Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., offered harsh criticism for Sen. Joe Manchin Sunday after the Democrat from West Virginia indicated he would vote against President Biden’s roughly $2 trillion social spending packaged known as the Build Back Better Act.
“If Mr. Manchin doesn’t want to support us, look we’ve been dealing with Mr. Manchin month after month after month,” Sanders told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday. “But if he doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing for the working families of West Virginia and America, let him vote no in front of the whole world.”
Sanders argued that Manchin’s “no” vote meant the West Virginian does not have the guts to stand up to special interest groups to lower the cost of prescription drugs and is failing to expand home healthcare and Medicare. What is going on now in Washington, according to Sanders is that interest groups are “pouring hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure we continue to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs and the rich do not start paying their fair share of taxes.”
“I would have hoped that we could have had at least 50 Democrats on board,” he said.
“The American people have got to understand what is at stake,” Sanders continued. “For decades now, what Congress has been doing, giving tax breaks to the rich, not standing up to the drug companies, so we end up paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, ignoring climate change, the President of the United States and almost every Democrat is trying finally to address these issues.”
Machin’s vote against the massive spe… (Read more)
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