To the editor:
It’s time for a reader to “call out” Thor Jourgensen on his commentary in The Daily Item (Dec. 21), on President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin.
Jourgensen doesn’t make a case supporting Biden’s trillions-of-dollars “social-and-environmental-spending” legislation.
He loses his argument in the first paragraphs of his commentary by calling Manchin cyrogenically frozen and “the mean kid everyone knew growing up” who tortured ants, as well as a “tinhorn despot” with his “abuse of power” — all because of Manchin’s stand against voting for the Build Back Better bill Biden and the Democrats are trying to pass. When you don’t like the message, kill the messenger.
It cannot come as a surprise that Manchin would not vote for what Jourgensen and the Democrats continue to call a $2-trillion proposal. Manchin has been signaling his concerns for weeks because he knows the bill ultimately will cost double that amount or more.
His position runs contrary to the Democrats’ insistence that most of the bill “won’t cost anything; it’s already paid for.”
As for Mr. Jourgensen wanting Biden to “put Manchin in his place” and act more like Franklin Delano Roosevelt or actor Michael Douglas in “The American President,” he’s on the right track.
He may want another FDR in the White House, but what he’s got is a sadly-diminished man who reads his script as directed and hopes for rave reviews.
Jourgensen wants Biden to “jump into campaign mode and travel around West Virginia by bus, dropping into coal mines and living rooms” and tell people why we need to spend billions of dollars now.
Really? Remember — Biden’s campaign was mostly spent in his basement. He can’t speak extemporaneously or he goes off message. He relies on index cards and written speeches.
Biden simply isn’t up to the task of selling such a bad bill — one that will cost considerably more than $2 trillion. This is not FDR’s New Deal, and it is not “spending on basic needs.” It is a bad-government-cradle-to-grave move toward socialism.
Jourgensen repeatedly calls this bill a “spending plan.” He writes that, in Manchin’s opinion, “voting for the spending package would be a disservice to his (Manchin’s) hardworking West Virginia constituents.”
I would say Manchin is voting his conscience. That is a rarity today. In the 11 months of Biden’s administration, people are seeing prices rise at the gas pump, in the grocery store, and with their heating bill.
It is quite ironic for Jourgensen to tout climate change and childcare in the same sentence. The Democrats want to shut down the West Virginia coal mines, which are a big part of the state’s economy. But the Democrats will provide daycare for idled miners who will be home with their kids because they will be out of work.
Build Back Better will cost more than $2 trillion. Manchin isn’t the only senator opposed to never-ending government programs. But he is the only Democrat, so he earns the vilification.
Mr. Jourgensen wants Biden to act more presidential and take this massive spending bill to the American people. It was John F. Kennedy who said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
Big government is not the answer.
Gretchen Henry
Nahant
