Dare we hope, President Manchin?

Edited by Sam Thielman

Even those who follow politics for a living were floored by the turnabout in the Senate: The Biden presidency’s destroyer-in-chief, “Coal Joe” Manchin announced a deal with Chuck Schumer to pass the biggest climate-saving investment package in U.S. history.

In short, as the American Prospect’s David Dayen reports, the full $1.5 trillion reconciliation package includes:

• a provision to keep Obamacare until well into the next administration

• some corporate tax tweaks and IRS investments aimed at bumping up overall revenue

• and $369 billion in potentially transformative investments in renewable energy, electric vehicles and more that climate experts say will reduce U.S. emissions 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Also it includeds some giveaways to the fossil fuel industry. (“Coal Joe” is involved, after all.)

This is way more than anyone could have reasonably expected, at least since the last time Manchin blew up the bill. And the way it was announced was, to use the technical term, absolutely baller. They waited until Mitch McConnell let them pass the CHIPS Act — a bill subsidizing semiconductor manufacturers that McConnell had threatened to block if the Democrats persisted in trying to do a party-line reconciliation bill. Then a few hours later, Manchin and Schumer revealed their secret deal in what looks like a one-page Word Document that they printed out and signed, and McConnell threw an absolute fit.

Writes Dayen: “If you told me a cosmic ray hit Washington and flipped everyone’s brains, giving