Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., told Newsmax on Friday that West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin's opposition to a scaled-back version of President Joe Biden's $2 trillion "Build Back Better" budget reconciliation bill, due to inflationary concerns, is "a sigh of relief" for the American people.
"I prefer to call it "Build Back Broker" because the truth of the matter is [Democrats] must not understand what causes inflation," Scott said on "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "When you think about adding more fuel to the fire, or more money to the economy, you're literally talking about increasing inflation.
"When you increase taxes on our corporations, on our small businesses, you're reducing profits and the number of jobs that are available. So, thank goodness the crushing blow dealt by Joe Manchin is a sigh of relief for the American people. We are far better off with the BBB being DOA, dead on arrival."
Manchin told a West Virginia podcast Friday that he would not support the efforts of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to pass a scaled-down version of the bill until he saw July economic reports to make sure further federal spending would not make inflation rise even more.
"I said, 'Chuck, until we see the July inflation figures, until we see the July Federal Reserve [interest] rates, let's wait until that comes out so we know we are going down the path that won't be inflammatory to inflation,'" Manchin said on the podcast Friday.
"Inflation is absolutely killing many, many people. They can't buy gasoline, they have a hard time buying groceries, everything they buy and consume for their daily lives is a hardship to them."
Manchin's support is needed to get any legislation through the evenly split Senate.
Scott said that Manchin's fellow Democrats in Congress should be "patting him on the back" and thanking him for not making the predicted midterm shellacking of Democrats as bad as it could have been if the bill passed.
"They should be patting him on the back and quietly whispering into his ears, 'Thank you so much for making these midterms sort of it being a bloodbath making it better for us,' because if what the Democrats wanted became law, we would have higher inflation. Not 9.1%, the highest in 40 years, but I would believe that it would be over 10% inflation."
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