Thread: President Joe Biden

Originally Posted by panama hat

Better than what the situation is now

No it isn't, it's completely pointless.

The Democrats are going to get chewed up and spat out in the midterms, and then the Republicans will concentrate on making Biden unelectable in 2024, which let's face it is not going to be difficult unless they run Baldy against him.

• Biden says he wouldn’t be disappointed to run against Trump again

President Biden said that he wouldn’t be disappointed if there was a rematch between him and former President Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

“I’m not predicting. But I would not be disappointed,” the president told Israel’s Channel 12 in an interview that aired on Wednesday.

“No, look, the one thing I know about politics and American politics in particular is there’s no way to predict what’s going to happen. I’m not even halfway through my term yet … but my hope is that the Republican Party moves back to a normal position that’s not this MAGA party it’s become in many ways,” Biden added.

The president pre-taped the interview at the White House on Tuesday and it aired at 8 p.m. in Israel.

The prospect of a White House rematch between Biden and Trump is growing more serious and Trump is holding discussions about announcing a third White House bid with current and former advisers, sources recently told The Hill.

Meanwhile, support for a Biden reelection bid hit a record low on Wednesday when nearly two-thirds of Americans said he should not run for a second presidential term in a new poll.

Biden on Tuesday insisted Democrats want him to run for reelection, firing back at doubters after polling has showed a majority of primary voters wanted someone else at the top of the ticket in 2024.

____________

• What to expect from Biden's trip to Israel, West Bank, Saudi Arabia

Biden lands in Israel for first visit to the region as president

President Biden landed in Israel Wednesday for the start of his first trip to the region since taking office.

Why it matters: The trip is aimed at showing the Israeli people that Biden cares deeply about the Jewish state and its security, as well as reassuring the Palestinians of his administration's support, officials have said. But the more important, and controversial, stop on his trip will be his visit to Saudi Arabia, where he will meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Driving the news: Upon landing in Tel Aviv, Biden was greeted by Yair Lapid, who became acting prime minister less than two weeks ago after the coalition government collapsed and new elections were called. Israel is in the midst of its fifth election campaign in less than four years.

• "We will discuss building a new security and economy architecture with the nations of the Middle East, following the Abraham Accords and the achievements of the Negev Summit," Lapid said at the welcoming ceremony.
• "We will discuss the need to renew a strong global coalition that will stop the Iranian nuclear program," he added.
• Biden said that even though he knows "it won’t happen in the near future, we will discuss ... my support for a two-state solution," as well as work on increasing Israel’s integration in the region.

What to expect: On Thursday, Biden and Lapid will have a working meeting before holding a virtual summit with Emirati President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and Indian Prime Minister Narandra Modi that will focus on food security.

• During his talks with Israeli officials, Biden is expected to discuss Iran, the normalization process between Israel and its Arab neighbors and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Air Force One en route to Tel Aviv Wednesday that Biden will emphasize his support of the two-state solution as the only way to keep Israel as a Jewish and democratic state while achieving independence for Palestinians.
• Sullivan added that at the same time, the president is aware of the challenges and therefore will not present any initiatives to resume peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials, but will urge the parties to take steps that could improve the situation and allow peace talks in the future.

Biden and Lapid will also sign "The Jerusalem Declaration," which will serve as the framework for the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship moving forward. Israeli officials said it will be the main deliverable of the visit.

• Israeli and U.S. officials have been working on the declaration for almost two months and Israeli officials say that such a broad and comprehensive statement on the U.S.-Israeli relationship hasn’t been published in more than two decades.
• The joint declaration will include a clause that says the U.S. and Israel will use all elements of their national power to ensure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon, Israeli officials said.
• Sullivan said Israel has a different view than the U.S. about the Iran deal but the Biden administration believes diplomacy is the best way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. “There is a deal on the table and the president believes Iran should take it," Sullivan said.

