- Manchin wants Sinema to revisit her opposition to hiking tax rates on the rich and corporations.
- "Why can't we just get a good solid tax plan that works?" he told the Wall Street Journal.
- But Sinema doesn't appear like she's dropping her opposition to those tax increases anytime soon.
Sen. Joe Manchin is starting to turn up the heat on another Democratic holdout with competing demands on President Joe Biden's spending bill.
The conservative West Virginia Democrat has ramped up calls this month to step up taxes on the richest Americans and large firms. But he's likely to encounter resistance from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who shut the door on hiking tax rates on both of those groups last fall.
"I respect her and what her concerns may be, but I think basically our financial situation is getting worse, not better, so maybe we can take another look at it," Manchin told The Wall Street Journal. "I would hope so."
"Why can't we just get a good solid tax plan that works? That's the first thing to do." he told the Journal.
The Arizona Democrat doesn't seem like she'll budge anytime soon and it's unclear whether she'd drop her opposition when Democrats take another swing at passing a skinnier spending bill later this year. A spokesperson for her office opened the door to other plans that strengthen economic competitiveness and add jobs.
"There are many ways to pay for such ideas that do not include tax-rate increases that hurt small businesses and our economic competitiveness while we continue to emerge from a pandemic and economic downturn," a Sinema spokesperson told the Journal.
The competing demands from the pair underscore the difficult and tricky path ahead for Democrats trying to resuscitate the spending plan. Manchin torpedoed the House bill in December, and all Senate Democrats must coalesce around another package to muscle it through the 50-50 chamber along party lines.
Sinema's opposition to tax rates prompted Democrats to scramble in the fall for new ways to finance their plans to expand healthcare, childcare and education. Many in the party appeared taken by surprise at the prospect that Democrats could blow a campaign pledge to roll back the Republican tax law.
"Boy, oh boy, that would be a great irony — if a Democratic president, House and Senate embraced the 2017 tax cuts," Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia told Insider last October.
Manchin has said he backs hiking the corporate tax rate to 25% as part of a future spending bill. He told NBC News earlier this month that he's onboard with a 15% corporate minimum tax, a 28% capital gains tax, and closing other loopholes.