The Secret Schumer-Manchin Backroom Deal
by Lawrence Kadish • September 19, 2022 at 4:30 pm
Washington is a city that thrives on secrets. That is a good thing over at the CIA but it is a very bad thing when Congressional politics are practiced in the dark, far from public scrutiny and for purposes that could unravel our nation's democracy.
No surprise then that published reports reveal seething lawmaker anger over the closed door deal cut between Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Senator Joseph Manchin that will allow the White House to acquire and dispense some $700 billion dollars as it sees fit through the so-called "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022."
"We don't know what [the substance of their deal]... is. They haven't released the text, they don't give us the detailed explanation," Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) was quoted in the Washington insider publication, The Hill.
The Senator continued, "So, I don't know how you could ask people to vote for something they don't know what it is."
