This is the latest firmly held position of the first-term moderate. His resistance to changing Senate filibuster rules, and to supporting a $3.5 billion spending bill are enraged progressives. Sinema, Manchin, and both of them helped to pass the Democrats' budget earlier in the month, setting up that massive spending bill. However, both men are opposed to a social spending package which ultimately reaches its $3.5 trillion top-line mark.
Sinema specifically opposes this spending goal which was created by Senator Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). To pass a reconciliation spending bill that is filibusterproof, Senate Democrats must have all 50 members, Sinema and Manchin.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated Sunday that her members are still pushing a bill which costs $3.5 trillion. However, they plan to finance it with tax enforcement and tax increases for the wealthy and corporations. Pelosi's moderates have been declining to support the Senate-passed budget, unless Pelosi brings Sinemas Senate-passed bipartisan Infrastructure bill up for a vote at the House floor.
Manchin, in a statement made shortly after Sinema’s, urged Pelosi to urge House leaders and House leaders to take immediate action on the $550billion bipartisan infrastructure bill. He said that he would rather wait for the Senate's massive spending bill to pass than to push Pelosi to get involved.
It would send a terrible message for the American people to hold this bipartisan bill hostage. Manchin stated that he urged his colleagues in the House "to move quickly to get this once-in-a-generation legislation to the President's desk for him to sign."
