With Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote, the Senate passed the misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act” on party lines. Not one Republican voted for the middle-class crushing monstrosity. The bill will now move to the House for a vote.
The Senate Sunday passed the Democrats’ social spending and taxation bill after a marathon “vote-a-rama” session that lasted more than 15 hours, marking a major win for the Democratic agenda just over three months before Election Day. Vice President Harris cast a tiebreaking vote to allow the legislation to pass 51-50.. . . . The passage of the bill is the culmination of more than a year of intra-party negotiations among Democrats trying to pass a party-line bill. They used a process called budget reconciliation, which allows them to get around the Senate filibuster, to do it. But even avoiding the filibuster, Democrats still encountered a major hiccup toward the end of their effort to pass it. A drafting issue would have increased taxes on companies worth less than Democrats’ intended $1 billion threshold if they were subsidiaries of a firm worth more than that amount.Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., introduced an amendment to deal with the issue, which cost $35 billion. But his proposal would have been paid for by extending the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap for one year. That would have complicated passage of the final bill, because many Northeast Democrats detest the SALT cap. The Senate passed Thune’s amendment. But it changed the way to pay for it by using an amendment from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., to replace the SALT cap with “a two year extension of a so-called loss limitation policy.” That amendment passed with Harris’ help, and cleared the way for final passage. . . . . The bill raises more than $700 billion in tax revenue and spends over $400 billion. The key elements include extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, a suite of climate-related spending and tax credits, provisions on fossil fuel energy, a 15% minimum corporate tax rate and more.
Various provisions were voted down by Demcocrats during the process, including protections for taxpayers making less than $400k.
Needless to say, people have thoughts.
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