Joe Manchin Now Says He’ll Pass a Climate Bill If It Also Reduces the Deficit

Ever since Joe Manchin drove a stake through the Build Back Better Act, the Biden administration’s marquee climate and social spending bill, Democrats in Congress have been talking somewhat informally about how to shape a more modest successor that the West Virginia Senator might accept.

One thing almost everyone agrees on is that it will have to be given a different name. But beyond that..? What, exactly, does our nation’s most famous houseboater really want?

Deficit reduction, it turns out. Maybe a lot of it. In an article published Thursday, Manchin is quoted telling...