In our opinion, on today’s BradCast, the scaled back, surprise “Build Back Better” spending bill compromise (now renamed the “Inflation Reduction Act” to help win over West Virginia’s rightwing Democratic Senator) comes not a moment too soon. And, even “scaled back”, it’s still chocked full of so much stuff that if each of its provisions were passed in separate bills over the past 18 months, we’d likely be discussing Joe Biden as having one of the most successful first two years of any President in history. That said, the bill has not yet been passed, and it could still be a very bumpy ride in the coming days to see it through to the President’s signature. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]
Before we get to that today — and some callers on same — a few other headlines covered on today’s show…
- Minutes before airtime, news broke that the U.S. killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan over the weekend in a successful drone strike, in which no civilians are said to have been killed. President Biden was to give remarks about what happened on Monday evening.
- Speaking of Biden, he tested positive for COVID again over the weekend, in what White House officials are describing as a “rare rebound” case after finishing his 5-day course of the anti-viral drug called Paxlovid. Well, it can’t be ALL that rare, because last week, when the White House announced Biden had tested negative and was cleared to leave isolation, we warned about the possibility of such a rebound, as many Paxlovid users have experienced same. The Pfizer drug has very good results at preventing serious cases and hospitalization, but many patients have experienced a second — non-fatal — COVID infection shortly after using it. That is, apparently, the case with Biden. His White House doctor says he has few if any symptoms and will likely be fine, despite needing to isolate again.
- Deadly flash flooding continues in parts of Kentucky today, and warnings for more of the same have been issued for the next several days from Tennessee to Kentucky to West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina. 37 have so far been confirmed to have died from the horrific flooding in Eastern Kentucky. Governor Andy Beshear believes that toll will continue to rise, as hundreds are still unaccounted for in a number of Appalachian mountain towns after recent, and ongoing, deluges. That, as our climate emergency continues with record heat predicted again this week from the Dakotas to the East Coast.
- On Tuesday, voters will head to the polls in six states: Ohio, Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state for primary elections. And there are a lot of 2020 election deniers (and worse) on the GOP ballots. We quickly preview just a few of those insane races today and will have noteworthy reported results, of course, on Wednesday’s program.
Then, it’s on to the so-called Inflation Reduction Act — a scaled down version of the Build Back Better Act that Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema killed last year. If successfully adopted this time, it would increase federal revenue by some $750 billion over the next ten years, allowing for some $450 billion in spending on a bunch of several long-overdue programs. Most of them have been progressive priorities for years.
Only Democrats in the U.S. Senate will be needed to pass it under Senate reconciliation rules, but all 50 will have to be there (not out with COVID) and vote yes. Sinema has yet to comment on the measure, even as Manchin has been taking to media over the weekend to try and sell her on it.
If passed, the 725-page measure [PDF] will: Allow Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices; Cap out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs for seniors at $2,000 per year; Expand federal subsidies for premiums for individuals who purchase health insurance on the federal Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) exchanges; Set a minimum 15% tax for corporations who make more than $1 billion in profits per year; Increase policing of tax cheats; and, perhaps most critically, invest some $369 billion in climate and energy projects to cut deadly greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 through investments that hasten the nation’s move from dirty fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy.
What the bill won’t do is raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year, as Biden has long promised. That, despite blatant lies from Republicans such as Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) who, when announcing he tested positive for COVID today, lied about the bill, declaring on Twitter that he will “continue to fight Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin’s massive tax increase on working families.” That is a lie. There is no “massive tax increase on working families” in the bill. Republicans hope you are dumb enough to be duped to the contrary.
In order to win over Manchin, whose family and campaign have long been propped up by fossil fuel interests, the bill does mandate oil and gas lease sales on federal lands be auctioned off in exchange for the approval of on- and off-shore wind and solar projects. Even there, however, oil and gas companies will be required to pay higher royalties on whatever they extract, and will be fined for failing to prevent methane leaks that exacerbate global warming. So, yeah. Art of the compromise. But, according to most climate experts we’ve read, heard from or spoken with, it’s a compromise well worth taking..and comes not a moment too soon, as our climate emergency worsens by the day.
We’ve got much more on all of the above on today’s show, and we open up the phone lines to callers to get some of their thoughts on the “Inflation Reduction Act” as the world melts down, and the 2022 primary general election is now less than 100 days away…
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Too little … in the sense of Gilbert Grape (Small Brains Considered – 4).
Uh oh … Jan. 6 text messages wiped from phones of key Trump Pentagon officials
I disagree with most of my progressive brothers and sisters on this bill. I think it is actually worse than no bill at all, as far as the environment is concerned. Bernie Sanders put it better than I could:
“In my view, if we are going to make our planet healthy and habitable for future generations, we cannot provide billions of dollars in new tax breaks to the very same fossil fuel companies that are currently destroying the planet,” the Vermont senator said. “Under this legislation, up to 60 million acres of public waters must be offered up for sale each and every year to the oil and gas industry before the federal government could approve any new offshore wind development.”
And yet, in the end, Bernie chose party over people and voted for it. We just can’t keep drilling, fracking, mining and pumping fossil fuels and put up a couple of wind turbines to compensate and call it “helping the environment”.
I realize that in politics some changes have to be incremental. But mother nature will not wait. We are out of time unless we do DRASTIC changes now, and since there really is little political will to do so….I think we are selling our children’s futures….and maybe even their lives.
Sorry. Correction on above comment. I meant to say he will PROBABLY vote for it, but it hasn’t been voted on yet.
Susan @3
Um…I wouldn’t call $369 billion in investment “a couple of wind turbines”. In fact, the $369 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act is even MORE for climate than the $300 billion that was allocated for it in the larger Build Back Better Act!
There is MUCH more than simply “a couple of wind turbines” and some solar in this thing. There is MAJOR investment in all kinds of stuff that will — according to several different estimates and input from green groups and climate experts (that I happen to know and/or trust) — indeed cut emissions by some 40% by 2030.
I’m buried at the moment, so can’t copy/paste a list of what all that $369 billion will do. But it’s a lot of stuff. And there is also a study by Energy Innovation that finds that for every 1 ton of C02 emissions that might be added via this Act, it would remove 24 tons of emissions from the atmosphere. Sounds like a bargain to me!
I haven’t seen Bernie’s specific complaint. And, whatever it is, I’m glad he’s making it, because NONE of this will be enough, given how long we have waited to do it. But he’d be an idiot if he voted against this bill…as would anyone who claims to give a damn about the climate crisis.
Remember, problems with the bill can be fixed/changed later. But getting started with a $369 billion investment will be a huge, critical, if long over due start!
Oh…and if you think you’ll see a better bill after November somehow, if Republicans take over either chamber…well, please send over a bit of whatever it is you are smoking and then enjoy the years and YEARS of no action at all…