Also on Thursday, Biden will meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog and participate in a reception with senior Israeli officials. He will also hold a 15-minute meeting with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

• Biden and Netanyahu have known each other for 40 years, but in the last year the U.S. president’s top unofficial priority on Israel was to help the Israeli government survive, which would prevent Netanyahu from returning to power.
• Sullivan said that one of the messages Biden wants to convey in this visit is that U.S.-Israeli relations are not about “who sits in which chair." Sullivan stressed that the fact Israel is in an election period won’t influence the president’s talks.

• Sullivan said the meeting with Netanyahu shows Biden is talking to different political leaders in Israel.

On Friday morning, Biden will visit the Augusta Victoria Palestinian hospital in East Jerusalem, where he is expected to announce $100 million in U.S. assistance to the Palestinian hospitals network in the area.

• Biden’s visit to the hospital is diplomatically sensitive due to the fact it is located in East Jerusalem, which most countries see as the future Palestinian capital. Biden administration officials rejected an Israeli request to have Israeli officials join the visit to the Augusta Victoria Hospital, as Axios previously reported.
• While there, Biden is expected to meet Palestinian civil society activists before traveling to Bethlehem for a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and a visit to the Church of Nativity.
• The Palestinian leadership has very low expectations for the U.S. president's visit, Palestinian officials say.

Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia for the last leg of his trip late Friday.

• Biden's visit, which will reset his administration's relations with the Gulf kingdom, is seen as diplomatically and politically sensitive.
• Biden once vowed to make Saudi Arabia a "pariah" and relations have been strained over a number of issues, including the kingdom's human rights record and the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. U.S. intelligence says MBS is responsible for Khashoggi's murder — an allegation Saudi Arabia denies.

The Saudi visit will include a summit with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, Jordan and Iraq.

• It will also include a bilateral meeting, focused on repairing relations, the U.S. need for an increase in Saudi oil production and on normalization steps between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Biden earlier this month tried to downplay the bilateral part of his trip amid criticism among some Democrats in Congress.

looking forward to watching Biden sign this bill into law

• Manchin announces support for climate, tax, health care deal in sudden reversal

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced Wednesday he planned to support a deficit reduction package that addressed both climate change and prescription drug reform, a stark reversal for the one senator who has been blocking key planks of President Biden's agenda.

Why it matters: The declaration from Manchin marks yet another about-face in a year-long negotiation over the size and scope of a Democrat-only reconciliation package.

By the numbers: The nascent deal would generate $313 billion in new revenue over ten years by increasing the corporate minimum tax to 15%, according to a one-page summary distributed by Manchin's office.

• It would bring in an additional $124 billion from enhanced Internal Revenue Service enforcement.
• And in a major blow to the private equity industry, the agreement calls for another $14 billion by treating so-called "carried interest" as regular income and taxes it at a higher rate.

For the climate provisions, the proposed package would spend $369 billion, while providing another $64 billion to shore up the Affordable Care Act for three years.

• That would leave an additional $300 billion for deficit reduction.

Driving the news: The reversal came just hours after the Senate passed a $280 billion package to support U.S. domestic semiconductor manufacturing.

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had previously threatened to hold the CHIPS Act hostage if Democrats continued negotiating with Manchin, but that threat evaporated after Manchin opposed new climate spending earlier this month.

What they're saying: "I now propose and will vote for the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022," Manchin said in a statement.

• "Rather than risking more inflation with trillions in new spending, this bill will cut the inflation taxes Americans are paying, lower the cost of health insurance and prescription drugs, and ensure our country invests in the energy security and climate change solutions we need to remain a global superpower through innovation rather than elimination."

The big picture: Two weeks ago, in response to the 9.1% Consumer Price Index release, Manchin said that he was only willing to support a bill that allowed Medicare to directly negotiate prescription drugs prices.

• That pronouncement effectively killed any prospects for the $300 billion in spending to address climate change that Manchin previously supported. Democrats were depressed and vented their anger at Manchin.
• But privately, some Senate Democrats continued to negotiate.

