john maddente | midwestern clarity

By United States Senate photography studio - manchin.senate.gov, Public Domain,  O ne wouldn't expect to find a lot of bipartisanship concerning the federal $3.5  trillion  spending bill -- and there isn't much to be found -- but courage and reason came shining through in this piece by Senator Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia.  (Source: Wall Street Journal).  Why I Won’t Support Spending Another $3.5 Trillion The nation faces an unprecedented array of challenges and will inevitably encounter additional crises in the future. Yet some in Congress have a strange belief there is an infinite supply of money to deal with any current or future crisis, and that spending trillions upon trillions will have no negative consequence for the future. I disagree. An overheating economy has imposed a costly “inflation tax” on every middle- and working-class American. At $28.7 trillion and growing, the nation’s debt has reached record levels. Over the past 18 months, we’ve spent ...