BY
ANDREW PEREZ
and
WALKER BRAGMAN
NEWSWEEK.COM 9
POLITICS
Photo-illustration by GLUEKIT
“It’s not just about the mom.” » P.
Sinema
and Manchin
Know What
They Are Doing
Business-friendly Democrats don’t need to worry about reelection
when they can have lucrative second careers as lobbyists
it’s a core principle of economics that
people do what they are incentivized to do.
That may be why Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sine-
ma of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia
haven’t hesitated to oppose popular progressive
policies in their own party’s spending bill: They
can bet on getting a payoff in the end.
During the fi ght over Democrats’ social spending
reconciliation bill, Sinema, for example, has played
a prominent—albeit silent—role in watering down
the party’s plan to allow Medicare to negotiate pre-
scription drug prices. She’s also helped gut Demo-
crats’ plan to expand Medicare benefi ts, nixed tax
hikes on the wealthy and corpora-
tions and pushed to make the overall
bill smaller. While Sinema isn’t up for
reelection until 2024, she is polling
terribly and already facing the threat
of a well-fi nanced primary challenge.
While Manchin has a personal fi-
nancial interest in protecting the fossil fuel indus-
try, he’s also worked diligently to deny new Medicare
dental benefi ts that seniors in his state desperately
need. Manchin has been on a fundraising tear this
year, despite stating recently that he hasn’t decided
whether he’ll run for reelection in 2024.
To understand what’s in it for conservative
Democratic senators who play the party’s villain
role, look at those who came before them: Many of
those who do big business’ bidding and then either
fail to win reelection or retire quickly end up scor-
ing lucrative careers on K Street. It’s the ultimate
win-win situation.
All of the former Democratic sen-
ators who publicly opposed a public
health insurance option during the
Obama administration, for exam-
ple, ended up joining the infl uence
industry. They became lobbyists or
corporate consultants, or found work
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