President Celebrates Big Win
President Celebrates Big Win
Biden: ‘Democrats sided with the American people and every single Republican in the Congress sided with the special interests’
After months of sliding poll numbers and apparent paralysis on key aspects of his domestic agenda, President Biden capped a lengthy list of achievements for himself and fellow Democrats Tuesday with an event at the White House to sign the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Inflation Reduction Act follows several other legislative wins for Democrats and their narrow congressional majorities, including a modest gun reform bill, legislation to help the semiconductor industry and a measure to help US veterans with healthcare for toxic injuries.
The Inflation Reduction Act itself will:
extend subsidies under the healthcare reform law known as “Obamacare”;
allow Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs;
impose a 15-percent minimum tax on corporations which today pay zero federal taxes; and
make a sweeping investment in the fight against global climate change
Biden and Democrats have long been fighting for key parts of this agenda, which seemed lost just weeks ago as conservative Democratic Sen Joe Manchin of West Virginia publicly refused to support them.
However, Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stunned the political world recently when they announced the deal which would become the Inflation Reduction Act.
“The Inflation Reduction Act does so many things that for so many years so many of us have fought to make happen. And let’s be clear: In this historic moment, Democrats sided with the American people and every single Republican in the Congress sided with the special interests in this vote. Every single one,” Biden said Tuesday as he signed the bill into law, with Manchin on-hand.
The president touted what the new law will do in the fight against global climate change.
“This new law also provides tax credits that’s going to create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs and clean energy manufacturing jobs, solar factories in the Midwest and the South, wind farms across the plains and off our shores, clean hydrogen projects and more, all across America, every part of America,” he said. “This bill is the biggest step forward on climate ever. Ever. And it’s going to allow — it’s going to allow us to boldly take additional steps toward meeting all of my climate goals, the ones we set out when we ran.
“It includes ensuring that we create clean energy opportunities in frontline and fenceline communities that have been smothered — smothered by the legacy of pollution, and fight environmental injustice that’s been going on for so long,” Biden added.
Biden reminded Americans — with just months to go before the crucial 2022 midterm elections in November — that Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act without a single Republican vote.
“And remember, every single Republican in Congress voted against this bill. Every single Republican in Congress voted against lowering prescription drug prices, against lowering health care costs, against the fairer tax system,” he said. “Every single Republican, every single one, voted against tackling the climate crisis, against lowering our energy costs, against creating good-paying jobs.
“My fellow Americans, that’s the choice we face. We can protect the already powerful or show the courage to build a future where everybody has an even shot. That’s the America I believe in. That’s what I believe in,” Biden added.
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