_______

Manchin, Schumer announce slimmed-down $670 billion deal https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...-billion-deal/

Originally Posted by Cujo

Honestly, the fact that this buffoon and Trump buffon could get elected to the school board, let alone prime minister/President tells us there is something seriously wrong with the population.
I blame it on decades of dumbing down.

I agree that people leaders such as tramp and Boris are a symptom rather than the decease , but the disease is more complicated than just the "dumbing down" of the population. I would argue that in no time in human history did people have more information available than they do now.
I know what you are thinking and I agree. Having information and being able to use it are two different things, and that's where the "Players" come in , and by "Players" I don't mean just people like trump. He IMO is a product. There is a manufacturing process with many "Players" behind a products such as trump.
IMO there is an overload of information and people don't know how to handle it, and they gravitate in the direction of the bias. This is not lost to the "Players" who have become increasingly expert in manipulating information and shaping public opinion. They "Farm" such people and as you are well aware, farming requires a lot of fertilizer
Propaganda has become so sophisticated as to make Goebbels a rank amateur .
Making Democracy affectively dead.
Socrates Hated Democracy. not because he did not like the concept, but because it could be easily manipulated , leading to foolish decisions, .And that was over two thousand years ago. Imagine the sophistication in such manipulation. that has developed in two thousand years
Interesting take on the subject by Noam Chomsky

• Senate sends veterans toxic exposure bill to Biden’s desk

The Senate on Tuesday passed legislation expanding care for veterans who suffer from illnesses because of exposure to toxins during their military service, ending a standoff after Republicans blocked the bill last week.

The Sgt. First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our PACT Act passed with a vote of voted 86-11 and aims to expand benefits from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to 3.5 million veterans.

The bill now heads to President Biden’s desk and he is expected to sign it.

Tuesday’s vote comes after Senate Republicans unexpectedly blocked the bill during a procedural vote last week. The upper chamber on Wednesday voted 55-42 in favor of the bill, failing to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a filibuster. Twenty-five Republicans who initially voted to advance the bill in June changed their votes.

The upper chamber previously passed the bill in June by a vote of 84-14, and the House passed the bill in July on a bipartisan 342-88 vote. The measure had to go back to the Senate, as the House version included changes.

Republicans have argued that the bill would create a “budgetary gimmick” by moving $400 billion spent by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to mandatory spending, where it wouldn’t be subject to annual appropriations like discretionary spending would.

Earlier on Tuesday, GOP Senators reached a deal for votes on three amendments, with 60 votes needing to pass the measures, followed by a vote on final passage of the bill.

Veterans’ groups have been camping outside the Capitol since last Thursday in a bid to pressure the Senate to pass the bill. Those same veterans, joined by comedian Jon Stewart, sat in the Senate Gallery to observe the vote.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) thanked the advocates for their efforts, saying they could “go home knowing the good and great things you’ve done for America.”

In addition to expanding VA eligibility for toxic exposed-veterans, the legislation also adds 23 burn pit and toxic-exposure related connections to the agency’s list of presumptive service connections.

The bill also expands presumptions related to exposures to Vietnam War-era Agent Orange to veterans who served in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Guam.

Who voted against the burn pit bill

Toomey (R-PA) ultimately voted against the bill, along with Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. James Risch (R-ID), Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).

About that bump in the road.......

• Sinema announces deal with Schumer on taxes and climate

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) announced Thursday evening that she has reached a deal with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) that could pave the way for Democrats to pass their budget reconciliation package.

The deal would remove a provision closing the so-called carried interest loophole from the package announced last week by Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Sinema said she and Schumer have also reached agreement on protecting manufacturing from the impact of a proposed 15 percent corporate minimum tax, which business leaders in Arizona warned would dampen economic growth.

The announcement paves the way for Sinema to vote Saturday for a motion to proceed to a budget reconciliation package that would reform the tax code, tackle climate change, reduce the cost of prescription drugs and shrink the federal deficit.

“We have agreed to remove the carried interest tax provision, protect advanced manufacturing, and boost our clean energy economy in the Senate’s budget reconciliation legislation,” Sinema said, signaling that she plans to vote to begin debate on the bill.

