Democracy Works

Heather Cox Richardson's analysis of the bill passed last night in the U.S. Senate through reconciliation.
“The yeas are 50; the nays are 50. The Senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative, and the bill, as amended, is passed.”
So spoke Vice President Kamala Harris this afternoon as, after an all-night session, her vote passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 through the Senate. It will now go to the House, where it is expected to pass.
The measure devotes more than $300 billion to addressing climate change and energy reform, the largest federal investment in climate change in U.S. history. It will make it easier and cheaper to get electric cars and to heat and cool homes without fossil fuels—Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael Regan says families will save an average of $500 a year on energy costs—while also creating new jobs in these fields.
It extends for three years the subsidies for healthcare under the Affordable Care Act that Congress originally passed during the pandemic.
It will invest about $300 billion toward reducing the deficit.
The money for these programs will come from several places. The bill will lower the cost of certain prescription drugs by enabling the government to negotiate the prices of expensive drugs for Medicare, a policy most nations already have. It also caps the cost of insulin at $35 a month for people on Medicare (Republicans stripped out of the bill a similar protection for those on private insurance).
It makes corporations making $1 billion or more in income pay a 15% minimum tax, and it will tax stock buybacks at 1%.
And it will invest more than $100 billion in enforcing the existing tax laws on the books, laws that are increasingly ignored as the IRS has too few agents to conduct audits of large accounts.
Senate Democrats passed the measure by using the process of budget reconciliation, which covers certain revenue measures and which cannot be filibustered. Although the pieces of the measure have bipartisan support in the country, every Republican voted against the bill; Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called it an “economic disaster” that will exacerbate inflation (the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office disagrees).
Republicans used reconciliation to pass their own signature measure in December 2017: the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. This law cut the corporate tax rate from about 35% to 21% with the now-traditional Republican expectation that such a cut would spur economic growth, although the Congressional Budget Office estimated the measure would add about $2 trillion to the national debt over ten years. The Tax and Jobs Act did not increase employment or wages as the Republicans expected; those actually dipped slightly as corporations used the tax cuts primarily to buy back their stock, making it more valuable. That measure was the signature piece of legislation during the Trump administration.
In contrast, in the past 18 months, Democrats have rebuilt the economy after the pandemic shattered it, invested in technology and science, expanded the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to stand against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, eliminated al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, pulled troops out of Afghanistan, passed the first gun safety law in almost 30 years, put a Black woman on the Supreme Court, reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, addressed the needs of veterans exposed to toxic burn pits, and invested in our roads, bridges, and manufacturing. And for much of this program, they have managed to attract Republican votes.
Now they are turning to lowering the cost of prescription drugs—long a priority—and tackling climate change, all while lowering the deficit.
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne noted accurately today that what these measures do is far more than the sum of their parts. They show Americans that democracy is messy and slow but that it works, and it works for them. Since he took office, this has been President Joe Biden’s argument: he would head off the global drive toward authoritarianism by showing that democracy is still the best system of government out there.
At a time when authoritarians are trying to demonstrate that democracies cannot function nearly as effectively as the rule of an elite few, he is proving them wrong.
This is a very big deal indeed.

@phranny said
Heather Cox Richardson's analysis of the bill passed last night in the U.S. Senate through reconciliation.
“The yeas are 50; the nays are 50. The Senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative, and the bill, as amended, is passed.”
So spoke Vice President Kamala Harris this afternoon as, after an all-night session, her vote passed the Inflation Re ...[text shortened]... effectively as the rule of an elite few, he is proving them wrong.
This is a very big deal indeed.

@mott-the-hoople said
the bill that carved out tax breaks for billionaires and raises taxes on the poorest? is this what you are boasting about?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/04/us/politics/sinema-inflation-reduction-act.html

you people really are stupid arent you?

@mott-the-hoople said
the bill that carved out tax breaks for billionaires and raises taxes on the poorest? is this what you are boasting about?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/04/us/politics/sinema-inflation-reduction-act.html

you people really are stupid arent you?

@mott-the-hoople said
the bill that carved out tax breaks for billionaires and raises taxes on the poorest? is this what you are boasting about?

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/04/us/politics/sinema-inflation-reduction-act.html

you people really are stupid arent you?

@no1marauder said
It would be more accurate to say the bill left in place some tax breaks for billionaires (the carried interest loophole in particular) while raising other taxes on large corporations like a minimum tax on companies with over a billion dollar profit in one year and imposing a 1% tax on the wasteful activity of stock buybacks.

It's not ideal (Sinema and Manchin saw to th ...[text shortened]... good bill that will substantially reduce carbon emissions, a good thing for everyone on the planet.

@phranny said
The bill does not raise taxes on those earning less than $400,000. It will mean a great saving for people, poor and middle class, who struggle to buy life saving prescription drugs like insulin. It gives a billion to the IRS so they can go after those avoiding paying taxes.

@mott-the-hoople said
does the bill raise taxes on those earning $10,000 ?

@no1marauder said
Nope.

@mott-the-hoople said
so you think you can just lie about it?

"NCOME FEDERAL UNDER UNDER Present
CATEGORY (2) TAXES (3) PRESENT LAW PROPOSAL Law Proposal
Millions Percent Billions Percent Billions Percent Percent Percent
Less than $10,000........... $122 3.1% $3.9 0.1% $4.0 0.1% 7.3% 7.6%
$10,000 to $20,000......... $142 (5) -$1.3 (6) -$1.2 (6) -0.5% -0.5%
$20,000 to $30,000.... ...[text shortened]...
https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/jct_distributional_effects_inflation_reduction_act.pdf

@phranny said
Heather Cox Richardson's analysis of the bill passed last night in the U.S. Senate through reconciliation.
“The yeas are 50; the nays are 50. The Senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative, and the bill, as amended, is passed.”
So spoke Vice President Kamala Harris this afternoon as, after an all-night session, her vote passed the Inflation Re ...[text shortened]... effectively as the rule of an elite few, he is proving them wrong.
This is a very big deal indeed.

@no1marauder said
It raises no taxes on the working poor; those are absurd guesswork regarding the effect on actually making corporations with over a billion dollars in profit pay something rather than the nothing many do now.

If right wingers want to actively campaign on the idea that huge, profitable corporations should pay no taxes, be my guest.

@jimm619
Don't expect an answer to that one.
The latest example of just how much repubs care about people, like killing the burn pit initiative, the next one was getting insulin price down, which would help my own wife who has type two diabetes. Republicans had to have ONE thing to be able to stick their middle finger up in the air going FUK YOU WORTHLESS DIABETICS.
And those burn pit so-called victims are just going for attention......

Bottom line is the zombie repubs are going to find it harder and harder to diss the bills already passed, Biden has done more for US citizens than any POTUS since FDR.
THAT is a fact and I hope more people figure that out come re-election time.

@mott-the-hoople said
so you think you can just lie about it?

"NCOME FEDERAL UNDER UNDER Present
CATEGORY (2) TAXES (3) PRESENT LAW PROPOSAL Law Proposal
Millions Percent Billions Percent Billions Percent Percent Percent
Less than $10,000........... $122 3.1% $3.9 0.1% $4.0 0.1% 7.3% 7.6%
$10,000 to $20,000......... $142 (5) -$1.3 (6) -$1.2 (6) -0.5% -0.5%
$20,000 to $30,000.... ...[text shortened]...
https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/jct_distributional_effects_inflation_reduction_act.pdf