The head of the Democratic majority in the United States Senate, Chuck Schumer, assured this Monday that he will go ahead with the plan to put to a vote the 1.75 trillion dollars social spending package that President Joe Biden defends, even without having the necessary support.
“The Senate will consider the social spending law at the beginning of the new year so that each member of this chamber has the opportunity to make their position known to the plenary, not only on television,” the New York senator said in a letter.
Schumer’s decision comes a day after Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said he will vote against the social spending package, making it enormously difficult to pass and sinking the options for it to go ahead, at least as it currently stands.
Manchin, the most conservative politician within the Democratic wing in the Senate, said in a speech on Fox News channel that he cannot “vote for this legislation to continue, “ although he claimed to have “tried everything humanly possible” to make it go ahead.
“(President Biden) knows the concerns and problems I have had,” said Manchin, who from the beginning had always been very skeptical of this star White House measure, considering that it would skyrocket public spending and further increase public spending. already very high inflation.
Just a few hours after the senator’s decision was known, the press secretary of the US government, Jen Psaki, issued a very harsh statement against Manchin, whom she accused of having broken “his commitment to the president and his colleagues in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. “
“His comments represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position,” said Psaki, who assured that the senator had promised Biden on a visit to his home in Delaware to support the framework of the social plan and that he committed “several times” to negotiate what was lacking in good faith.
Biden’s plan, which was already approved by the House of Representatives in a tight vote in November, represents a historic expansion of public spending (it has come to be compared to the “New Deal” of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s) , especially in the fields of health, child poverty and the fight against climate change.
The vote of Manchin, who despite belonging to the Democratic Party represents West Virginia, one of the most conservative states in the country, is essential to carry out the legislation in the Senate, divided 50% between Democrats and Republicans.