{"id":11341,"date":"2021-01-21T14:38:13","date_gmt":"2021-01-21T14:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=152886"},"modified":"2021-01-21T14:38:13","modified_gmt":"2021-01-21T14:38:13","slug":"joe-manchin-was-hit-with-tough-ad-back-home-after-going-wobbly-on-2000-checks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/21\/joe-manchin-was-hit-with-tough-ad-back-home-after-going-wobbly-on-2000-checks\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Manchin Was Hit With Tough Ad Back Home After Going Wobbly on $2,000 Checks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Earlier this month<\/u>, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, appeared to have taken an unequivocal stance against new $2,000 stimulus checks. He told<\/a> the Washington Post that he was \u201cabsolutely\u201d opposed to a new round of payments, which President Joe Biden promised while campaigning for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia. \u201cAbsolutely not. No,\u201d Manchin said. \u201cGetting people vaccinated, that\u2019s job No. 1.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under fire, he claimed that he meant that there were higher priorities, not that he was necessarily opposed. But he sounded quite down on them. \u201cI don\u2019t ever remember FDR recommending sending a damn penny to a human being. We gave \u2019em a job and gave \u2019em a paycheck. Yeah. Jesus criminy, can\u2019t we start some infrastructure program to help people, get \u2019em back on their feet? Do we have to keep sending checks out?\u201d Manchin told the Post.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Despite representing one of the poorest states in the nation, Manchin has resisted calls for direct payments, needlessly pitting stimulus checks against unemployment benefits. Last month, he reportedly fought<\/a> Sen. Bernie Sanders\u2019s attempt to include robust stimulus checks in pandemic relief negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow is the money that we invest now going to help us best to get jobs back and get people employed? And I can\u2019t tell you that sending another check out is gonna do that to a person that\u2019s already got a check,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Since then, Manchin has shifted rather markedly. Over the weekend, Manchin went on \u201cInside West Virginia Politics,\u201d saying he would prefer that the checks are targeted to the people most impacted by the pandemic, but if there\u2019s no way to target them, it\u2019s more important to \u201cget more money out.\u201d Though he insisted infrastructure should be the priority, committing to spending as much as $4 trillion over 10 years, he did say that he would like to see bigger stimulus checks \u201cdone immediately to take care of the people that need help\u201d and \u201cmake sure those people are getting it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Important policy news this weekend: @Sen_JoeManchin<\/a> went on Inside West Virginia Politics and kept the door open to higher stimulus checks up to $2,000 (he prefers they be targeted but didn’t draw a red line) and called for spending as much as $4 trillion (!) on infrastructure. pic.twitter.com\/yG0aBBcxve<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 19, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It may be no coincidence that not long after Manchin\u2019s initial comments to the Washington Post, he was getting pounded at home by a brutal radio ad. \u201cJoe Manchin thinks he knows better than both our president and the Democrats,\u201d says<\/a> the ad. \u201cI guess Joe just don\u2019t know what it\u2019s been like to live through the pandemic. We should call his office and let him know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spot was narrated by Corbin Trent, the former spokesperson for New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Trent, Justice Democrats co-founder Zack Exley, and former Ocasio-Cortez chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti had put together a new political action committee \u2014 the No Excuses PAC \u2014 to pressure Manchin to back the $2,000 checks. The ad reached an estimated quarter million people each time it aired, according to Trent. It was precisely the kind of targeted ad that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel in 2009 told<\/a> progressive groups was \u201cfucking retarded\u201d and needed to come off the air. The progressive groups complied.<\/p>\n

Now, with an evenly divided Senate, Democrats like Manchin and Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema are uniquely positioned to hold leverage over their party and block desperately needed relief. House Democrats also have little room for error in steering the nation out of a crisis, given their razor-thin margin. No Excuses PAC intends to push back against any Democratic lawmakers who try to hamper ambitious policy with similar rapid-response ad campaigns in the future, Trent told The Intercept.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way we won\u2019t do this is if Democrats just push through everything that needs to be done, keep all their promises, and do what\u2019s right for the people who just gave them the House, the Senate, the White House,\u201d Trent said. \u201cBut my guess is \u2014 not to be a jaded, cynical bastard \u2014 my guess is they\u2019re going to need a little bit of encouragement, a little bit of cajoling from time to time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress, appeared to have taken an unequivocal stance against new $2,000 stimulus checks.\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11341"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11342,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11341\/revisions\/11342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}