We’ve been finding out a lot more about Kyrsten Sinema of late. The Guardian noted that pharmaceutical companies ignore 90 percent of lawmakers, who they know are either “for” or “against” them, and concentrate their efforts to “buy” a lawmaker who they have identified as being narcissistic, and Sinema was the Democrat they were able to buy by throwing money at her campaign—and they continue to do so. Big PhRMa’s lobbyists are bragging even now that Sinema is their “lead blocker.” The fact that Sinema had as late as 2018 decried high drug prices for low-income people and then changed course on a dime demonstrates that this all about her, not the people who voted for her in the belief that she would support a working people-centered agenda.
But we should have been clued into what kind of person Sinema was back in April, revealing her to be a completely characterless person consumed with the megalomaniacal desire for power that money from big business can buy. Power is everything to her, and it doesn’t matter from what ideological side it comes from. Sinema claims to be a “maverick,” but she clearly is not; she is just a marionette being played by whoever is her current paymaster, which at the moment is PhRMa.. Last April we saw something that revealed what she has to say to people who voted for her:
She probably got the idea from either Melania Trump:
Or the people selling Nazi gear at the Sturgis rally:
It is clear that if Sinema is “first-rate” at anything, it is being a con artist. I mean, does the person wearing that ring in that get-up look like someone who brings credit and dignity to the U.S. Senate, let alone her state? Of course if she was a “radical liberal,” people would say, yeah, OK. But if she was, she isn’t anymore. The people who voted for her no doubt were motivated to do so because they remembered her past “progressive” positions. Now, Sinema and Joe Manchin behave as if their “priorities”—which amount to doing as little as possible—are more important than that of the 48 other Democrats in the Senate. Democrats have to take advantage of their opportunities, and they are being wasted by these two.
There is also the question of what is the former Green Party activist’s position on green energy today. Sinema told the Arizona Republic a few months ago that she still supports green energy and has “concerns” about climate change, but like in everything else, she has been reticent about what exactly she still supports, if anything. She certainly has not come out in support of the centerpiece of Biden’s climate and green plan, the Clean Electricity Performance Program, which offers financial aid to utilities to switch to clean energy. The New York Times reported that Sinema is demanding $100 billion in cuts to Biden’s green energy proposals; Sinema has since denied that report, but one gets the impression that that is not enough of a cut for her.
Manchin, for his part, is no hypocrite; he is just plain short-sighted and uninformed. Why should the entire country be held hostage by West Virginians in their isolation, who Manchin has done nothing to educate about what needs to be done now to insure the future? Manchin has been making the uninformed claim that since companies are already transitioning to clean energy, they don’t need funding assistance. But that certainly isn’t true in his own state, where the coal industry is desperate to hang on, and where there is very little “transitioning” going on. Manchin has stated that he believes that the assisting in the transition to clean energy is allowing the process to go too “fast,” or at least too fast for coal producers in his state.
But the reality is that the U.S. is far behind other developed countries in transitioning to clean energy. An MIT report earlier this year revealed that the U.S., out of 76 countries measured, comes in at number 40. The Hill reported in February that “high carbon emissions, lackluster climate policies and energy transitions pushed the U.S. toward the lower half of the ranking.” Kurt Waltzer of the Clean Task Force told CNBC that “The U.S. lack of political leadership on climate and energy for the past four years has been very problematic.” While the U.S. has seen improvement in renewable energy transitioning, Waltzer noted that unlike other Western countries, the U.S. started out from a “very small place,” which is like saying growth from one to two percent may be “double” growth, but hardly impressive. Even Costa Rica is doing better than the U.S., placing seventh on the list.
Thus we see people like Manchin and Sinema who are showing no leadership at all on any issue. We don’t need “leaders” like this who refuse to see into the future. The CEPP program isn’t about funding energy companies that are already transitioning to clean energy, but pushing companies that are not. Manchin complains that he doesn’t want the transition to clean energy to go “too fast.” Too fast? The problem with this country is that it isn’t going fast enough. This country needs a national agenda on clean energy policy, not one that is constantly handcuffed by politicians who willingly put themselves at the mercy of ill-informed constituents and in the pay of polluters, just to hold on to office.
But that is not all. Incomprehensibly, Manchin even opposes expanding Medicare to cover dental, vision and hearing; I mean it doesn’t makes sense that the latter two are not already covered by Medicare, and people more often need to go to the dentist than they do the doctor; why dental was not covered under Medicare in the first place simply makes no sense. Bernie Sanders has said expanding Medicare coverage in those areas is a “redline” for him, and why Manchin thinks that people on fixed Social Security don’t need such additional coverage just shows how he is in the pocket of business interests just as Sinema is. Unsurprisingly, Manchin wants a tax on opioids, apparently to discourage their use, but is opposed by Sinema’s allies in PhRMa. But does that even matter? Manchin’s opioid tax threatens to cut the intended funding for the Medicare expansions.
During all of this, progressives are the ones who are expected to do all the compromising, and they have been, dropping their demand for a $3.5 trillion spending bill to $2 trillion. It is so-called “moderates” like Sinema and Manchin who have stonewalled and made impossible demands that seem to indicate that they are just fine with no plan at all the helps working people and insures the future, instead being “OK” with what has been done, which is to make the rich, richer, “safe” in their castles on the hills. We have seen Republicans give trillions of dollars in handouts to the rich in their 2017 tax law, which instead of being used to create jobs or improve infrastructure, has gone right into the pockets of executives and shareholders.
We are also warned that Biden has had plenty of “face time” with both Sinema and Manchin, but apparently prefers the “soft” approach rather than the “hard” approach, which clearly isn’t working and is frustrating Democrats waiting for an elusive “breakthrough.” It seems almost by “design” that these two want to kill the Build Back Better plan by competing with each other what they want and don’t want, which essentially cancel each other out and adding up to nothing at all, like the Senate version of Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
Biden apparently has no “horse trading” skills like Lyndon Johnson, who twisted many an arm to get his “Great Society” bills passed, or using threats to take away something Sinema or Manchin want if they don’t cooperate. Although national polling seems to indicate that a majority of Americans support what is in his BBB plan, Biden certainly isn’t being very persuasive about convincing Sinema and Manchin that this isn’t about them and their own egotism, but about the country and the future.
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