Claiming he knows what is best for his constituents, Joe Manchin expressed one of his oppositions to Build Back Better, and if it is based on what he knows of his constituents, it certainly does not make the people of West Virginia more than the stereotype hillbillies many other parts of the country believe they are.
According to JoAnna Vance from Beckley West Virgin, a mother of three and a recovery fellow with the American Friends Service Committee’s West Virginia Economic Justice Project, at a meeting with a dozen other advocates at Manchin’s Charleston office,
“He said he’s gotten phone calls from one grandmother specifically talking about her crackhead daughter ― he used the word crackhead three times ― talking about her crackhead daughter running around using the child tax credit to buy drugs and get high instead of it going where it needs to go.”
The free-phone welfare queens from the Raegan and Bush days have moved on to crack.
First, if it was one grandmother, this should not deny all parents needed funds that have lifted millions of children in the richest country in the world out of poverty.
Second, if he knows his constituents and this one concern outweighs the benefits to millions, the implication is that this one grandmother represents the constituents Manchin knows so well.
He also has stated in a radio interview that the child tax credit payments should only go to parents who are working because, apparently, the children of out of work parents can just stay poor.
One good thing he would like to see is the money going to whoever is raising the kids because grandparents often end up raising the kids and should be able to receive the payments if they’re caring for their grandchildren because some biological parents lack the desire or capability to raise their own kids, making it important that the money follow the kids as opposed the parents.
Because of the opioid epidemic, West Virginia leads the country in the rate of drug overdose deaths with one in every five babies born substance-exposed leaving a great number of grandparents raising their grandchildren. The state ranks second in the country for percentage of grandparents raising grandchildren.
Perhaps things with the child tax credit have run amok in West Virginia, but elsewhere it has been found that 91% of families with low incomes are using their monthly Child Tax Credit payments for the most basic household expenses according to a new analysis of the Census Bureau that analyzed the first three months of payments in its Household Pulse Survey from late July through late September.
The analysis showed that 88%of the child tax credit money was spent on the most basic needs: food, clothing, rent, a mortgage, or utility bills, 40% percent of families with low incomes used their Child Tax Credit payments to cover education costs like school books and supplies, tuition, after-school programs, and transportation to and from school which makes the kids more employable as they get older, something that could reduce the number of dependent people, and 5% of adults in low-income households with children are enrolled in school, again, something with the possibility to raise the family out of poverty.
In spite of Joe Manchin fearing that crackhead West Virginians are neglecting their kids for the comradery of the crack house, the analysis found that in West Virginia 90% of the money was spent on basic needs like food, clothing, rent, mortgage, and utilities while 91% added education to the basic needs.
As far as people on public money running out to get drugs, since 2017, when West Virginia launched its state drug screening program, just 131 applicants have tested positive for drugs out of all those getting public assistance. The extremely small number of the thousands of program beneficiaries did nothing more than perpetuate the West Virginia attitude, and the one expressed by Manchin, that People on welfare can’t be trusted, and all of them must prove they deserve help.
Rather than see his constituents as good people, to Manchin they seem to be just druggies waiting to get caught.
It would appear that Manchin wants us to believe that, in spite of these numbers. the people of his state are irresponsible crackheads and, because of that, all children in the U.S. must just accept their poverty levels.
Such faith in his people.
Perhaps beyond that one grandmother Manchin, even from his yacht should address his states real problems rather than kill a beneficial bill for imagined reasons.
This is where West Virginia stands in important rankings:
- Health Care #47
- Education #45
- Economy #48
- Infrastructure #50
- Opportunity #18
- Fiscal Stability#28
- Crime and correction #23
- Natural Environment #36
- It has a poverty rate of 17.8% with 20% being women. 29.3% of children under 6, 24.7% children 6 to 11 Years Old, and 20.1% of children 12 to 17 live in poverty.
- 17,388 per 100k of its citizens out of a population of 1.792 million are on welfare.
- West Virginia receives the fourth most federal funding of any state.
- For every dollar paid into the federal coffers, at #2, West Virginia gets $3.74 back.
Addressing these statistics would seem to be more important that assuming all West Virginians in poverty want money for drugs.
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