How the Schumer-Manchin climate bill might impact you and change the U.S.
The package, if smaller than Democrats’ initial ambitions, would transform huge sectors of the U.S. economy and affect millions of Americans
The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the bill would put about $385 billion into combating climate change and bolstering U.S. energy production through changes that would encourage nearly the whole economy to cut carbon emissions.
“This would certainly be the biggest corporate tax increase in decades,” said Steve Wamhoff, a tax expert at Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank. “We’ve had decades of tax policy benefiting the rich, but this is really the first attempt to raise revenue in a progressive way that would begin to combat wealth and income inequality.”
“This is the best development on health care for the American people in years,” Sara Lonardo, a spokeswoman for Families USA, a liberal consumer health lobby, said in a statement.
$260 billion in clean-energy tax credits
$80 billion in new rebates for electric vehicles, green energy at home and more
$1.5 billion in rewards for cutting methane emissions
Support for coal miners with black lung
What’s in the “game changer” climate bill nobody saw coming
The $369 billion of climate spending in the Inflation Reduction Act that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced on Wednesday includes funding for clean energy and electric vehicle tax breaks, domestic manufacturing of batteries and solar panels, and pollution reduction.
“Total game changer” for the climate was how Leah Stokes — a political scientist at UC Santa Barbara who has advised Democrats on the reconciliation package — put it.
Climate is the biggest portion of the Inflation Reduction Act’s spending. The bill also includes funding for the Affordable Care Act and offsets the spending with prescription drug reform and setting a corporate minimum tax.
How Democrats plan to overhaul taxes, climate spending, and health care before the midterms
All told, Democrats estimate the bill will bring in $739 billion in revenue and will invest $433 billion in spending. It also addresses Manchin’s goal of reducing the deficit and would do so by $300 billion or more. The bill’s investment in areas like clean energy, tax credits, and reducing health care costs is notable, though it’s much less ambitious than the provisions in the $1.75 trillion bill that the House passed last year.
What Democrats’ big new bill would actually do
The climate parts of the bill have gotten the most attention. But the bill also includes some significant steps on health care, including shoring up an expansion to the Affordable Care Act.
One way Obamacare expanded health care coverage was by creating marketplaces for people to purchase insurance and offering federal subsidies to help low- and middle-income households afford it. Households making up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line — about $106,000 for a family of four — could get federal help to pay their premiums. After that, they were on their own.
But in 2021, Congress eliminated those caps, instead saying that no household should have to pay more than 8.5 percent of their income for health insurance. The change had the biggest effect on people making between 400 and 600 percent of the federal poverty line (for the same household of four, that would be up to $159,000 per year). As Vox’s Dylan Scott previously reported, the changes also enabled roughly 7 million people to qualify for free health insurance under the ACA.
Those policies, however, were set to sunset by the end of this year, leaving millions of people to face much higher health care expenses moving forward. The Inflation Reduction Act extends these subsidies for three years through the end of 2025, ensuring that people won’t face that surge for a while yet. That extension is expected to cost $64 billion, according to a projection from the Congressional Budget Office.
The agreement also includes a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations with profits over $1 billion. Senate Democrats note that while the current corporate tax rate is 21 percent, dozens of major companies, including AT&T, Amazon, and ExxonMobil, pay much less than that. The proposal says that the provision would raise $313 billion, though as Politico notes, there’s debate among tax experts about how and whether this would work.
.@SarahForWI is a champion for Wisconsin families, and this selfless decision is no exception. Thank you for helping bring the Democratic team together behind @TheOtherMandela. Now let’s send Ron Johnson packing! https://t.co/fiHvKa1gzu
A Democrat who dropped out of the Wisconsin Senate race is giving the party a $600,000 surprise gift
The Milwaukee Bucks executive who dropped out of the Wisconsin Senate race this week is in a giving mood.
After he immediately threw his support behind fellow Democrat Mandela Barnes, the state’s lieutenant governor, Alex Lasry is now offering another gift to boost his former rival.
