Manchin's vile reported reason for killing the Biden agenda

Joe Manchin.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

Over the weekend, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) apparently blew up President Biden's Build Back Better agenda with comments on Fox News. On Monday, HuffPost reported one reason is his skepticism of the expanded child tax credit (CTC), which has been going to people with no labor income — that is, the poorest people — for the first time. "In recent months, 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," write Tara Golshan and Arthur Delaney.

There are two big problems here. First is that Manchin's reported expectation is false. A study using Census data found a plurality of West Virginia CTC recipients (43 percent) primarily used the money to pay down debt. Another 20 percent mostly saved it, and the 37 percent who mostly spent it put the money toward necessities like food, clothing, housing, and child care.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.