Manchin says he'd support $1.5 trillion in Democratic reconciliation bill
CBSN
Washington — Senator Joe Manchin publicly clarified how much spending he would be willing to support in a Democratic reconciliation bill, saying his top-line number is and has been $1.5 trillion, a figure that is much lower than the $3.5 trillion Democratic leaders and President Biden are seeking.
Manchin said he thought his position was clear all along internally to his Democratic colleagues, although many Democrats have said they didn't know his demands. He said he communicated his number to the president in "the last week or so." The West Virginia Democrat originally proposed his $1.5 trillion in a July document first reported by Politico, and confirmed by Manchin himself Thursday.
"I brought the $1.5 [trillion], as you've seen I think by now, the 1.5 was always done from my heart of basically what we could do and not jeopardize our economy," he told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday. "I'm willing to sit down and work on that 1.5 to get our priorities, and they can come back and do later, and they can run on the rest of it later. I think there's many ways to get to where they want to. Just not everything at one time."
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.