Lasry said he will use $584,000 worth of previously purchased airtime to run attack ads against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, his campaign told NBC News.
Three bright spots for Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterms
even before Democrats unveiled a major new legislative push, bright spots were emerging that hint the midterms might not be as bad for Democrats as expected.
For one, Democrats are outpacing President Joe Biden’s abysmal approval ratings in generic ballots: Slightly more than 43 percent of voters say that, if the election were held today, they would support Democrats in Congress, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average. Just over 44 percent said they would support Republicans.
Even influential Republican polls — including Americans for Prosperity, Echelon Insights, Chamber of Commerce, and Winning The Issues — recently found that Democrats were leading by between 3 and percentage 6 points. Democrats are also now favored to maintain control of the Senate, according to Decision Desk HQ.
Democrats have a fundraising advantage heading into the fall in key Senate races
There are individual races that are much closer than expected, including the Texas governor’s race and the Utah Senate race, where Republican incumbents are facing surprisingly tough reelection campaigns. And prospects for some Republican pickups are looking less likely now that the GOP has nominated far-right candidate
5 factors that give Democrats a fighting chance in November
First, it’s impossible to ignore the effect of Dobbs on midterm races.
Second, the House Jan. 6 select committee’s hearings have been bad for Republicans.
Third, Democrats will likely have many things to run on come November.
Fourth, the buzz about whether Biden will run for a second term reinforces a key point: Voters can separate their votes in the midterms from any vote of confidence in the president.
Finally, Republicans keep handing winning issues to Democrats.
Fox poll: Senate Fetterman (D) 47% Oz (R) 36% Governor Shapiro (D) 50% Mastriano (R) 40%
JUST IN: The House of Representatives approves legislation to ban assault weapons in a 217-213 vote. pic.twitter.com/9zClkLNHhA
Biden nominates abortion rights lawyer in U.S. Supreme Court case to federal judgeship
President Joe Biden on Friday nominated a lawyer who represented the Mississippi clinic at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision to become a federal appeals court judge.
Breaking: WASHINGTON (AP) -- House passes bill to boost semiconductor industry and counter China, sends measure to Biden to sign into law.
‘Getting Rolled’: McConnell Was Outfoxed With His Own Playbook
For years, Democrats have watched Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell deploy ultra-partisan legislative tactics to outmaneuver them on everything from fiscal cliff negotiations to filling a Supreme Court seat.
But this week, Senate Republicans may have gotten a taste of their own medicine—and it didn’t go down smoothly.
Clearly, Manchin never left the table. And Republicans, along with the rest of the world, found out when the senator released a statement announcing his support for a party-line bill—minutes after the GOP relinquished its leverage.
“I think that could be something you call ‘getting rolled,’” Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) told The Daily Beast on Thursday.
Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY), who has alternately worked with and fought McConnell for years, said he was “certainly pessimistic” about ever seeing the day that Democrats would outflank McConnell.
“I was glad to see it, and I’m glad to see they are acting very pragmatically and intentionally,” Yarmuth said. “You’d think after watching him for so many years they might pick up something.”
In the span of 24 hours, Democrats went from mourning their agenda to touting a major bipartisan win on the economy and speeding toward the legislative landmark on climate and tax policy that has eluded them for over a year.
The Energy Dept. is launching a new program to bring solar power to low-income homes: The Biden admin announced two programs aimed at expanding access to "community solar" projects among subsidized housing residents and households that get federal assistance for utility bills.
House Democratic leadership will announce legislation in August banning lawmakers from trading stocks
House Democratic leadership will announce legislation next month that would ban lawmakers, their spouses and senior staff from trading stocks, a source familiar with the plan tells CNN.
The proposal would force lawmakers to choose between putting their stocks in a qualified blind trust or completely divesting their investment portfolios.
The goal is to move this legislation in September, the source said. Punchbowl News first reported this development.
The Biden admin has announced $343 million in funding from the infrastructure law to improve accessibility for disabled people in train stations. The money will be allotted to transit agencies across the country to retrofit rail and subway stations for wheelchair use.
