The “inflation reduction” bill passes the Senate along strict party lines
Not one Republican voted for it and not one Democrat voted against it, which made it a 50/50 tiebreaker broken by VP Harris.
That’s why every single senator matters, and also proof that there are no moderate Democrats.
More:
All Fifty Democrat Senators have voted for a massive tax hike during a recession, more subsidies during a period of runaway inflation, and siccing 87,000 new IRS agents on independent businesses at a cost of $80 billion.
The November election should be interesting.— Grover Norquist (@GroverNorquist) August 7, 2022
It was already going to be “interesting” enough, IMHO.
In addition, Democrats stopped additions to the bill that would have postponed the new taxes and spending till inflation was under control, and another that would have limited the new agents’ audits to those making over $400K, and still another bill that would have kept the administration from selling other countries our strategic oil reserves.
How many Democrat voters approve of these things? How many will even pay attention to them?
NOTE: Here’s an interesting fact: “the Internal Revenue Service will [now] employ more bureaucrats than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined.”
“The November election should be interesting.”
Cynical prediction.
Repubs (IF they take Congress) will do little or nothing to roll back the damage, shrink gov’t, spend thriftily or reinforce citizens’ rights.
Dems will push us over the edge. Repubs will only hit the brakes, not undo anything of significance.
I was surprised that several Rep Senators did not vote for the bill. At this point I think that the Dems will take the Senate.
JimNorCal, I don’t think the Rep will even hit the brakes. We have a long way to the bottom, but we are headed there at Breakneck Speed.
And here we thought Obama was the one who weaponized the IRS…
Oh, WAIT!!!
What a brilliant re-election strategy, alienate and enrage even more voters!
Perhaps it’s a twofold strategy, steal another election through blatant electoral fraud and declare it the most honest ever…
Here’s a link to a comprehensive analysis of the bill as it relates to its revenue and deficit impacts on the budget.
I think the biggest knocks to the bill are the misallocation of spending and the potential damaging effects of the 15% minimum corporate tax on book income on certain sectors. There are lots of ways money could be spent on infrastructure, but allocating this spending on “renewables” isn’t the best way to spend it.
https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act/
“Sixty billion dollars for environmental justice grants. What does that mean? The American people are going to try to figure this out,” he said during the August 5 news conference. “One point nine billion dollars for canopy coverage—canopy coverage—in urban areas. I’m sure that’s on the hearts and minds of every American. Thirty billion dollars in a climate slush fund that can be used for Democrat-favorite projects. The point is, this is a big tax increase on job creators in this country that isn’t going to do anything to address the inflation crisis in this country.”
Ok, there’s more to object to about this bill. But that’s true for every bill now passed by Congress. There are slush funds/hand outs for favored groups in every bill passed by congress.
And $30 billion is a small portion of the total spending in the bill, but that’s enough to weaponize all sorts of radical organizations.
Republicans need to remember that Donald Trump’s post November temper tantrum cost them one, maybe two Senators in Georgia’s January run-off.
“Republicans need to remember that Donald Trump’s post November temper tantrum cost them one, maybe two Senators in Georgia’s January run-off.”
1. Mitch McConnell deserves as much blame or more for announcing there would be no further COVID stimulus checks from a GOP-controlled Senate. At least Trump had what he thought was a good reason for his behavior. What in Heaven’s name was McConnell thinking?
2. If Trump deserves any blame for losing those Senate seats, then every single NeverTrumper is to blame for Biden sitting in the Oval Office.
Mike
“Republicans need to remember that Donald Trump’s post November temper tantrum” you lost me right there at temper tantrum.
What’s going on with the economy?
We’re seeing evidence of a recession after the longest period of stimulus (deficit) spending in decades.
From the great Global Financial Crisis of 2008 until today the federal government has added $20 trillion in deficit spending into the economy. That’s an average of 6.5% of annual GDP into the economy for 14 years.
Meanwhile during the time period between 2009 and 2020 inflation has averaged only 1.6%, below the Fed’s target rate of 2%. So what will be the priority? Those old enough to remember knows what happens when the fed raises interest rates to choke inflation. It worked but created the recession of 1981.
As to the Global Financial crisis of 2008, federal tax receipts fell $1.46 trillion between 2009 and 2012. At the same time the government added nearly $4 trillion in spending.
What makes the COVID lockdowns so unique is that federal tax receipts didn’t fall at all. They actually rose in 2020 and 2021, while at the same time the government pumped nearly $6 trillion in deficit spending into the economy.
And yet here we are in Q3 of 2022 in a recession. While calling the bill an inflation reduction act, the federal government has passed another stimulus bill. While it purports to raise revenue from corporations, it’s very likely a Republican congress (if that happens this fall) will make their first order of business the repeal of this tax.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/30/stagflationary-debt-crisis-us-recession
Rufus T. Firefly:
That the Georgia loss in the runnoffs was somehow Trump’s fault is a very popular idea and I’ve seen it many places, but I’ve never seen anything that comes close to convincing me that was the reason. And most of the time, people don’t even try to convince; it’s just stated as though it’s a self-evident truth.
