The giant sucking sound you hear is Joe Biden's agenda circling the bottom of the congressional toilet. It also looks like two senators; Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are responsible for potentially flushing Biden's Build Back Better plan.
At first blush, it seems to many that neither senator is serving the interests of the people who elected them. Both states, West Virginia and Arizona, would greatly benefit from both the clean energy and human infrastructure aspects of the bill. Manchin's state is among the poorest in the country and although coal is the titular king of the state's economy, in reality, coal has been declining as a share of West Virginia's economy since the Reagan era. The fracking boom which has turned the state into an oil and gas producer mostly benefits interests outside the state.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Manchin really feels workers in his state should be beholden to the vagaries of the market for their livings. It is increasingly a Republican way of looking at the economy, but considering Trump won the state by nearly 40 points, you can at least see why Manchin is balking at Biden's bill. A less charitable view is that, much like the former guy, Manchin is a narcissistic asshole who just likes to see his name in print.
This brings us to the other narcissist in this morality play. Kyrsten Sinema is an enigma. A Green Party candidate in the 90's and early aughts, she is now a howlingly bad imitation of a reactionary Democrat with all the bad instincts of a Dixiecrat without the ideology to match. In the end, Manchin will probably deal with the rest of his caucus. It's an open question if Sinema is even listening to anybody but the voices inside her head.
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