The game of “will she or won’t she” has ended regarding Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and the Democrats’ new reconciliation bill. As RedState reported on Wednesday, there were still questions about whether the Arizona senator would support the laughably dubbed “Inflation Reduction Act.”
Sinema is now making it official. She will join Sen. Joe Manchin in proving that even “good Democrats” are still Democrats.
Senate Democrats secure Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s support for Inflation Reduction Act with changes to tax provisions https://t.co/tDyQTkLWLJ
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 5, 2022
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) said she would “move forward” on a revised version of Senate Democrats’ health care, climate and deficit-reduction package, after party leaders agreed to scale back some of their original tax proposals.
The new approach — along with other changes to the proposal known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — satisfied Sinema’s chief concerns and helped set in motion a plan to approve it as soon as this weekend.
In a statement, Sinema said Democrats had “agreed to remove” a key tax targeting wealthy investors and had made changes to a second provision that aims to impose a new minimum tax on corporations that currently pay nothing to the U.S. government. From here, Sinema said she would await a final review from the chamber’s parliamentarian — a critical step in the process that allows Democrats to move their spending bill — at which point she would “move forward.”
It’s a little weird how quickly Sinema has gone from Green Party radical to big business shill in just a few years. According to the Post’s reporting, she secured changes to the tax structure of the bill, including the minimum tax provision for major corporations. All of those changes will benefit the wealthy, but aren’t those the major revenue drivers that are supposed to allow the bill to reduce the deficit? We’ll have to see how the numbers play out in the revised version of the legislation to learn how many pounds of flesh she actually took.
Regardless, while Sinema hails from purple Arizona and can afford to sign onto a boondoggle bill that blows $400 billion on “climate change,” Manchin is from West Virginia. The reconciliation deal he led was passed and he is now responsible for the results. He promised his constituents he wouldn’t be part of another big spending bill in the middle of the current inflation crisis. For some unenforceable promises about permitting reform and weak payoffs, he broke his promise. I’m sure Democrats will keep the money flowing to his wife as well.
All this will cost Manchin dearly in 2024. So while he is probably celebrating Sinema’s decision right now, it has sealed his fate. He’s blown his cover, and if Republicans are smart, they will not provide him with anymore in the future. Let him burn.
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