Fox Business reported last year on the Pig Book, a compendium of what the organization Citizens Against Government Waste considers wasteful government spending.
It catalogues $15.9 billion in wasteful spending, which is shorthand for federal spending that—by way of its constituent-focused largesse—could be perceived as giving some political benefit to a sitting senator.
Robert Byrd, the Senator from West Virginia until his death in 2010, was famous for this type of pork barrel earmark spending. Byrd also happens to be the namesake of the Byrd Rule that is keeping the minimum wage out of the relief bill, and he's one of Senator Joe Machin's political exemplars.
Presently, Senator Manchin is the leading force behind keeping the undemocratic filibuster and taking away stimulus money from 12 million voters by changing the income caps.
I would like to propose a standalone $16 billion bill called the "Joe Manchin Makes a List of All the Projects for West Virginia That Would Help Him Politically Act of 2021." The only stipulations are that the projects can't be counterproductive to climate legislation and that he accepts filibuster reform.
Horse trading for pork is an age old senate tradition and if $16 billion in new bridges, solar factories, research funding, and small business support for West Virginia is what it takes to get rid of the filibuster and maintain the stimulus income thresholds that a Republican controlled senate thought were acceptable, then it's well worth it.
I think we owe that much and more to West Virginia, a state hard hit by the collapse of the coal economy, the opioid epidemic, and unfair Hollywood portrayals.
The thing is, taking stimulus money from people by changing the income caps will only save the US Treasury $12 billion dollars. If Joe Manchin is saying on the surface that he's worried about $12 billion out of $1.9 trillion, then he is obviously angling for something.
Progressives need to learn to listen to the language of the plausibly deniable bribe request so we can get on with making people's lives better.