The House and Senate passed the bill along party lines last week after Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer reached an agreement after months of negotiations. The president signs the bill after returning from vacation in South Carolina. First lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday and will remain in South Carolina, but the president tested negative and returned to Washington. The president had to quiet cabinet members, members of Congress and staff in the audience at the White House on Friday as they cheered and applauded when he gave the lecture. “Let me say from the beginning, with this law, the American people won and special interests lost,” the president said. Passage of the bill was months in the making and seemed unlikely in a year with 50-50 Senate elections and midterm elections fast approaching. “It was one of the few truly historic days in my 30 years in Congress,” Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn said at Mr. Biden’s side, praising the president’s legislative accomplishments. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the past few weeks and months “one of the most productive sessions in the history of the Senate,” from passing gun control, expanding veterans care, to “the most important bill we passed a long time ago,” inflation. Diminishing law. He also praised the president for completing the bill. “I am confident that this bill will go down as one of the greatest legislative achievements in decades,” Schumer said. Manchin sat in the front row of the room for the signing. The Inflation Reduction Act provides nearly $400 billion to finance energy and climate projects aimed at reducing carbon emissions by 40% by 2030, the most significant investment to fight climate change ever. It would also cap drug costs for seniors in Medicare at $2,000 a year and allow Medicare to negotiate with drug makers on prescription prices. The legislation also sets a minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent for most large corporations and provides $80 billion in funding to the IRS, allowing the agency to hire thousands of agents and revamp decades-old technology systems. In the coming weeks, the White House says the president will travel around the country to articulate how the bill will help Americans. He will also hold an event to celebrate the passage of the bill on September 6. “This historic bill will lower the cost of energy, prescription drugs and other health care for American families, fight the climate crisis, reduce the deficit and make big corporations pay their fair share of taxes,” he promised. the White House in the announcement. the signature. Despite its name, the extent to which the bill will help reduce inflation remains to be seen. A model from Penn Wharton says the bill won’t measurably affect inflation, and the Congressional Budget Office called the impact on inflation “negligible” this year before helping to reduce inflation in future years. But the White House points to a letter signed by more than 120 economists promoting the bill and insisting it would put “downward pressure on inflation by reducing the government’s budget deficit by about $300 billion over the next decade.” Democrats hope the legislation’s passage will boost their prospects ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. Republicans, who uniformly oppose the bill, say it won’t fight inflation.
