Which doesn’t even make sense. Manchin represents Coal Country (or at least, what used to be Coal Country, before fracking killed the coal industry). You can, effectively, power an electric vehicle with coal. You can’t effectively power a gasoline vehicle with coal (there are processes to make gasoline out of coal, but they’re so costly inefficient you’d only use them if you were truly desperate).
Oh, I don’t know.
Since he’s nothing but a Republican in a donkey suit, I actually think that as Rs go, he’s rather towards the nicer end of their (admittedly bizarro extreme) spectrum.
The senate just passed the final bill, a few minutes ago. Hallelujah!
So BBB is back from the dead! Well done to the Democrats!
This better be remembered three months from now.
Why is this able to pass 51-50, but everything else gets filibustered if it isn’t over 60 or so votes? If they could win everything with 51 votes, they could(in theory) get more done.
Because they used the budget reconciliation process to pass this bill, which isn’t subject to the filibuster (which is where the general requirement for 60 vote to pass comes from). Budget reconciliation can’t be used on every sort of bill – it can only be used on bills for spending, revenue, and the debt limit, must be cleared through the Senate parliamentarian, and can only be used a limited number of times per year.
Last year, the budget reconciliation process is how the Senate managed to pass the American Rescue Plan Act.
And vice versa. All the Republicans voted against capping insulin at $35/month, for example.
So now insulin prices are capped? That would be good news to me.
Only for Medicare recipients
It passed
House is up next
My understanding is that the Republicans got rid of the cap because…I guess they aren’t pro-life?
Because most of them are in the pockets of Big Pharma.
Actually, I’m surprised Sinema didn’t vote against it.
Goddamn am I thrilled. Not only have the Democrats have an awesome week, but since the summer and the J6 committee, I feel that the party is finally coalescing against the Republican horde. I mean, just today they achieved not only this bill but images of the Republicans congratulating themselves over their insulin ‘win’.
Looking forward to pounding the hell out of Facebook MAGA over the next months, gonna throw out the Dark Brandon memes, facts, and stats, starting with this one:
The bill passed by the Senate is H.R.5376. It is a 2,140 page budget reconciliation bill.
Bill text (3MB PDF):
Cost estimate of titles I to IX from the Congressional Budget Office:
A sample of relevant Congressional Research Service reports:
-
An Excise Tax on Stock Repurchases and Tax Advantages of
Buybacks over Dividends -
Inflation Reduction Act: Agricultural
Conservation, Renewable Energy, and
Forestry -
Tax Provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act
of 2022 (H.R. 5376)
~Max
I feel like it is the duty of all people who don’t want a return to Trumpland to be shouting to the rooftops about this major accomplishment (along with all the other good news lately for the Biden admin and the Dems). As The NY Times reports:
The Senate passed legislation on Sunday that would make the most significant federal investment in history to counter climate change and lower the cost of prescription drugs, as Democrats banded together to push through major pieces of President Biden’s domestic agenda over unified Republican opposition.
The measure, large elements of which appeared dead just weeks ago amid Democratic divisions, would inject more than $370 billion into climate and energy programs. Altogether, the bill could allow the United States to cut greenhouse gas emissions about 40 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.
It would achieve Democrats’ longstanding goal of slashing prescription drug costs by allowing Medicare for the first time to negotiate the prices of medicines directly and capping the amount that recipients pay out of pocket for drugs each year at $2,000. The measure also would extend larger premium subsidies for health coverage for low- and middle-income people under the Affordable Care Act for three years.
This is good stuff that is going to help a lot of people, short and long term. But these kinds of accomplishments never get the lasting exposure that bad shit gets.
This is really good news, but can we all get a big “fuck you” for Kristen Sinema’s insistence that the carried interest tax provision be removed?
She was referring to the bill’s inclusion of language that would narrow the so-called carried interest loophole, a feature of the tax code that both Democrats and Republicans — including former President Donald Trump — have tried to close.
Carried interest refers to compensation that hedge fund managers and private equity executives receive from their firms’ investment gains. After three years, that money is taxed at a long-term capital gains rate of 20%, instead of a short-term capital gains rate, which tops out at 37%.
The Inflation Reduction Act aimed to narrow that loophole by extending the short-term tax rate to five years. The bill’s provision was projected to raise $14 billion over a 10-year period.
I eagerly await her explanation about why she was so adamant that hedge fund managers pay barely half the capital gains tax of ordinary investors.
I get this, and I also get that to most Republicans, anything the Democrats want is bad and anything they can do to prevent Democrats from getting what they want is a win for them, but… how do they spin this? Like when they’re asked why they voted against something on the record, they usually say something like “it will hurt jobs” or “it will increase inflation” or that sort of thing, even if they don’t really believe it. But what do they say here? The only thing I can come up with is “the free market should be allowed to gouge diabetics if that’s what the free market thinks is best” – but that would seem to be a tough sell. (And yes, I know they wouldn’t phrase it like that, but is that the general idea)?
Gonna rebrand “Big Pharma” as “Big Harma”…
The debate I’ve heard is the cap on drug prices will reduce research and development into new drugs. Nevermind, as reported on NPR business this morning, big pharma spends more on advertising and PR than they do on R&D. Oh, you shouldn’t notice the record profits year after year either.