Opinion | Manchin’s Deal Won’t Save the Democrats in the Midterms

Hope springs eternal, especially among politicians facing an electoral wipeout. Democratic leaders and their media confederates quickly embraced the latest life-preserver: the recent deal between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) to resurrect the Build Back Better Bill.

The two senators slimmed down the legislative monstrosity and restyled it the Inflation Reduction Act. That nonsense label is worthy of a P.T. Barnum ad campaign. The Penn Wharton Budget Model predicts that the bill’s impact on inflation will be “statistically indistinguishable from zero.”