You know what the difference is between West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin dealing with his fellow Democrats and Charlie Brown hoping to finally kick the football Lucy held for him? Lucy didn’t charge viewers a couple trillion dollars for the privilege of letting us watch her yank the ball away from Charlie every time.
Manchin proved himself the fool yet again, complaining in a Wall Street Journal op-ed of White House “betrayal” in administering the so-called Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
“Recent actions make clear to me that the Biden administration is determined to pursue an ideological agenda rather than confront the clear and present danger that debts and deficits pose to our nation,” wrote the man who voted Yea for every ideological agenda-driven spending bill that Presidentish Joe Biden wanted, from the $2 trillion “recovery” act that spurred inflation to the $2 trillion regulatory monster known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
Worse, “Instead of implementing the law as intended,” Manchin wrote, “unelected ideologues, bureaucrats and appointees” — i.e., Biden Democrats — “seem determined to violate and subvert the law to advance a partisan agenda that ignores both energy and fiscal security.”
“Specifically, they are ignoring the law’s intent to support and expand fossil energy and are redefining ‘domestic energy’ to increase clean-energy spending to potentially deficit-breaking levels.”
And just like that, Lucy snatched the football away from Joe — I mean Charlie.
I mean Joe.
Who could ever have suspected that the Federal government, under the administration of a party determined to end the use of oil and gas, could possibly do something that Manchin warned will jeopardize “America’s energy security” and create “a debt-ceiling calamity that is completely avoidable.”
Nevertheless, the West Virginia dupe has hope:
The president has the power, today, to direct his administration to follow the law, as well as to sit down with congressional leaders and negotiate meaningful, serious reforms to the federal budget. Failing to do so may score political points with left-wing partisans, but generations of Americans will ultimately pay the price.
I will remind you of what Manchin won’t (or can’t) admit to himself, his constituents, or readers of the Wall Street Journal: he voted for all these bills. In fact, he helped craft the very parts of the Inflation Reduction Act that have allowed the administration to ignore oil, gas, and coal in favor of “renewables.” Worse, Manchin is either so stupid or so gullible that he believed — or hoped voters would believe — that he could protect domestic energy production from rapaciously “green” members of his own party.
I’ll leave you with the kicker from Manchin’s op-ed: “I believe the only person who can rein in this extremism is Mr. Biden.”
Charlie Brown believes that, this time, Lucy is finally going to let him kick that football.
Exclusively for our VIPs: Is GenX the Last Generation of Americans?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member