As we predicted earlier this year, Democrat Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona would play a major role in Congress. We got that right, as they are holding off the massive Biden $3.5 trillion spending bill and taking a lot of Democrat heat for it. But both come from swing states and don’t want to tick off Republican voters. So they should remain solid on this issue.

FNC: ‘President Biden Friday morning doubled down on his support for the $3.5 trillion spending plan that some moderate Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin oppose, siding with progressives like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders in the brewing intra-party battle over the bill. But Manchin and his allies are much cooler to the idea of spending $3.5 trillion on what amounts to a wish list of Democratic priorities from social programs to climate change and beyond.

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The rubber will hit the road for the reconciliation bill on September 15. That’s the deadline for committees to finish drafting the legislation. Democrats will then face a mad rush to pass it through both chambers, ensuring that their most centrist or progressive members don’t flake along the way. The deadline for the House to consider the infrastructure bill is September 27.

Biden said that the government should have two focuses in September. The top priority, he said, is beating back the coronavirus pandemic. But he also pushed Congress to pass his two major spending plans.”

“The second thing that has to happen in September is for the Congress, the House and Senate, to finish passing my economic agenda so that we can keep up the historic momentum we’ve been building,” Biden said.

“It’s about investing in America’s future. Not about short-term stimulus. That’s not what we’re talking about. These are long-term prosperity we’re talking about. Creating millions of good paying jobs for hardworking Americans. It’s about reducing bottlenecks in our economy, about reducing long-term price pressures.  We’re going to create millions of good paying jobs. We’re going to ease inflationary pressure.” Like a typical Democrat he doesn’t get that government doesn’t create jobs. It gets out of the way so the private sector can create jobs.

Manchin wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed, see above tweet, in which he said, “Over the past 18 months, we’ve spent more than $5 trillion responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Now Democratic congressional leaders propose to pass the largest single spending bill in history with no regard to rising inflation, crippling debt or the inevitability of future crises. Those who believe such concerns are overstated should ask themselves: What do we do if the pandemic gets worse under the next viral mutation? What do we do if there is a financial crisis like the one that led to the Great Recession?”