“Subject to the parliamentarian’s review, I’ll move forward,” she said.

Senate Democrats had waited anxiously for days for a positive sign from Sinema, whom they feared was angry after being left out of a final round of talks.

With Sinema’s vote, Democrats now have the support of all 50 members of their caucus to pass what would become President Biden’s biggest domestic legislative achievement. It would reduce the federal deficit by between $100 billion to $300 billion, according to various estimates, an accomplishment Democrats can pitch to voters at a time of 40-year-high inflation.


“I am pleased to report that we have reached an agreement on the Inflation Reduction Act that I believe will receive the support of the entire Senate Democratic conference,” Schumer said in a separate statement confirming the deal.

He said the agreement “preserves the major components” of the deal he announced with Manchin last week to lower drug costs, fight climate change, close tax loopholes and reduce the deficit.

“The final version of the reconciliation bill, to be introduced on Saturday, will reflect this work and put us one step closer to enacting this historic legislation into law,” Schumer said.

Democrats expect to vote to begin debate on the more-than-700-page bill sometime Saturday afternoon.

That will begin up to 20 hours of floor debate followed by an open-ended series of amendment votes, known as a vote-a-rama, and then a vote on final passage of the legislation.

Sinema in her statement promised to work with colleagues to address the carried interest preferential tax rate, which allows asset managers to pay a 20 percent capital gains rate on income they earn from advising clients on profitable investments.

“Following this effort, I look forward to working with Sen. [Mark] Warner [D-Va.] to enact carried interest reforms, protecting investments in America’s economy and encouraging continued growth while closing the most egregious loopholes that some abuse to avoid paying taxes,” she pledged.

The announcement capped off several days of intense discussions between Sinema, Schumer and Manchin.

Democratic senators said Sinema wasn’t happy about being left out of the secret negotiations Schumer and Manchin held last month to add sweeping tax reform and climate provisions to the budget package.

The Arizona senator had previously made clear that she opposed eliminating the carried interest tax rate as well as reforms that would effectively raise corporate taxes and threaten economic growth. Those priorities appeared to be somewhat overlooked in the Schumer-Manchin deal.

Sinema held back her support for the legislation and insisted on changes to soften the tax hit on manufacturers from a 15 percent corporate minimum tax, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

Manchin held at least two long conversations with Sinema on the Senate floor in recent days to win her over.

Multiple people familiar with the issue said Sinema wanted to exempt U.S. manufacturing companies from the 15 percent corporate minimum tax that Schumer and Manchin inserted in the Inflation Reduction Act. That bill caught almost every senator — including Sinema — by surprise when it became public last week

Exempting manufacturing companies from the book minimum tax would cost about $45 billion over ten years, according to one Senate estimate floated this week.

Book is a tax accounting term that in effect would make it harder for companies to avoid declaring profit and therefore increase what they would pay in taxes.

Sinema also told colleagues that she opposed closing carried interest loophole, which critics say allows wealthy money managers to pay a lower effective tax rate than many middle-income Americans.

And the Arizona senator wanted $5 billion in drought resiliency funding for her home state, according to two Democratic senators.

The statements released by Sinema and Schumer Thursday evening made no mention of drought relief.

Sinema declined to answer reporters’ questions when she emerged from her Capitol basement hideaway Thursday afternoon.

She came under heavy pressure from business leaders in Arizona to oppose the corporate minimum tax.

“In the face of record-high inflation, supply chain backlogs and a major labor crunch, now is not the time to hammer manufacturers with new taxes,” Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Danny Seiden said in a statement earlier Thursday.

“Arizona job creators will continue to urge lawmakers to reject this manufacturers tax and instead focus on policies that encourage job growth and strengthen our state and economic competitiveness,” he said.

The Schumer-Manchin deal would have established a 15 percent minimum tax for corporations with more than $1 billion in annual profits, though it exempted green-energy and microchip manufacturing tax credits from getting wiped out by that minimum tax threshold.

