Democratic Senator Manchin Sticks It To Biden Again

Following the Democrats picking up both Georgia U.S. Senate seats, there were a lot of concerns on the right side of the aisle.

These two seats brought the senate to 50 members on each side, but with Vice President Kamala Harris as the president of the Senate, she could vote for the Democrats to break any 50/50 votes for the left.

With this being said, the reason President Biden has not been able to get his major agenda items passed, is because of two centrists inside his own party.

One of them, Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, will once again oppose one of Biden’s nominations. This time, the WV Democratic is opposing Sarah Bloom Raskin, Biden’s pick to join the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, ending a standoff over the Obama Treasury Department official’s status.

Manchin has opposed several other of Biden nominees, most notably Neera Tanden, slated to head the Office of Management and Budget, and Food and Drug Administration head Dr. Robert Califf.

As a result of Manchin and a few other centrists, the Biden administration was forced to withdraw the nominations of several far-left candidates, including Cornell University Law School professor Saule Omarova and former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agent David Chipman, in the face of bipartisan opposition.

Bloom Raskin, the wife of Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, is an environmental activist and advocate for using the Federal Reserve to promote green energy policy, which would mark a dramatic departure from the central banking system’s dual mandate of maintaining maximum employment and keeping inflation in check.

Raskin’s nomination was in part, the administration’s efforts to, “bring long-overdue diversity”, at the Federal Reserve. She served as a Duke University law professor and on the board of a major financial services provider.

“Now more than ever, the United States must have policy leaders and economic experts who are focused on the most pressing issues facing the American people and our nation – specifically rising inflation and energy costs. I have carefully reviewed Sarah Bloom Raskin’s qualifications and previous public statements. Her previous public statements have failed to satisfactorily address my concerns about the critical importance of financing an all-of-the-above energy policy to meet our nation’s critical energy needs,” Manchin said in a statement.

“The time has come for the Federal Reserve Board to return to its defining principles and dual mandate of controlling inflation by ensuring stable prices and maximum employment.”

Republicans have previously blocked votes to confirm four other nominees to the Federal Reserve Board, including chairman Jerome Powell, over the inclusion of Bloom Raskin in the Senate Banking Committee’s slate of nominees.

Due to the 50-50 split in the Senate, the boycott denied Democrats the quorum needed to advance the nominees. Powell has continued to serve as chairman pro tempore of the Federal Reserve board.

In addition to concerns over Bloom Raskin’s support for expanding the Federal Reserve’s mandate, some Republicans alleged that she used her government connections to “help” her then-employer, Reserve Trust, gain favorable regulatory treatment.

As a result, Reserve Trust became the first financial services provider to receive access to the Federal Reserve’s master account, which allows it to bypass banks when conducting transactions.

“A Fed master account gives Reserve Trust an enormous advantage over everybody else since it appears they’re the only one who has it,” Republican Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis said during Bloom Raskin’s confirmation hearing.

Currently there is only one non-bank fintech company in the country with a Federal Reserve master account. That company was initially denied an account, but a year after Sarah Bloom Raskin joined the company’s board, the company was granted it. This raises a lot of questions. pic.twitter.com/o0aNJXq5Hy

— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) February 3, 2022

Thank you again Senator Manchin for standing on principle.

This one should have not been a difficult decision for the Senator from West Virginia, whose state’s energy companies would have been in the bullseye for Raksin and other tree huggers in positions of authority.

By: Eric Thompson, editor of Eric Thompson Show.