After appearing on Fox News to announce that he wouldn’t vote for his party’s Build Back Better legislation, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has reportedly suggested that low-income Americans don’t deserve financial aid because they would not send it correctly.
On Monday, The Huffington Post reported that Manchin’s biggest gripes publicly are about the cost of the bill, privately he has told his colleagues that “he essentially doesn’t trust low-income people to spend government money wisely.”
According to HuffPost, Manchin has told several of his fellow Democrats that he thought parents would waste monthly child tax credit payments on drugs instead of providing for their children.
HuffPost reported, citing according to two sources familiar with the senator’s comments.
Continuing the child tax credit for another year is a core part of the Build Back Better legislation that Democrats had hoped to pass by the end of the year. The policy has already cut child poverty by nearly 30%.
Manchin’s private remarks, revealed by two sources familiar with the senator’s comments, shocked several senators, who saw it as an unfair assault on his own constituents and those struggling to raise children in poverty.
Manchin also told colleagues he believes that the poorest Americans would fraudulently use the proposed paid sick leave policy, specifically saying people would feign being sick and go on hunting trips, a source familiar with his comments told HuffPost.
Manchin’s refusal to support the bill likely means December’s child tax credit payment will be the final one for the 36 million households that have been receiving the benefits.
The credit pays $300 per child under 6 and $250 for kids under 18 for two-parent households earning less than $150,000 annually and single parents earning less than $112,000.
Several Democratic senators have expressed frustration with Manchin’s opposition to the popular legislation.
“If Mr. Manchin and Republicans and anybody else who thinks struggling working families, who have a hard time raising their kids today, should not be able to continue to get the help — that’s their view — they’ve got to come forward to the American people and say, ‘we don’t think you need help,’” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Thursday.
Read more at The Huffington Post.
