West Virginia Unions Pressure Manchin To Back Biden On Infrastructure Plan – By Don Gonyea (NPR) / April 23 2021
If President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan is going to become a reality, it will very likely need the vote of every Democrat in the evenly divided Senate.
That simple fact puts a bright spotlight on West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat who represents a deep-red Republican state — a place that Donald Trump carried in the past two elections by some 40 percentage points.
Manchin’s position means he will have a lot of say on whether the package includes everything the Biden administration wants, and on how to pay for it.
And soon after it was outlined, Manchin voiced some immediate concerns. He said raising the corporate tax rate from its current 21% up to 28% to help pay for the proposal was too much of an increase. He suggested a smaller hike, up to 25%.
Right away, it underscored how central Manchin would be to the plan’s success.
