Vice-President Kamala Harris cast the deciding vote that sends the bill from the Senate to the House for an expected approval Friday or over the weekend
By DOUG THOMPSONAugust 8, 2022
President Joe Biden speaks at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)
For a change, Congress heads home this week with some good news, in Democratic camps after the House is expected to pass the Biden economic and climate change spending bill later this week before going into the annual August break.
They used to call the month-long break a “recess” but that was scrapped because no one liked the idea of Congress not working, well not everyone since many subscribe to Mark Twain’s old warning that “nobody’s life, liberty or property is safe while Congress is in session.” That’s a paraphrase of the original quote.
With mid-term elections coming in November and polls showing more and more wariness of the once-considered Trump Teflon protecting the right-wing, extremists who now control the Republican Party, Democrats see hope in what used to be considered a sure bet that Congressional control would pass back to the out-of-control party of the stampeding elephant is now fading.
Polls show that a clear majority of voters do not want the disgraced, corrupt and criminal Trump returned to the White House and even some Democrats are saying “not him, please not him.”
“People are gonna see that we’ve done everything we can to lower their costs and improve their life,” said Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.) about the approval of the President’s economic and climate package.
“Let’s get this bill to the President’s desk ASAP,” declares Democratic Lt. Gov John Fetterman, who is running for the U.S. Senate this weekend.
“I think it’s pretty clear there’s a momentum shift,” says Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), head of the Senate National Democratic campaign committee. “We were seeing it in our numbers before this and its only accelerated. I feel we’re in a really good place here we are going into August coming into Labor Day.”
The Washington Post calls the “bill is the largest investment in climate initiatives ever and it allows the government to negotiate prescription drug prices, a policy Democrats have tried to pass for 25 years. While voters probably won’t feel the impact of the legislation before Election Day, Democrats now have something more to campaign on and they hope it will sweeten voters’ sour mood toward the party over high inflation.”
The Post continues:
Schumer has overseen the longest evenly divided Senate in history. Even with that narrow margin, Democrats promised big things and until this summer had few victories to match their rhetoric. They had failed to pass the $1.7 trillion Build Back Better plan, which included the components of the IRA but also the child care and elder care components too. They failed to pass legislation to protect access to the polls and codify Roe v. Wade. This all came amid rising costs and plummeting approval numbers for Biden, especially on the economy.
“To do small things with 50 votes is rough. To pass a major piece of legislation with only 50 votes — an intransigent Republican minority — a caucus running from [Sen.] Bernie Sanders [(I-Vt.)] to Joe Manchin. Wow,” Schumer said in a victory lap masquerading as a news conference moments after the bill passed along party lines Sunday.
The momentum shift for Democrats started in June when a series of bipartisan bills moved through Congress, beginning with the most significant changes to gun laws since 1994, even if they were incremental. In July, Congress cleared a bill to expand the microchip manufacturing industry in the United States, and in August they passed a bill to provide care and resources for 3.5 million veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
“We had some doldrums in the last part of last year and the early part of this year. Then we just started kicking butt legislatively and I think that gives a spring in our step and gives us something to run on,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said. “Now that we’re passing bills — people may not know every single detail about it, but they know that the job is to pass bills on major public policy issues and we’re doing it now.”
But first, the IRA must pass the House, which is expected to return from recess on Friday to take up the measure. The bill’s prospects look good with House members who had previously made demands for changes to the bill, or its earlier iterations, lining up behind the measure.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), who had said he wanted a repeal of the cap on the state and local tax deduction to be part of the bill, said he’d support the IRA. “This legislation doesn’t raise taxes on families in my District — it reduces the financial burden on them. For that reason, and for its strong support of the climate, lower prescription drug prices, and job creation, I’ll be voting for it,” he said in a statement.
–The Washington Post
Let’s hope the momentum continues. It could be a change that has been needed for a long, long time.
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