Chuck Schumer Pulls a Fast One on Mitch McConnell, Revives Major Spending Bill That Looked Completely Dead

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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced on Wednesday they had come to an agreement on a major tax and climate deal.

The Senate aims to take up the text of the agreement next week, NBC News reported.

The announcement was a surprising one, as it came just hours after the Senate passed the CHIPS Act, a $280 billion bill meant to bolster the United States semiconductor manufacturing sector to counter Chinese dominance in the industry.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had said his caucus would not block the bill so long as Democrats scuttled their efforts to pass a major tax and climate bill.

Those efforts appeared all but dead anyway after Manchin reportedly told Democratic leaders this month he wouldn’t support a bill addressing taxes and climate change until after August recess, or possibly ever.

That obviously turned out not to be the case and Schumer appears to have snookered his Republican counterpart into supporting the CHIPS bill.

The Schumer-Manchin bill is called the Inflation Reduction Act and it is 725 pages long.

Most senators seemed totally blindsided by the agreement and more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers huddled with Schumer shortly after the announcement.

The bill calls for $433 billion in new spending, most of which would be geared toward climate change and clean energy. It also would raise $739 billion via changes in the federal tax code, including amending loopholes exploited by the wealthiest Americans and businesses.

McConnell slammed the move in response.

“Democrats have already crushed American families with historic inflation,” he tweeted Wednesday night. “Now they want to pile on giant tax hikes that will hammer workers and kill many thousands of American jobs.”

The legislation faces hurdles, as it is not expected to gain sufficient – if any – Republican support. To pass bills, 60 votes are required to begin and end debate on legislation. However, using the budget reconciliation process, bills can pass with a simple majority.

As part of this process, the Senate parliamentarian must approve the major provisions in the bill as being relevant to the budget. The parliamentarian may rule that certain provisions must be removed.

If the bill receives no Republican votes, all 50 Democrats would have to vote in favor, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaker in the event of a 50-50 vote.

However, it is unclear how Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) would vote, as some of the tax provisions in the bill are ones she has spoken out against.

Sinema has not commented on the measure.

Manchin has long been a thorn in his party’s side. Last year, he famously went on Fox News and killed President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, which contained many of the provisions that are now in the legislation that Manchin supports.