Fox News anchor Bret Baier managed to put Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in the hot seat on Sunday after he went back on his promise not to support a new bill that could end up making our nation’s current struggle with inflation even worse.
Gee. A politician — a Democrat at that — who made a promise then broke it? Shock of all shocks.
Baier made Manchin sweat during an interview on the “Fox News Sunday” program where he confronted the Democratic senator using his own words, making it abundantly clear that the “Inflation Reduction Act” actually violates the positions that Manchin has held in the past.
According to TheBlaze, Machin stated back in 2010, “I don’t think during a time of recession you mess with any of the taxes or increase any taxes.”
Manchin repeated those same words just a month ago.
Baier went on to tell Manchin, “Now technically we’re in a recession, and technically, according to multiple different organizations, this bill does raise taxes,” citing some analysis work done by the Tax Foundation and Americans for Tax Reform.
“In response, Manchin asserted the bill does not raise taxes, but closes tax loopholes only. In fact, Manchin directly challenged all assertions that the bill either levies new taxes or will exacerbate inflation,” TheBlaze reported.
“They’re wrong; it does not raise taxes,” Manchin remarked.
Baier then tackled inflation, reminding Manchin that he made comments concerning the America Rescue Plan last March — which is the relief bill for the coronavirus pandemic cooked up by President Joe Biden — and how it wouldn’t end up overheating the economy and leading to a massive increase in inflation.
Well, as we all know, that’s exactly what has happened.
“Why should Americans believe you now when you say that this bill will not exacerbate inflation?” Baier went on to ask.
“I’ll make sure I don’t make that mistake again,” Manchin said in response, seemingly pointing to the fact he’s aware he was wrong. “Bottom line, I’ll make sure I didn’t make that mistake again … that’s why I was extra cautious right now.”
It’s around this point in the interview that Baier brings things home, confronting Manchin with an analysis from the Penn Wharton Budget Model, which predicted the bill “would very slightly increase inflation until 2024 and decrease inflation thereafter.”
This analysis then pointed out its “estimates are statistically indistinguishable from zero, thereby indicating low confidence that the legislation will have any impact on inflation.”
Manchin replied by saying he “respectfully disagrees” with the analysis, though he did not bother to elaborate why he thinks it is wrong.
One of many factors that made President Donald Trump so popular with the American people was that he kept his campaign promises. This, unfortunately, is a total rarity among those who run and actually win campaigns for public office. More often than not, these promises are empty, designed to trick the gullible into casting ballots for a particular individual so they can live fat off taxpayer dollars while doing little to nothing to serve their constituents.
Manchin is proving to be one of those people.