Republicans said the Democrats’ proposal would hit manufacturing companies especially hard by superseding a key reform of former President Trump’s 2017 Tax Credits and Jobs Act allowing companies to fully expense capital expenditures for a given year.

Full expensing under the Tax Credits and Jobs Act is due to phase out over the next four years.

Sinema told the Arizona Chamber of Commerce in April that she would be “unwilling to support any tax policies that would put a break on … economic growth, or stall business and personal growth for America’s industries.”

She made clear to senior White House officials and Senate Democratic colleagues early during the negotiations over the budget reconciliation bill that she would not support increasing the 21 percent corporate tax rate, a key achievement of the 2017 tax reform law.

“The entire country knows that I am opposed to raising the corporate income tax. That was true yesterday and it is true today,” Sinema told the Arizona Chamber of Commerce earlier this year.

Republican critics of the Schumer-Manchin deal said that preventing full and immediate expensing of capital expenditures would effectively increase taxes on many corporations.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who worked closely with Sinema in drafting last year’s $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law, warned in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that it would “essentially” place a “tax on manufacturing.”

He pointed out that the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that nearly 50 percent of the new tax would hit manufacturers.

“Imposing this new tax on U.S. companies, and restricting certain U.S. manufacturers from writing off investment costs immediately, would make America less competitive and drive investments and jobs overseas,” he warned.

Sinema’s request for $5 billion in drought resiliency funding also loomed as a potential problem, sources warned.

Guaranteeing access to more water to states lower in the Colorado River basin such as Arizona, Nevada and California may come at the expense of upper-basin states such as Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico.

“We are facing historic drought in Colorado. The state has had the worst wildfires in our state’s history. There is very little water in the Colorado River. And I think it would be great if we could do something on drought, but it has to be something that meaningfully improves the situation in Colorado and in the upper basin of the Colorado River,” said Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who is up for reelection in November.

Bennet warned that any drought resiliency language must provide an “enduring solution to the problem, otherwise it’s not worth doing.

Democrats secure Sinema's support for Inflation Reduction Act

Harris breaks 50-50 deadlock to advance landmark climate, tax, health bill

The Senate voted along party lines Saturday afternoon to advance a sweeping bill to reform the tax code, tackle climate change and lower the cost of prescription drugs, taking a big step closer to giving President Biden a major victory before the November midterm elections.

The Senate voted 51 to 50 to proceed to the 755-page bill, after Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the Capitol to cast the tie-breaking vote.

The vote puts the bill on a trajectory to pass the Senate sometime Sunday, barring an unexpected setback, such as the sudden absence of a Democratic senator.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) hailed the bill’s impending passage as a major achievement.

Nice Monday morning!

Senate passes sweeping tax, climate package after marathon vote; Harris breaks tie

Senate Democrats have passed their sweeping tax, health care and climate change legislation after a marathon night of voting, with Vice President Harris casting the decisive vote to break a 50-50 deadlock and send the package to the House.

The long-awaited $740 billion bill would raise taxes on corporations, tackle climate change, lower prescription drug costs and reduce the deficit.

The bill was approved on Sunday afternoon after a full night and morning in which senators worked nonstop on the consideration of amendments to the legislation. Democrats generally stuck together to defeat GOP amendments that might have scuttled the bill.

A last-second hiccup occurred when Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) backed an amendment that extended a cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions that was a key feature of the 2017 Trump tax cut bill. It was seen as endangering the bill because the ceiling on the deduction hurts many households in blue states and districts.

Seven Democrats ended up backing the amendment offered by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), but any damage was undone by the immediate passage of another amendment that replaced the SALT cap extension with a different revenue stream.

As the vote on final passage took place, several Democrats offered hugs to Sinema, who had been involved in a number of negotiations over the bill in the last several days that some worried could topple the package.

Democratic senators also applauded their staff, who were seated at the back of the chamber.

Once seen as all but dead, the bill came back to life last week after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) reached a deal that narrowed the more than $3 trillion legislation and renamed it the Inflation Reduction Act.

