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Sen. Joe Manchin is open to discussing a federal ban on military-style semiautomatic rifles — commonly labeled assault weapons — as Congress debates how to respond to a recent wave of mass shootings. Mr. Manchin, West Virginia Democrat, said all ideas had to be on the table in discussions on combating violence.

Who must feel like the biggest fool in Washington, right now? Probably Sen. Joe Manchin, the independent-minded Democrat from the bright red state of West Virginia, who cut a deal with his fellow Democrats on the "Inflation Reduction Act," gave them his vote with conditions -- and is now getting stiffed.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Tuesday called President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan excessive, arguing there are other ways to help people burdened by student debt. “I just thought that it was excessive. I just respectfully disagree on that,” Manchin told reporters.

It’s nice to see the Democrats are back on track. It only took an upheaval turning women into second-class citizens, the possibility that the Orange Menace could be re-elected, and an out-of-control Supreme Court. With all that, the Dems seem to be pulling even. There’s still a better-than-even chance they could lose the House. If they’re lucky, they’ll hold on to the Senate; and for that they would have to thank the Republicans for putting forward horrible candidates. President Joe Biden’s ratings have gone up, from very bad to not good, with the base cheering on “Dark Brandon” - the...

Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin’s agreement late last month to back the disingenuously named Inflation Reduction Act came as a shock to Republicans and likely to members of his own party as well. Up until then, the West Virginia senator had been the one vote standing between the Democrats’ passage of needless and expensive climate change legislation and fiscal sanity. In order to secure Manchin’s vote, President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders promised to facilitate the approval of a gas pipeline in West Virginia. This would require passage of legislation that would “overhaul the permitting process for energy infrastructure,” according to...

Sen. Joe Manchin's deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for an oil and gas permitting bill in exchange for the West Virginia senator's support for the White House's $739 billion climate change spending and tax hike, signed into law last week by President Biden, is in jeopardy, as progressives say they are not bound by any agreement and vow to oppose the legislation.

Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who single-handedly thwarted her party's longtime goal of raising taxes on wealthy investors, received nearly $1 million over the past year from private equity professionals, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists whose taxes would have increased under the plan. For years, Democrats have promised to raise taxes on such investors, who pay a significantly lower rate on their earnings than ordinary workers. But just as they closed in on that goal last week, Sinema forced a series of changes to her party's $740 billion election-year spending package, eliminating a proposed 'carried interest' tax increase...

On Thursday’s broadcast of West Virginia MetroNews’ “Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) responded to concerns about the increased IRS funding in the Inflation Reduction Act by stating that it’s not geared towards small businesses or people making less than $400,000, it’s only for “those complicated, convoluted companies that we have never been able to” pursue due to a lack of resources. Manchin stated, [relevant remarks begin around 30:45] “That should not be a concern, and I’ll tell you the reason why. If anyone, and I would say this and make sure you quote me, anybody that feels...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A flagship Democratic economic bill perched on the edge of House passage Friday, placing President Joe Biden on the brink of a back-from-the-dead triumph on goals for the climate, health care and taxes that could energize his party ahead of November’s elections. Democrats were poised to muscle the measure through the narrowly divided House Friday over solid Republican opposition. They employed similar party unity and Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote Sunday to power the measure through the 50-50 Senate. The package is but a shadow of Biden’s initial vision and was produced only after a year...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives will vote Friday on a $430 billion bill to fight climate change and lower prescription drug prices, in what Democrats view as a major political win for President Joe Biden ahead of November's midterm elections. The bill has been more than 18 months in the making. It represents a final version of Biden's original sweeping Build Back Better plan, which had to be whittled down in the face of opposition from Republicans and key legislators from his own party. Democrats, who have been weighed down for months by inflation and Biden's anemic...

If insanity involves an inability or unwillingness to accept and deal with ineluctable realities, then every last Democrat in the United States Senate, all fifty of them, is insane and has no business being anywhere near the levers of power. This was made clear yet again on Sunday, when the entire bloc of those who think of themselves as our intellectual and moral superiors voted against recognizing a fact that has been obvious since the dawn of recorded time. Every last Democrat voted against an amendment to the infamously misnamed Inflation Reduction Act — which will do absolutely nothing to...

They tried to repackage President Trump's supporters as "ultra MAGA," a term they took as a compliment. Now they're trying the same thing again with doddering Joe Biden. They're repackaging him as — are you ready? — "Dark Brandon." Dark Brandon is having a good week. - Jobs up - Unemployment down - Gas prices down - Getting Manchin and Sinema to agree on SOMETHING - Got the Al Qaeda guy - Even shamed Republicans into helping veterans (Jon Stewart definitely helped!) pic.twitter.com/LesAWTByFs — Grant Stern is boosted! (@grantstern) August 5, 2022 Most of the momentum is coming from the...

Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are known as the moderates of the Senate Democratic Caucus. There are problems with that designation, of course, such as the fact that Manchin's and Sinema's lifetime ACU ratings are 27% and 15%, respectively - not exactly the definition of "moderation." But the universe of Democratic Party officeholders has moved so far left that they now officially regard Josef Stalin as "squishy," so the definition of "moderate" has had to be softened a bit as well, in recent years. Since the Democrats usurped complete control of both the national executive and legislative branches in 2020,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats scored a major policy victory when the U.S. Senate passed a $430 billion climate change, healthcare and tax bill that will help reduce the carbon emissions that drive climate change while also cutting drug costs for the elderly. President Joe Biden's congressional allies hope the bill, which they pushed through the Senate over united Republican opposition, will boost their chances in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, when Republicans are favored to recapture the majority in at least one chamber of Congress. The package, called the Inflation Reduction Act, is a dramatically scaled-back version of a prior...

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 appears to have a good shot at being signed into law. If Senate Democrats can get Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to join Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the bill will have the necessary 50 votes to pass through the reconciliation process. Let's hope that never happens. The plan would hurt working-class taxpayers and small-business owners across America. The act will introduce a "corporate alternative minimum tax," which will compel a 15% tax on corporate income. It will increase the taxes imposed on certain high-income earners. Finally, it will step up enforcement mechanisms within the IRS....

CNN - Republican senators and the business community are mounting a full-court press on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to sink – or substantially change – the Democrats’ economic package, arguing in private conversations that the new tax increases would hurt companies in her home state of Arizona. And in a private call with business groups on Tuesday, Sinema asked a question about the bill’s proposed 15% minimum tax on corporations that gave them some hope for optimism. “Is this written in a way that’s bad?” Sinema asked, according to Danny Seiden, president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, who relayed the...

Vulnerable House Democrats will not say if they support the Manchin-Schumer Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, or if it is wise to raise billions in new taxes during an economic recession. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) revealed in an analysis last week that the Manchin bill, which would spend $433 billion on climate change initiatives, would increase taxes by billions of dollars, including on middle-class earners. According to the JCT, Americans making less than $200K per year would have their taxes increased by $16.7 billion. For taxpayers earning between $200,000 and $500,000, the bill would increase taxes by...

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) had a message for her Democratic colleagues before she flew home to Arizona for the weekend: She's preserving her options.Why it matters: Sinema has leverage and she knows it. Any potential modification to the Democrat's climate and deficit reduction package — like knocking out the $14 billion provision on carried interest — could cause the fragile deal to collapse.

Arizonans face rising prices and empty store shelves, and they deserve to keep more of their hard earned money in their pockets.We passed the Chips and Science Act to help lower costs and improve supply chain challenges by increasing American semiconductor manufacturing. pic.twitter.com/0BN07jI8YJ— Kyrsten Sinema (@SenatorSinema) July 29, 2022