Biden is on the verge of a huge political victory
With the passage of the CHIPS Act to boost US production of semiconductors and the announcement of a deal among Senate Democrats on a bill addressing climate change, health care and taxes, President Joe Biden is on the verge of a huge political victory.
These bills offer the much-desired combination of major policy changes that also bring political benefit to the White House.
Nonetheless, if Biden and the Democrats can secure and leverage these two victories, combined with the American Rescue Plan and the infrastructure package, the President will have greatly advanced the case that he has helped stabilize conditions in Washington and shown how governing is still something that leaders can do.
Concrete benefits such as lower prescription drug prices will matter very much to voters. In an age when so many major crises beg for government as part of the solution, this might well be Biden’s best opportunity to build back a better reelection coalition for 2024.
President Biden's HHS has proposed a new regulation that would restore protections for LGBTQ+ and pregnant people against discrimination in health care, which were rescinded during the Trump admin.
Gavin Newsom’s plan to save the Constitution by trolling the Supreme Court
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a law on Friday modeled after Texas’s anti-abortion law SB 8 — the Texas law which uses private lawsuits to target abortion providers. But there’s one important difference between the two state laws: California’s new law sends these litigious bounty hunters against gun dealers who sell certain guns, including assault weapons and weapons with no serial number.
It’s a high-stakes gambit that will test whether the Supreme Court actually meant what it said in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson (2021), which held that because of SB 8’s unique style of enforcement, it was immune from meaningful judicial review — and thus would take effect despite very strong arguments that the law was unconstitutional at the time.
Trump is in growing legal and political jeopardy after a whirlwind week
The ice may be finally beginning to crack under ex-President Donald Trump.
A whirlwind few days in Washington have upended perceptions of Trump’s political and legal jeopardy related to his attempted coup after he lost the 2020 election. Revelations that ex-White House aides have been brought before a grand jury have blown the lid off a Justice Department investigation. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s public statements that the department will pursue those who tried to disrupt the legal transfer of power appear to spell trouble for Trump since the House panel has shown he was at the center of multiple Venn diagrams of election plots.
This came a day after it emerged that two senior former aides to then-Vice President Mike Pence, Marc Short and Greg Jacob, had gone before the grand jury. That development was the clearest indication yet that the Justice Department was looking at conduct directly related to Trump and his closest allies.
“I am not one to say every time there is breaking news or a development that it is hugely significant,” said Preet Bharara, former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who is now a CNN legal analyst.
“This is. This is very significant,” Bharara told CNN’s Jake Tapper, predicting that there would be a flurry of disclosures in the coming days about other witnesses to the grand jury.
NBC News confirms: Mark Short, Mike Pence's former chief of staff, appeared last week under subpoena before a D.C. federal grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. @NBCNews
Justice Dept. Asking Witnesses About Trump in Its Jan. 6 Investigation
Federal prosecutors have directly asked witnesses in recent days about former President Donald J. Trump’s involvement in efforts to reverse his election loss, a person familiar with the testimony said on Tuesday, suggesting that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation has moved into a more aggressive and politically fraught phase.
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson cooperating with DOJ's Jan. 6 probe, say sources
Cassidy Hutchinson, a former top adviser to then-President Donald Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, has recently cooperated with the Department of Justice investigation into the events of Jan. 6, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The Justice Department reached out to her following her testimony a month ago before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the sources said.
The extent of her cooperation was not immediately clear.
NBC News: Trump's ex-acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, is meeting with the Jan. 6 Committee right now for a virtual taped deposition. @NBCNews
Prosecutors prepare for court battle to force former White House officials to testify about Trump’s January 6 conversations
DOJ’s preemptive move is the clearest sign yet that federal investigators are homing in on Trump’s conduct as he tried to prevent the transfer of power to Joe Biden.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has made clear in public remarks that Trump is not beyond the reach of the investigation because of his status as a former president. He has also stressed they are taking care to “get this right.”
