Democrats pushed an election-year stimulus package through the Senate, which, while less ambitious than President Joe Biden’s original vision, was aimed at slowing climate change, lowering drug costs and taxing big business. It still satisfies deep-rooted party goals.
Sunday’s package heads next door to the House, where lawmakers are poised to deliver on Biden’s priorities.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said ahead of the final vote, “It’s been a long, hard and winding road, but we’re finally here.
“The Senate is making history.
Senators participated in a round-the-clock voting marathon that began Saturday and continued late Sunday. Democrats have rejected about 30 Republican amendments aimed at undermining the bill.
Continuing the party’s path to a morale-boosting victory three months after an election in which Democrats remained united in a 50-50 House and congressional control was at stake against a unanimous opposition. rice field.
“I think it’s going to pass,” Biden told reporters as he left the White House early Sunday morning for Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after completing his COVID-19 quarantine.
The House of Representatives is likely to give final congressional approval on Friday when it briefly returns from the US summer vacation.
The bill ran into trouble at noon over objections to the new 15% minimum corporate tax rate that private equity firms and other industries loathe, forcing a last-minute change.
Despite the temporary setback, the Inflation Reduction Act will give Democrats a campaign-season showcase to act toward their coveted goals.
This includes the largest federal commitment to climate change yet (nearly $400 billion), capping Medicare seniors’ out-of-pocket drug costs to $2,000 a year, and helping 13 million people live healthier lives. We will extend the expiration date of the subsidy so that you can enroll in insurance. By raising the corporate tax, the whole package will be funded with about $300 billion in additional revenue to reduce the deficit.
The new package, which is just over a tenth of Biden’s $3.5 trillion progressive aspirations for the first decade, replaces the previous one on expanding all preschool education, paid family leave, and childcare assistance. has abandoned the proposal of That plan fell apart after Democratic conservative Senator Joe Manchin objected, saying it would be too costly and would cause inflation.
Bipartisan analysts said the anti-inflation law would have little impact on soaring consumer prices.
Republicans said the move would undermine an economy where policymakers are struggling to keep it from plummeting into recession. They said the bill’s business tax would stifle job creation, send prices skyrocketing and make it harder for people to cope with the worst inflation since the 1980s.
“Democrats have already robbed American families through inflation, and now their solution is to rob American families a second time,” said Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. claimed.
He said that while legislative spending and tax increases would kill jobs, the impact on inflation and climate change would be negligible.
In the ordeal of all such budget bills, the Senate has had to endure an overnight “llama vote” on a flurry of amendments. Each tested the Democrats’ ability to piece together the compromises negotiated by Schumer, Progressive Manchin, and enigmatic centrist Senator Democrat Kirsten Cinema.
Cinema has forced Democrats to drop plans to prevent wealthy hedge fund managers from paying incomes below their personal income tax rate.
Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders proposed amendments to further expand the health benefits of the law, but those efforts fell through. Most of the votes were forced by Republicans, and many were designed to make Democrats look like bullies who want to underestimate US and Mexico border security and the cost of gasoline and energy and tighten IRS tax law enforcement. I got
The impetus for drug pricing language remained. This includes negotiating how much Medicare pays its 64 million elderly beneficiaries for medicines, imposing penalties on manufacturers who exceed inflation on medicines sold to Medicare, included a limit of $2,000 per year on the cost of
The final cost of the bill, which had been recalculated to reflect recent changes, would collectively raise more than $700 billion over 10 years. The funds will impose a minimum 15% tax on a few companies with more than $1 billion in annual profits, impose his 1% tax on companies that buy back their own shares, strengthen IRS tax collection, and help the government will be financed by saving by reducing the cost of medicines.
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