Sinema reached a separate agreement with Schumer on Thursday, giving Democrats their 50th vote and paving the way for the party to steer the legislation through the Senate using special budget rules that prevented the GOP from killing it with a filibuster.

The House is set to reconvene at the end of the week to vote on the package. Final passage by the House would send it to the White House for President Biden’s signature less than three months before the midterm elections.

Biden and Democrats hope it sweetens their changes of holding their House and Senate majorities by exciting a disenchanted Democratic base, while Republicans are expected to attack the spending as unnecessary and misguided.

A vote-a-rama on the bill started just before midnight Saturday as Democrats stuck together to defeat a barrage of Republican-sponsored amendments designed to put the majority party on the spot.

One such amendment sponsored by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) would have pulled $1 million from the Affordable Care Act to maintain the Title 42 health order denying migrants seeking asylum entry into the United States.

Democrats defeated another amendment by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to strike a 16.4 cent a barrel tax on imported petroleum products and crude oil refined in the United States.

A third amendment sponsored by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) would have barred the IRS from auditing individuals and business owners with income under $400,000.

The vote capped a long, grueling process that began more than a year ago when Senate Democrats began negotiations to enact the priorities of Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.

Over the past year, many of the president’s most ambitious social spending priorities were cast aside because of the opposition of Manchin and Sinema. At two points, the negotiations collapsed entirely amid angry recriminations.

In the end, Democrats rallied around a bill to raise more than $300 billion in new tax revenue from wealthy corporations, substantially reduce global-warming emissions by 2030, and give Medicare broad new power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices.

“I thank all my colleagues who have dedicated their blood, sweat and tears towards shaping this outstanding legislation. This is one of the most comprehensive and impactful bills Congress has seen in decades,” Schumer said on the floor.

Democrats say the bill will reduce the deficit by nearly $300 billion, but Republicans say it will have a negligible impact on inflation.

“Sounds like a bill that’s going to address the number one problem facing our nation, which is inflation, and then you actually look at the bill’s contents and will discover that the bill will do nothing to reduce inflation,” said Thune.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the legislation will reduce the deficit by $90 billion over 10 years.

A Democratic aide, however, said CBO recognizes the legislation will likely increase tax revenues by more than $200 billion by beefing up Internal Revenue Service programs and enforcement of tax compliance.

Many Democratic lawmakers were thrilled to reach a deal on a $369 billion energy security and climate package, especially after talks between Schumer and Manchin collapsed during a heated exchange on July 14.

Democrats last month were prepared to move a slimmed-down package consisting of just prescription drug reform and a two-year extension of expiring health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.

But then Manchin met with Schumer on July 18 to revive the negotiations and within days crafted a bill that provided tens of billions of dollars in incentives for green energy technology and energy efficiency and penalties on fossil fuels, such as a fee on methane emissions and a tax on foreign oil imports.

It provides $4,000 and $7,500 tax credits to buy used and new electric vehicles but doesn’t allow them to be used for vehicles with batteries made from Chinese processed minerals.

It is expected to reduce climate-warming emissions by 40 percent over the next decade.

“I can’t stop talking to my kids about the climate provisions,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “This is the first time they’ve been legitimately excited about my job. We really owe to the next generation to get this right and a lot of young people in this country were developing an acute sense of hopelessness that adults weren’t taking seriously the climate crisis.”

Republicans argued the legislation would have little impact on rising global temperatures and wind up forcing to pay more for gas because of the revived tax on foreign oil.

Graham called the tax on oil imports a “vampire tax” because it was eliminated in 1995 and now is coming back from the dead.

“This bill imposes a new gas tax of 16.4 cents per barrel on all imported petroleum products and crude oil refined in America,” Graham said. “This creates new gas taxes for the American consumer in the name of climate change.”

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) expressed deep disappointment with the prescription drug reform component of the bill. He said it should have done more to empower Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.

But other Democrats rejected Sanders’s view, arguing the reform would set a powerful new precedent by giving the federal government more influence over the market.

