WASHINGTON (AP) – A divided Congress gave final approval Friday to Democrats’ flagship climate and health care bills, giving President Joe Biden a come-from-behind victory over coveted priorities that the party expects to strengthen its prospects of keeping its House. and majorities in the Senate in the November elections.
The House used a 220-207 vote to pass the legislation, prompting hugs from House Democrats and applause from White House staff watching on television. “Today, the American people have won. Special interests lost,” tweeted the vacationing Biden, who was beaming in a White House photo as he watched the vote on television from Kiawah Island, South Carolina. He said he would sign the law next week.
The move is but a shadow of the larger, more ambitious plan to increase environmental and social programs that Biden and his party unveiled early last year. Still, Democrats happily declared victory for top-tier goals like providing the biggest investment ever by Congress to curb carbon emissions, lower pharmaceutical costs and tax big business, hoping to prove that they can wring success out of a routinely bogged down Washington that often disillusions voters.
“Today is a day of celebration, a day that we take another giant step in our momentous agenda,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who minutes later announced the final vote while presiding over the room He said the move “serves the moment, ensuring our families thrive and our planet survives”.
Republicans staunchly opposed the legislation, calling it a cornucopia of wasteful liberal dreams that would raise taxes and raise families’ costs of living. They did the same on Sunday, but Senate Democrats came together and used Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote to push the measure through that chamber 50-50.
“Democrats, more than any other majority in history, are addicted to spending other people’s money, regardless of what we can afford as a country,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R- of Calif. “I can almost see the joy in his eyes.”
Biden’s initial 10-year, $3.5 trillion proposal also called for free kindergarten, paid family and medical leave, expanding Medicare benefits and easing immigration restrictions. That crashed after centrist Sen. Joe Manchin, DW.Va., said it was too costly, using the leverage that all Democrats have in the equally divided Senate.
Even so, the final legislation remained substantive. Its pillar is about $375 billion over 10 years to encourage industry and consumers to switch from carbon emissions to cleaner forms of energy. This includes $4 billion to deal with the catastrophic drought in the West.
The spending, tax credits and loans would bolster technology like solar panels, consumer efforts to improve home energy efficiency, emissions-reduction equipment for coal and gas-fired power plants, and controls of air pollution for farms, ports and low-income communities.
Another $64 billion would help 13 million people pay premiums over the next three years for privately purchased health insurance. Medicare would get the power to negotiate its costs for pharmaceuticals, initially in 2026 for just 10 drugs. Medicare beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket prescription costs would be capped at $2,000 starting in 2025, and starting next year they would pay no more than $35 a month for insulin, the expensive diabetes drug.
The bill would raise about $740 billion in revenue over the decade, more than a third of the government’s savings from lower drug prices. More tax increases on billion-dollar corporations, taxes on companies buying back their own stock, and stronger IRS tax collections. About $300 billion would remain to cover budget deficits, a fraction of the $16 trillion projected for the period.
Against the backdrop of GOP attacks on the FBI over its court-authorized search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate for sensitive documents, Republicans repeatedly shelved the bill’s push in the IRS budget. The goal is to collect about $120 billion in unpaid taxes over the next decade, and Republicans have misleadingly claimed that the IRS will hire 87,000 agents to target middle-class families.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., said Democrats would also “arm” the IRS with agents, “many of whom will be trained in the use of lethal force, to go after any American citizen.” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked on “Fox and Friends” Thursday if there would be an “IRS strike force that comes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot a small business owner.” .
Few IRS personnel are armed, and Democrats say the bill’s $80 billion, 10-year budget increase would replace waves of retirees, not just agents, and modernize the team. They have said that typical families and small businesses would not be targeted, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen directed the IRS this week not to “increase the proportion of small businesses or households below the $400,000 threshold” that would be audited.
Republicans say the legislation’s new business taxes will raise prices, worsening the nation’s struggle with its worst inflation since 1981. While Democrats have labeled the measure the Deflation Act, nonpartisan analysts say which will have a barely perceptible impact on prices.
The GOP also says the bill would raise taxes on low- and middle-income families. An analysis by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which did not include the bill’s tax breaks for health care and energy, estimated that the corporate tax increases would marginally affect these taxpayers, but indirectly, partly due to lower share prices and wages.
“House Democrats have made sure that voters will fire them this fall,” said spokeswoman Torunn Sinclair of the House GOP campaign committee. In an email, he listed dozens of Democrats in competitive re-election who will face Republican attacks to raise taxes and empower the IRS “to target their constituents.”
Democratic-leaning interest groups had their own caveats. “We will hold every Republican who voted against this bill accountable for prioritizing polluters and corporate special interests over the health and well-being of their constituents,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, a senior official of the League of Conservation Voters.
The bill caps three months in which Congress has passed legislation on veterans benefits, the semiconductor industry, gun controls for young buyers and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the addition of Sweden and Finland in NATO. All with bipartisan support, suggesting Republicans also want to show their productive side.
It’s unclear whether voters will reward Democrats for the legislation after months of painfully high inflation dominating voters’ attention, Biden’s perilously low approval ratings and a steady history of mishandling midterm elections. party that has the White House.
Biden called his $3.5 trillion plan “Build Back Better.” In addition to social and environmental initiatives, he proposed rolling back Trump-era tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations and $555 billion for climate efforts, well above the money in Friday’s legislation.
With Manchin opposing those amounts, it was whittled down to a roughly $2 trillion measure that Democrats moved through the House in November. Unexpectedly, he also scuttled that bill, earning the scorn of exasperated fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill and the White House.
Recent talks between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., appeared fruitless until the two unexpectedly announced an agreement last month on the new package.
Manchin won concessions for the fossil fuel industries he defends, including procedures for more oil drilling on federal lands. So did centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., which ended up eliminating planned higher taxes on hedge fund managers and helping the funds win the drought.
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Associated Press reporter Seung Min Kim in Kiawah Island and congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.