Joe Manchin Weirdly Correct About A Thing

Guess, we should say something nice about him now.

We spent some time today explaining why Kyrsten Sinema isn't actually a Republican, so it's only fair we do the same for Joe Manchin, who some people around here give a hard time. 

PREVIOUSLY:

 Working Class Hero Joe Manchin MIGHT Not Be Entirely On The Up And Up! 

 Good Old Joe Manchin So Happy He Crapped Over Joe Biden’s Domestic Agenda 

 Let’s Assume, Just For The Moment, That Joe Manchin Is A Dishonest Man 

 Manchin is frustrating, sure, but he usually delivers in the end (unless you are an expanded Child Tax Credit) and occasionally even says true things when not high-fiving Kyrsten Sinema. During an appearance on CNN Sunday, Manchin defended the social safety net, which Republicans are always eager to shred.

“Manchin on CNN says there should be no cuts to those now getting Social Security & Medicare, and rejects idea of raising the SS retirement age. He instead suggests raising the taxable wage cap for employees paying into the program.”

— Igor Bobic (@Igor Bobic) 1674398630 

Manchin opposes cuts to Social Security and Medicare, as well as the Republican plan to raise the Social Security retirement age. Manchin told Dana Bash, "Social Security and Medicare basically is running out of cash, because we stop at a certain level when people pay into FICA" and "the easiest and quickest thing we can do is raise the cap," which he concedes that "everyone says, that's a -- that's a tax ..." (Of course, Republicans are currently all about raising taxes on average Americans.)

The taxable wage is the maximum amount of earned income on which employees must pay Social Security taxes. The wage cap increased on January 1 to $160,200 — up from $147,000 last year. Currently, $1 trillion in earned income escapes Social Security's payroll tax every year. Comrade Manchin pointed out that this benefits the wealthy far more than the poor, who are a prominent demographic in his home state.

"So, if you're getting a paycheck — now, in West Virginia, in a state like mine, that the medium income is much lower than that, they're paying 100 percent of the tax," he said. "In wealthier areas, they are paying very small percentage of that tax."

Indeed.

Social Security is legitimately in trouble. The program is facing a $20 trillion shortfall. Alicia Munnell, the director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, told the New York Times in 2019, "Old people not getting the Social Security checks they have been promised? That has been unthinkable in America — and I don’t think it will really happen in the end this time, because it’s just too horrible." (We also thought a Trump presidency was "just too horrible." We've passed the event horizon on horrible.)

A course correction is necessary. President Joe Biden proposed raising the payroll tax on struggling coupon clippers who earn more than $400,000 a year. Republicans would prefer raising the full retirement age to 70, because they're down with any economic policy solution that would horrify Dickens.

 David Sirota even admitted that Manchin's "statement about lifting the payroll tax cap echoes demands by progressives for the last quarter century."

But this isn't actually a new development for Manchin. He opposed the Republican tax scam and specifically called out the ways it hurt working people and threatened Medicare. He's repeatedly saidthe Trump tax cuts were unfairly tilted toward the wealthy and supports raising taxes on large corporations. Sinema, meanwhile, "mysteriously" flipped on the tax cuts for rich people she'd originally voted against when in the House. She also demanded that Democrats keep the private equity tax break that Manchin disliked in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Manchin has his flaws, which I've extensively documented, but unlike Sinema, he seems to have something approaching a core set of beliefs. At best, Sinema is a corporate stooge. However, Manchin is ultimately a classic Southern Blue Dog Democrat, one whom we would in fact piss on if he were on fire.

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