Sen. Joe Manchin, speaking at Toyota event in W.Va., calls union-built EV tax credit 'wrong'

BUFFALO, W.Va. -- The key swing senator who has already played an outsized role in shaping Democrats’ nearly $2 trillion Build Back Better Act told Automotive News that he opposes a planned provision to grant an extra $4,500 federal tax credit for union-made electric vehicles.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, speaking at an event here that announced Toyota Motor North America’s $240 million investment in the automaker’s West Virginia components plant, called the provision backed by Michigan’s congressional delegation “wrong” and “not American.”

“When I heard about this, what they were putting in the bill, I went right to the sponsor [Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.] and I said, ‘This is wrong. This can’t happen. It’s not who we are as a country. It’s not how we built this country, and the product should speak for itself,” Manchin said in an interview. “We shouldn’t use everyone’s tax dollars to pick winners and losers. If you’re a capitalist economy that we are in society then you let the product speak for itself, and hopefully, we’ll get that, that’ll be corrected.”