats are proposing will actually result.
“What I’m seeing are shell games, budget gimmicks, making the actual cost of the so-called $1.75 trillion bill almost double that amount,” Mnuchin said earlier this month, according to the Washington Post.
The CBO said Tuesday it has no idea when it will give a score for the bill estimating its final cost, according to CNN.
The infrastructure hasn’t been signed yet, and Manchin is walking away. #BuildBackBetter
We can also reframe.
Nothing else will pass the progressive caucus until the BBB passes the Senate.
Stop it all. We told you it would be bullshit. pic.twitter.com/c4iRcjEGka
— VFX Nomad (@vfxartist1) November 11, 2021
Although House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would vote on the package next week, Manchin said there was “no rush” to finalize the proposal, according to the Daily Mail.
“It’s going to be a while,” he said in the final week of package negotiations.
Mnuchin said inflation on Wednesday was not the flash in the pan that the Biden administration said it was.
By all accounts, the threat to Americans from record inflation is not “temporary” and is instead growing. From the grocery store to the gas pump, Americans know that tax inflation is real and DC can no longer ignore the economic pain that Americans feel every day.
– Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) 10 November 2021
“By all accounts, the threat to Americans from record inflation is not ‘temporary’ and is instead growing,”…