Democrats and political junkies have been on tenterhooks waiting to see how Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will vote on the Democrats’ massive infrastructure bill. Now we know about Manchin: late on Wednesday afternoon, he issued a statement saying he would not vote for it.

It’s not as if Joe Biden and other Democrats haven’t been putting the squeeze play on Manchin and Sinema.

But, as reported in the video, Joe Manchin will not vote for the $3.5 trillion dollar bill, calling it “fiscal insanity.” His statement, which he released late on Wednesday afternoon, began with this:

“Every Member of Congress has a solemn duty to vote for what they believe is best for the country and the American people, not their party. Respectfully, as I have said for months, I can’t support $3.5 trillion more in spending when we have already spent $5.4 trillion since last March. At some point, all of us, regardless of party must ask the simple question – how much is enough?”

That didn’t go over well with progressives. A group called Center for Popular Democracy Action sent out a tiny flotilla to picket Joe Manchin’s houseboat. (They call it a “yacht,” but it’s where he lives when he’s in Washington, DC. He bought it for $220,000 — cheap for the DC area.)

https://twitter.com/CPDAction/status/1443336610351812611?s=20

The Code Pink wackos plan to join them, too.

We don't all have yachts to retreat to when the floodwaters rise! We joined @CPDAction, @Peoples_Watch_, & more at a flotilla outside of @Sen_JoeManchin's houseboat to demand the passage of Reconciliation & Infrastructure Bills. Congress– it's #TimeToDeliver & #CutThePentagon! pic.twitter.com/SwVwpW5Aft

— CODEPINK (@codepink) September 30, 2021

CNN’s radical anchor, Joy Reid (then again, who isn’t radical over there?), called Manchin an “obstructionist.”

https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1443375907255816192?s=20

And speaking of women named Joy — who are anything but joyful — Joy Behar of “The View” had a hissy fit. She called both Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema “enemies of democracy:”

“Manchin and Sinema must be brought to task. They are the enemies right now, of the democracy as you pointed out before. Yes we have a great democracy but it is really on life support right now because of these two people.”

But Joe Manchin didn’t completely shut the door on a Democrat spending bill at the end of the year. In fact, he told reporters that instead of rushing a reconciliation bill through, Democrats should work in good faith to come up with something a more moderate price tag:

“I think we can get a good bill done. I really do, and work in good faith.”

But Bernie Sanders wants reconciliation, and he wants it now. Besides, he insists, the wealthy will pay for everything:

“I’m sure he understands that this bill is not going add one nickel to the deficit because it’s all going to be paid for by demanding the wealthy and large corporations … pay their fair share of taxes.”

This must be what commies like Bernie think wealthy people do all day:

Giphy.com.

But there’s one more problem that Joe Manchin has with the reconciliation bill, and that’s with its “Medicaid-like” program. It’s because it doesn’t contain the Hyde Amendment, a measure that prohibits federal funding of abortion. The Catholic Manchin, unlike Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Dick Durbin, and other Democrat Catholics-In-Name-Only, actually walks the walk.

On Wednesday evening, Manchin spoke with a National Review reporter.

“National Review: Senator, you’ve been very firm on keeping the Hyde amendment on the appropriations bills. Are you concerned about that issue at all in reconciliation—

Manchin: Certainly—

NR: —with this new Medicaid program?

Manchin: Yeah, we’re not taking the Hyde amendment off. Hyde’s going to be on.

National Review: In the new Medicaid program?

Manchin: It has to be. It has to be. That’s dead on arrival if that’s gone.”

Yeah, that’s going to really piss off the abortion queens among the progressives. The Hyde Amendment, in fact, has saved the lives of over 50,000 unborn babies since the late 1970’s, when Congress first applied it to Medicaid. And if there’s one thing that progressive women detest, it’s an abortion that doesn’t happen.

The Medicaid expansion program included in the reconciliation bill is the brainchild of Sen. Ralph Warnock (D-GA), which would provide “free” health care for low income people in twelve states that did not participate in Obama’s Medicaid expansion. The bill doesn’t contain the Hyde Amendment, and any abortions that would be paid for under this program would be funded by taxpayers. When asked if his bill would indeed fund abortion, Warnock replied:

“The bill addresses health care. Next question.”

In other words, it does fund abortion.

Politico reports on another way to pass Medicaid expansion without the Hyde Amendment, and that’s to allow low-income adults to get “free” coverage in the Obamacare marketplace. That way the twelve states would be responsible for whether or not they would pay for abortions.

However, none of the twelve states that refused to expand Medicaid offers taxpayer-funded abortion on their Obamacare exchanges. Furthermore, with the exception of Wisconsin, the remaining 11 states are all red states, so it’s not likely their legislatures would vote for it.

So will Joe Manchin stick by his pro-life bona fides and stand up for life by insisting on the Hyde Amendment? He did disappoint supporters of life back in March, when he voted for final passage of a Covid relief bill that didn’t contain the Amendment.

But life would be so much easier for Manchin if he would just switch parties and become Republican. As Mark Tapscott wrote in Instapundit on Wednesday evening:

“Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) sounds like a man who is preparing to become a Republican:

“Overall, the amount we spend now must be balanced with what we need and can afford — not designed to reengineer the social and economic fabric of this nation or vengefully tax for the sake of wishful spending.”

“West Virginia is turning solidly red and Manchin knows it as well as anybody.”

C’mon Joe. Leave the Dark Side, and be one with your constituents.

Featured image: Defence Imagery/flickr/cropped/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.