Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., may have just blown a gaping hole in the education community’s hopes for supersized new federal outlays.
Here’s the deal: Democrats control a 50-50 U.S. Senate by dint of Vice President Harris’ tie-breaking vote, when they can get all 50 Democrats on the same page (the calculus is different on legislation subject to the filibuster). Currently, Democrats are focused on their massive $3.5 trillion bill, which combines Biden’s “American Jobs Plan” and “American Family Plan” into legislation whose price tag is more than four times the price of FDR’s entire New Deal (in inflation-adjusted dollars).
