Last week, Senate Democrats reached a deal with their most conservative member for a significant, though also significantly downgraded, legislative package dealing with climate change, health care, and taxes. This week, the question is whether Democrats can get the Inflation Reduction Act through the Senate before August recess.
(Although, guys, if you don’t get it done in time, postponing August recess is always an option!)
Several things have to fall into place for the vote to happen this week. First, the Senate parliamentarian gets her say, and as we know, this Senate parliamentarian is committed to stripping out Democratic priorities on the flimsiest pretexts. Second, everyone is waiting to hear from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the other big problem Democrat. Everything we know about Sinema suggests she’s going to use this moment to seek attention somehow. Third, all 50 Senate Democrats plus Vice President Kamala Harris need to be present.
RELATED STORY: Here's what is in that bill that Manchin agreed to support—and there are many reasons to celebrate
The bill is a dramatically scaled-down version of President Joe Biden’s agenda, missing many key policies. But it’s a lot better than the nothing Manchin was expected to sign onto in recent months. It represents the nation’s largest-ever investment in fighting climate change, though admittedly, “largest-ever” is a low bar here. That investment includes tax credits for energy-efficient homes and cars, credits for manufacturers of renewable energy, and more.
The bill also extends Affordable Care Act tax credits for another three years, allows Medicare to negotiate prices for some drugs, and ties drug price increases to inflation.
These things are paid for, along with enough deficit reduction to make Manchin happy, through a series of tax measures:
- $313 billion in revenue raised from a 15% corporate minimum tax
- $124 billion in revenue raised from better IRS tax enforcement
- $14 billion in revenue raised from closing the carried interest loophole
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It’s missing a lot: the child tax credit that slashed child poverty when the American Rescue Plan put it into effect for six months. Universal pre-K. Paid family and sick leave. Hundreds of billions of dollars more in needed climate change investment. But it’s so much better than zero.
So, will it come together this week?
Getting all 50 Democrats into the Capitol for the vote won’t be easy. Sen. Patrick Leahy was just released from a rehabilitation center after breaking his hip. Multiple senators have tested positive for COVID-19 in recent weeks. Sen. Dick Durbin is the latest, and while he could potentially be back this week, one other person testing positive could delay the vote.
Manchin expressed cautious optimism about Sinema’s stance.
“We work very close together on so many things, and she has so much in this piece of legislation. She's formed quite a bit of and worked on it very hard,” he said on one of his many Sunday talk show appearances.
“I think that basically when she looks at the bill and sees the whole spectrum of what we're doing ... hopefully she will be positive about it, but she'll make her decision and I respect that,” Manchin added.
Republican opposition is, of course, guaranteed—and would be even if they supported every component of the bill, because their primary goal is to deny Democrats any major accomplishments.
While Biden has acknowledged that the bill is “a compromise” that is “far from perfect,” this is one of the most important moments of his presidency to date. He started off with a bang with the passage of the American Rescue Plan, which did, in fact, rescue the economy. Now is the moment for Democrats to show that they can deliver on something significant and unprecedented.
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