OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Democrats want to celebrate the fact that they got the Inflation Reduction Act passed in Congress, and they want to stress that it was done with only Democrat votes.
President Joe Biden did his part on Tuesday when he gave a speech at the South Lawn of the White House, Mediaite reported.
As he gave the speech he took time to attack Senate Republicans by name, which was met with a chorus of boos.
“The guy in charge of electing Republicans in the Senate, Rick Scott of Florida, proposed a plan –- I wish I had enough copies to hand — but go online and look at it. I really mean this. It’s serious, because then they’re going to make -– you’re going to — hard for you to believe. Proposed a plan requiring Congress to vote on the future of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid every five years — it’s up for reauthorization,” the president said.
“And I want to remind you, you paid for your Social Security. Every single paycheck from the time you’re a kid, you paid for it. (Applause.) So every five years, Congress gets to vote, change, cut, reduce, or eliminate the entirety of Social Security.
“And it’s not just Social Security. Everything is — everything that — Senator Scott wants everything in the federal budget to be up for five years. Nothing permanent. Nothing. That includes veterans’ benefits, Pell Grants, everything else.,” he said.
“Look it up. It’s hard to believe. I would think I’m exaggerating if I didn’t look at it myself. And then along comes Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin,” the president said as the audience started to boo.
“As my mother would say, ‘God love him.’ He thinks five years is too long to wait. He wants to put to vote — Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every single year.
Let me remind you all again: You paid for Social Security. You paid for Medicare. It’s taken out of every single one of your paychecks. These guys never give up,” the president said.
“Well, guess what? We’re not going to give up either,” he said to applause.
“We are often told there’s nothing you can get done in Washington. Too often, we confuse noise with substance. Too often, we confuse setbacks with defeat. Too often, we hand the biggest microphones to the critics and cynics who delight in declaring failure while those committed to making real progress do the hard work of governing,” he said.
But the new law has but been welcome news for one Democrat.
Sen. Joe Manchin’s stock rose considerably among moderate and even conservative voters in his home state of West Virginia over the past 18 months as he repeatedly thwarted President Joe Biden’s expensive legislative agenda as well as that of his Democratic Party.
But he appears to have burned up all political capital he earned after he made a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) behind closed doors on anti-inflation legislation several analyses have predicted won’t do anything to lower prices.
“A new poll released Wednesday by Jackson County radio station WMOV 1360 AM and Oregon-based Triton Polling and Research found that U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin is vulnerable after his support for the Inflation Reduction Act,” the Parkersburg News and Sentinel reported Thursday.
The outlet added:
According to the poll, 66.1% of the 762 respondents had an unfavorable impression of Manchin, D-W.Va. Only 26.3% had a favorable impression of Manchin with just 3.8% unsure and 3.6% with no opinion either way.
The WMOV/Triton poll was conducted Aug. 24-26 with 3.5% margin of error. The poll was conducted by automated telephone, also known as interactive voice response (IVR).
The poll comes 24 days after the $737 billion Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden after Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., negotiated the latest version of what started out as Biden’s $1.75 trillion Build Back Better social spending bill.
The inflation reduction measure contains $437 billion in new spending on green energy, so-called “climate change mitigation,” and other leftist Democrat priorities including healthcare and drug price “reform.” The measure also includes $300 billion that is supposed to go towards reducing the massive national debt, which is now approaching $31 trillion.
The law includes a new 15 percent minimum corporate revenue book tax on earnings reported to investors of $1 billion or more, as well as funding for some 87,000 new IRS employees, many of whom are likely to be agents conducting audits of taxpayers.
