Joe Manchin’s Reagan moment to us & West Virginians: People would go hunting & abuse paid leave

We always knew Joe Manchin was a neoliberal. But his disdain for the rest of us is palpable. Funny, it is he who a taker is.

Joe Manchin shows who he really is

Yacht-living Maserati-driving Senator Joe Manchin seemed concerned that if he allows a solid social safety net in America, those who need it will abuse it. He thinks so little of his constituents that he believes they are drug-taking freeloaders who would look for any excuse to go hunting over going to a job worth having.

According to the AP,

Sen. Joe Manchin privately told his Senate colleagues that he believed Americans would abuse government benefits, like the extended child tax credit and paid leave, in President Joe Biden’s sweeping $2 trillion spending package, HuffPost reported. 

Specifically, Manchin said parents would use child-tax-credit money to buy drugs and workers would abuse the paid-family-leave program in the legislation to get out of work and go on hunting trips, unnamed people familiar with his remarks told HuffPost.

That was very Reaganesque. But instead of attacking a Demographic America is generally comfortable demonizing with false stereotypes, this one hits West Virginians characteristically.

On Fox News, Manchin said he would have to vote no on Build Back Better because he could not explain the bill to West Virginians. Maybe he should delegate the job to someone who cares about them. You see, describing the bill would require him to say that for once, he will pass legislation that helps most of them, but he thinks they are neither worthy nor disciplined enough to get the help they need.

It is high time for Joe Manchin to listen to Anand Giridharadas’s excoriation of our inability to serve constituents appropriately. Show me your budget, and I can discern whether you have humane values.