“There is a reason why big PhRMA is fighting this so hard. They know once you put negotiation, embedded into law, there will be no turning back. That’s what this is all about,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who helped craft the prescription drug reform piece. “This is a seismic shift between government and this lobby.”

Sanders offered an amendment to require Medicare to pay no more than the Department of Veterans Affairs for prescription drugs. His amendment failed by a lopsided vote of 1-99, with Sanders casting the only “yes” vote.

Another Sanders amendment to extend a $300-a-month child tax credit and pay for it by raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent failed by vote of 1-97. Only Sanders voted for it.

The legislation includes a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies at a cost of $64 billion.

The legislation will raise $258 billion over 10 years by imposing a 15 percent corporate minimum tax on companies with over $1 billion in profits and require companies to follow generally accepted accounting principles when reporting income to the IRS.

Sinema won a significant concession from Schumer by shielding manufacturing companies from losing their ability to fully write off capital expenditures because of the 15 percent minimum tax. That shrunk the projected revenue from the proposal from $313 billion to $258 billion.

Schumer also had to drop a proposal to close the carried interest tax loophole, which lets asset managers pay a favorable tax rate, to secure Sinema’s vote.

But the Democratic leader made up for the lost revenue by adding a 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks, which will raise an estimated $74 billion.

“I hate stock buybacks. I think they’re one of the most self-serving things that corporate America does,” the Democratic leader explained to reporters Friday.

“I don’t think I need to tell anyone what happens when you raise taxes on businesses, particularly when the economy is shrinking. You get less growth, lower wages and fewer jobs,” Thune said.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Nice Monday morning!

Saw it on CNN and was not impressed. The fact it was a totally inadequate bill and the vote was 50/50 along party lines is again an example that the state of affairs in US politics has fuck all to do with really serving the interests of America's citizens.

^It’s a good start. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documen...ct-of-2022.pdf

Democrats pass a major climate, health and tax bill. Here's what's in it

Tackling climate change

More than $300 billion would be invested in energy and climate reform, the largest federal clean energy investment in U.S. history.

This portion of the bill takes on transportation and electricity generation, and it includes $60 billion for growing renewable energy infrastructure in manufacturing like solar panels and wind turbines.

It also includes several tax credits for individuals on things like electric vehicles and making homes more energy efficient.

Lowering the cost of prescription drugs

The bill includes a historic measure that allows the federal health secretary to negotiate the prices of certain expensive drugs each year for Medicare.

The bill puts a cap of $2,000 on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for people on Medicare, effective in 2025.

There's also a three-year extension on healthcare subsidies in the Affordable Care Act originally passed in a pandemic relief bill last year, estimated by the government to have kept premiums at $10 per month or lower for the vast majority of people covered through the federal health insurance exchange.

That helps millions of Americans avoid spikes in their health care costs.

Tax reform

Instead, a 1% excise tax on stock buybacks was introduced, and it could bring in roughly five times as much revenue as the carried interest measure (which was estimated at $300 billion). However, it wouldn't take effect until next year, raising predictions of a rush of buybacks by some companies before 2023 rolls around.

And one other part of the bill that doesn’t get the attention it should…….

The bill also includes President Biden’s proposal to restore $80 billion of the enforcement budget that has been cut from the IRS over the past decade, which will more than pay for itself. As ITEP has explained, years of budget cuts have caused the IRS to reduce its audits of very large corporations in half and reduce its audits of millionaires by even more.

“Even those opposed to changing our tax laws should agree with the commonsense notion that corporations and the richest Americans should follow tax laws already on the books. This proposal gives the IRS the tools to ensure that happens,” continued Hanauer.

Just a start!

Gavin Schmidt - This is the first US federal legislation that is at all commensurate with the size of the climate challenge. Still a long road ahead, but finally the global embarrassment of legislative inaction is over.

The US has had useful action at the executive level (particularly these last two years) and effective regional, state, and local initiatives to reduce emissions, but there are things that can only be done at the legislative federal level. Finally! : https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/s...87220596072450