The minute I learned that the Georgian GOP Senate candidates had failed by a tiny bit to get 50% in the general election and that therefore there would be a runoff, I felt quite certain they would not win it, and my feeling had zero to do with Trump. I knew the 2 Democrat candidates in Georgia were the key to the whole shebang of Democrats controlling the Senate, and that the Democrats would do anything – and I mean anything – to win. Plus, the GOP candidates were two of the weakest I’ve ever seen. Recall, also, the role of Raffensperger (please see this). Please also recall what Lin Wood did to discourage the GOP vote in the Georgia runoffs (see also this). Other things that happened, as I recall, were an enormous amount of out-of-state money came in to support and promote the Democrat candidates, and people actually tried (and perhaps succeeded?) in temporarily moving to Georgia to vote in the runoffs because there was no requirement that they had to have voted (or even have been registered) in the general in order to vote in the runoffs.
Raffensperger did his press conference attacking Trump and the election the night before the runoff elections.
That did far more to demoralize Republicans in Georgia than any thing Trump said.
I think the Democrats, seeing plainly that a rout is coming their way in November, are frantically trying to create as much mischief as they possibly can so that the incoming Republican House and Senate will be spending all of their time and energy trying to undo the mess, while a hostile media plays at full volume to make sure we understand it’s all the Republican’s fault in the first place.
I also understand that the Republicans were not paying attention. This bill was slipped past them and they lost the opportunity to put themselves in a position to fillibuster it.
. https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/08/07/democrats-poised-to-spend-3-5-trillion-during-historic-inflation-with-republican-help/
…”Fourteen Senate Republicans and many House Republicans voted for the CHIPS Act.
Believing that a reconciliation bill was not being negotiated, Senate Republicans voted to pass the CHIPS Act. This eliminated any leverage Republicans had to block the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Regarding Trump and the Georgia runoff, I guess we’ll never know for sure, but this Atlanta Journal Constitution article explains the reasoning behind the logic.
https://www.ajc.com/politics/turnout-dip-among-georgia-republicans-flipped-us-senate/IKWGEGFEEVEZ5DXTP7ZXXOROIA/
Republican turnout was low and Trump did discourage voters. Republican voters who stayed home are quoted in the article citing Trump’s claims as their reason for not voting as they thought their votes would not be tallied fairly.
>every single NeverTrumper is to blame for Biden sitting in the Oval Office.
Preach!
>Republican voters who stayed home are quoted in the article citing Trump’s claims as their reason for not voting as they thought their votes would not be tallied fairly.
If this is true, I blame them for forfeiting their votes, whatever their rationale.
The Law of INTENDED Consequences (Democratic Party editions…and editions…and editionssssss), heh:
“Democrats Vote to Raise Drug Prices—
“Price controls for Medicare mean higher costs for everyone else.”—
https://www.wsj.com/articles/democrats-vote-to-raise-drug-prices-11659909247?st=xq4yqmf5tn8sj67&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Take that, AMERIKKKA!!
(And thank us that we haven’t raised the prices more….Oh, right. With hyper-inflation, the price WILL rise more…well, “tant pis” suckers….)
– – – – – –
The Law of INTENDED Consequences (continued):
“Deborah Birx’s Guide to Destroying America;
“The former White House coronavirus coordinator’s monstrous autobiography explains how lockdowns happened”—
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/deborah-birx-guide-destroying-america
The Democratic Party led campaign to destroy America is multi-pronged on currently on full burners..
H/T Powerline
Rufus T. Firefly:
That was Lin Wood’s message, not Trump’s. Lin Wood and other extremists were encouraging people on the right to not vote in the Georgia runoffs. Those posts of mine that I linked to in my earlier comment to you addressed that.
On the other hand, Trump himself was encouraging them to vote for Perdue and Loeffler.
I imagine this thread is long dead, but if neo sees this…
Trump was sucking most all of the air out of the room with his battle and was working hard to convince his voters that his election was rigged and “elections” are rigged.
In typical, Trump behavior, he did also encourage Georgians to vote, just as he was discouraging voting. Trump often takes both sides in debates and this was no exception.
I don’t think anyone can debate that Trump’s refusal to accept the November results in his own election was consuming a lot of media and GOP resources. What if, instead, Trump had put all his bluster into convincing Georgians that the way to “stop the steal” is to elect the GOP candidates in the runoff?
Trump is a force of nature and he is brilliant at tweaking the media. As always, in January of 2021 he made the message about himself.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Trump convinced no one who wasn’t already convinced. Most people who are convinced the election was rigged became convinced the morning after Election Day, or even beforehand when they realized how the voting rules had been changed.
And he put plenty of zeal into telling Georgians that they must vote in the runoff. Other supposed Republicans such as Lin Wood were putting all their energy into telling Georgians on the right NOT to vote in the runoff. It was a big thing online, too. I think some of it was also leftist trolls spreading the word “don’t vote!” to the right, pretending to be on the right.