Jonathan Chait writes:

When historians record the Biden presidency, the aspect they will struggle to capture is just how much of it was spent attempting to divine the objectives and motivation of Joe Manchin. The West Virginia senator once again threw Washington into chaos by appearing on Fox News Sunday to deliver what may or may not be a death blow to the centerpiece of Biden’s domestic agenda.

“I can’t move forward. I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation, I just can’t,” Manchin said during the interview. “I tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there. … This is a no.”

That sounds like the firmest possible no. But is it? In the next breath, Manchin lays out what sound more like specific negotiating conditions that the White House has to meet.

“They’re just trying to make the adjustment for the time to fit the money or the money to fit the time. Not changing our approach, not targeting things we should be doing,” he added.

Manchin is referring here to a policy-design choice where his preferences are not only clear but correct from a liberal point of view. Biden began the process with a sweeping domestic-reform agenda, financed by more than $3.5 trillion in new taxes and other funding. Centrist Democrats, heavily influenced by business lobbyists, systematically picked those funding sources apart.

The lobbying by the rich to keep the money Biden wanted to tax away was the key strategic defeat. It left Democrats with around $1.75 trillion to spend over a decade.

But instead of choosing which programs to keep, they mainly gamed the budget score instead. [Continue reading…]