Senate Democrats pass big bill backed by Manchin, Cinema

• Senate Democrats passed their party’s major economic plan on Sunday afternoon.
• The House is now scheduled to vote on Friday on a revived version of Biden’s economic agenda.
• No Senate Republicans supported the bill.

Senate Democrats passed a $740 billion climate, health care and tax package on Sunday afternoon, bringing Democrats one step closer to achieving President Joe Biden’s domestic legislation.

The vote was split 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris tying the vote. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Senator Kirsten Sinema of Arizona supported bills central to Biden’s agenda. It will be sent to the House for Friday’s vote and to Biden’s desk for signatures.

“It’s been a long, bumpy and winding road,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said before the final vote. “The time has come to pass this historic bill.”

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told Insider: “That’s what we’re trying to do.”

Democrats defeated a barrage of three dozen mostly Republican amendments on immigration, taxes, energy and health care aimed at changing bills in a 14-hour marathon voting session. banded together to protect the package from new provisions that could jeopardize its fragile support. I reinstalled the enhanced child tax credit that I defeated.

Late Saturday night, Sanders lashed out at the bill as a “so-called inflation-cutting bill”, claiming it had been watered down to the point of “turning its back on the families of workers.” However, he called it a “step forward” on Sunday and eventually voted in favor.

During the “Vote Rama,” Senate Republicans successfully removed the federal $35 cap on insulin costs for Americans with private health insurance.Insulin cost cap for Medicare recipients The provision to set the was left intact.

On Sunday, cinema considered backing a rival Republican amendment by South Dakota Sen. John Tune that was meant to set up a carve-out from a 15% corporate minimum tax to a private equity subsidiary. Sometimes there were hours of hold-ups. Manchin opposed it, according to a person briefed on the negotiations. Cinema, Manchin and Tune eventually struck a deal that included it.

The package, which took two months to draft between Schumer and Manchin, once broke down in secret negotiations, nearly sounded the death knell on the Democratic agenda. But Manchin backtracked, signing a surprise deal in late July in a far bigger move than many Democrats thought.

The 755-page bill would allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, establish a $370 billion clean energy tax credit, and help more Americans buy health insurance for three more years under the Affordable Care Act. It gives the authority to provide financial support so that This represents the largest federal investment in U.S. history to address the climate emergency and puts the country on track to cut emissions by 40% from 2005 levels by the end of this decade. lead.

It is paid for by a 15% domestic minimum tax on large, profitable companies and a 1% excise tax on share buybacks. Set aside $80 billion for enhanced IRS enforcement, he is projected to reduce the federal deficit by $300 billion.

Republicans opposed it as a liberal failure. In a statement, South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham called it “another big tax and spending bill, a disaster for a weak economy, and making the lives of struggling Americans worse.” would,’ he said.

after the turmoil

Photo by Stefani Reynolds Poole/Getty Images

It caps off a tumultuous development for Democrats who struggled and often struggled to secure a piece of Biden’s domestic agenda that was first revealed in the spring of 2021. We are committed to tackling inequalities head on for families.

Senate Democrats then pursued a blueprint for $3.5 trillion in spending to rebuild the economy, but quickly met resistance from moderates in the party. The party adopted a budget adjustment to approve the bill, allowing a simple majority to circumvent Republican resistance, and used Harris’ tie vote. It means you couldn’t and you didn’t get it in the Senate at all.

Manchin and Cinema quickly rejected that amount of federal spending as too high, sparking a protracted back-and-forth that will test narrow Democratic control of the Senate and House until the fall. I had a hard time understanding your request.

Mr. Manchin has since scrapped the $2 trillion Build Back Better Act approved by the House in December, saying he didn’t want inflation to worsen. Until the Democratic Party’s efforts to revive the smaller bill subsided in the spring.

But Democrats have had to make painful concessions on many of their key social priorities. The package does not extend Biden’s child tax credit, which once provided families with monthly checks. It also eliminated affordable childcare, national paid and medical leave programs, and affordable housing among other initiatives.

At a press conference on Sunday, Schumer promised Democrats would return to many of these issues “with vengeance” in the fall.

This was the latest legislative victory for Senate Democrats. The party also secured bipartisan efforts on gun reform, improving veterans’ health care, and strengthening the country’s semiconductor industry.