AG Garland made a key distinction tonight. His comments previously focused on those who attacked the Capitol. He now acknowledges a broader investigation into the plot to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Our committee has shown Donald Trump was at the center of that plot. pic.twitter.com/2Gmobogvs9
Ukraine could be turning the tide of war again as Russian advances stall
Russian advances in Ukraine have slowed almost to a standstill as newly delivered Western weapons help Ukrainian forces reclaim much of the advantage they had lost in recent months, opening a window of opportunity to turn the tide of the war in their favor again.
Breaking: LANSING, Mich. (AP) -- Michigan Supreme Court extends state's anti-discrimination law to sexual orientation, a victory for LGBTQ.
Trader Joe’s workers vote to unionize for the first time
Trader Joe’s workers at a store in Hadley, Mass., voted 45-31 to unionize, becoming the first at that company to do so, according to the National Labor Relations Board.
The union’s victory in western Massachusetts follows a wave of successful union drives this year at high-profile employers that have long evaded unionization, such as Starbucks, Amazon, Apple and REI. Union victories can produce a ripple effect across employers and industries, emboldening new workers to organize. Petitions for union elections this year are on track to hit their highest level in a decade, as a hot labor market has afforded workers more leverage over their employers.
Mass. just banned hair discrimination. These twins helped pave the way.
Five years ago, Mya and Deanna Cook, Boston-area high school students, made national headlines after their school punished them for wearing braided hair extensions. The twin girls, who are Black, fought back — gaining the attention of the ACLU of Massachusetts, the NAACP and lawmakers from across the country, who said the school policy banning hair extensions, and the punishments doled out, were racially discriminatory.
This week, the Cooks, now college seniors, stood beside Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) as he signed the state’s version of the CROWN Act, which bans discrimination against natural hairstyles. The new law, which passed unanimously in both chambers of the statehouse, makes Massachusetts the 18th state to protect Black people from being punished for the way they wear their hair.
It was a full circle moment for the twins, now 21, who are entering their senior year of college.
We are not in a recession
Although some may claim the United States is now in a “technical” recession, many economists say this probably doesn’t mean the country is in a recession because the overall labor market is still strong.
“I don’t think these two quarters of negative growth indicate a recession at this point,” said Beth Ann Bovino, the chief US economist at S&P Global.
Recessions usually mean that more people are losing their jobs and struggling to find new ones. So far, that doesn’t seem to be happening. Bovino pointed to several indicators that underscore the health of the labor market: The unemployment rate stands at 3.6 percent, just slightly above its level before the pandemic, which was at a 50-year low. Employers have added hundreds of thousands of jobs to the economy each month. Unemployment claims have been rising in recent weeks, but they’re still at low levels. Job openings have also dipped slightly, but there are still nearly two job openings for every unemployed person.
At Least There’s Joni Mitchell
Unequivocally good things don’t tend to happen these days. Moments so impervious to the horrors of modern-day living that they manage to break the sense that everything sucks. But such an event arrived when Joni Mitchell appeared at the Newport Folk Festival this weekend for her first full set in over two decades.
As you may recall, Mitchell has dealt with a series of illnesses in her later years, most notably a 2015 brain aneurysm. Her ability to perform has slowed. But the artist Brandi Carlile has stuck with her and, on Sunday, turned her concert into a Mitchell spectacle. (You can read more about their friendship here.)
It’s rare to see anyone, let alone Mitchell, completely in their element, beaming and present, basking in whatever joy comes with knowing you’ve lived an extraordinary life. So please enjoy this performance of my personal favorite, “Both Sides Now.”
I set up a place where we can donate and the funds will be distributed evenly between the tossup House and Senate races. Think of it as a one stop shop for using your $$$ to save democracy. Here is the link:
Other things you can do to increase the amount of good that can happen:
And don’t lose hope. Together, we can do this!
I am so lucky and so proud to be in this with all of you ✊🏼✊🏾✊🏽🧡💚💛💜✊🏾✊🏽✊🏻