The conflict of the main faction of the Democrats with Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema has definitely started seeping into every section. While it is pretty hard to go beyond the surface, the elongated standoff over the economic agenda placed by President Joe Biden does project how far the consensus of the party has shifted- towards a far more aggressive role of government- something that wasn’t seen during the presidencies of Barack Obama or Bill Clinton.
Joe Manchin’s Vendetta Could Go On
The disagreements taking place with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema– especially about the scope and size of the economic package has gone out and brought forth weeks of ugly deadlock among the many Democrats- with the unexpectedly harsh pronouncement of Manchin towards the sweeping economic development brought forth by the party pointing towards a few more weeks of active conflict.
At this point, it is quite unclear if he would actually support the overall plan and allow it to be made into a bill. Interestingly, a large section of the party believes that this shift isn’t a fundamental fissure between the center and the left- rather it is a challenge of being able to cope with the opaque and unique resistance of a couple of senators who have the power of veto with them currently.
The disagreement hasn’t just been limited to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Quite a large section of the House moderates have been supporting the reduction of the cost from its original budget of $3.5 trillion which was preferred by the liberals.
They believe that sanctioning such a large part of the fund to bring out new taxes would definitely lead to a backlash. The resistance from the House also went beyond the two senators towards providing Medicare with a far more expansive new authority- which would help negotiate for a far lower prescription price on drugs.
Despite the vast differences cropping up in the House, the main struggle is still between the Democrats and Joe Manchin.