By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, West Virginia’s lone Democrat on Capitol Hill, has held the line on the cost of a multi-trillion dollar “human infrastructure” and social spending bill whose contents appear to change daily, but those who remain critical of Manchin ignore his long history as a fiscal conservative.
As of Thursday, President Joe Biden and White House officials were working Manchin and Arizona Democratic U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to get them to accept a $1.75 trillion Build Back Better package — down from the $6 billion when first pitched as the American Families Plan and down from the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package.
“President Biden’s framework is the product of months of negotiations and input from all members of the Democratic Party who share a common goal to deliver for the American people,” Manchin said in a statement Thursday.
Manchin supported the resolution in August to start the process of negotiating what will be in the reconciliation package — a process that gets around the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. While only needing all 50 Democratic senators and Vice President Kamala Harris to break a tie, the reconciliation process makes Manchin and Sinema the most powerful two senators in the caucus…