they did, thus all the gimmicks.
however clever the aides that drew up the gimmicks thought they were, they failed to fool manchin, so back to the drawing board, but this time for real.
He just arbitrarily made the number up so they arbitrarily tried to do as much of the actual policy proposals they wanted to meet his dumb number. Then he said he didn’t like that.
Who even knows that the number means anyways, do tax raises off set? Also Manchin now seems to say that any program must be counted for the 10 year window, but even that is kind of dumb because if it is “permanent” then that number is just an arbitrary window too.
The only reason any of this is taken seriously is because everyone in a position to help get this done has to treat Manchin like he is Cicero while he struts around and gives his daily press conference to try to convince Weat Virginians he isn’t rolling over for the dems.
The entire thing is a farce and theatre. I can’t understand why you are pretending it is anything but. And even if you like that Manchin is preventing this crap you don’t like from getting passed, the way he is doing it must be a bit distasteful to you.