The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, a $740 billion spending measure for healthcare and climate change that was the result of months of negotiations inside the Democratic Party, has been approved by the Senate.
The bill received no support from Republican members, but Democrats were nevertheless able to approve it with a simple majority by using the budget reconciliation procedure.
At the conclusion of the 16-hour session, Vice President Kamala Harris gave the decisive vote to break the tie in the evenly split chamber.
You’ll tell your grandchildren you were here, said a clearly moved Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as he thanked everyone who had helped, from Congressional staffers to cafeteria workers at the Capitol.
It’s a significant victory for the Democratic agenda, whose chances in the impending midterm elections had been looking bleak for months.
In a statement, President Joe Biden applauded its ratification and urged the House of Representatives to follow suit so he could sign it into law.
Biden said, “Today, Senate Democrats voted with American people over special interests, voting to lower the cost of prescription medications, health insurance, and regular energy prices and reduce the deficit, while making the wealthiest businesses finally pay their due part.”
“This bill does exactly what I ran for president to do—make government work for working families again.”
Since Saturday night at 11 p.m., lawmakers have been debating the package nonstop till Sunday late afternoon.
Republicans, however, contend that Democrats misled the American people with the legislation’s name and that it won’t reduce the country’s sky-high inflation. They also cite a study that indicates that it may result in higher taxes across the board.
In an interview with CBS News’ Face The Nation, Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida referred to the legislation as a “war on seniors” and said it would increase Medicare expenditures.
Currently, this measure should be referred to as the war on seniors act. This is a war on Medicare, after all. When you consider this. Medicare will be cut by $280 billion as a result, Scott said.
On ABC News’ This Week, Democrat Senator Chris Coons of Connecticut acknowledged that it could take “a year or more” for the plan to reduce inflation.
‘But, look…we’ve seen gas prices come down week after week after week for the last five weeks in a row,’ Coons defended.
‘Yes, inflation is higher than it should be, but we just got a robust jobs number, more than 500,000 jobs created in this past month. Unemployment’s the lowest it’s been in my lifetime. And I think we’ve got a strong economy, a strong recovery underway.’
Host Margaret Brennan cut Scott off during his CBS interview when he claimed ‘Medicare is gonna get cut and there’s gonna be seniors that don’t get life-saving drugs.’
‘Reducing Medicare cost is not the same as benefits though, you- you know that,’ Brennan said.
Scott replied: ‘Margaret, it’s $280 billion that would have been spent. It was anticipated to be spent. It’s not going to be spent now. And the drug companies that would be doing more research are not going to be able to spend the money on research.’
‘Just successfully blocked Democrat leadership’s attempt to sneak a tax hike on already struggling small businesses into their reckless tax-and-spending bill,’ Thune wrote online after his amendment was approved in a 57 to 43 vote.
On Sunday morning, Senate Republicans were successful in getting Democrats to drop a clause from their proposal that would have limited the cost of insulin for all Americans to just $35.
In a protracted procedure known as a vote-a-rama, senators have remained inside the US Capitol from Saturday night through Sunday morning voting on scores of changes to the Democrats’ budget measure.
Despite the Senate parliamentarian’s finding that the insulin cap breaches the rules of the budget reconciliation process used to pass the law, Democrats had decided to keep it in the bill.
On Sunday, Republicans raised a point of order, which required a vote among the entire floor to decide whether to overrule the parliamentarian.
In the end, the bill failed to receive the required 60 votes by three votes. A total of 43 MPs voted to repeal the price cap.
‘3 GOP votes is all it took to cap insulin at $35,’ Progressive Rep. Ruben Gallego wrote on Twitter, lamenting the defeat.
‘The sad part is the GOP could have voted yes on this amendment and voted no on the whole bill and people would have affordable insulin. But let’s be honest they just wanted to be assholes.’
But GOP Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin accused Democrats of legislative trickery by deliberately defying the Senate parliamentarian.
‘Lying Dems and their friends in corporate media are at it again, distorting a Democrat “gotcha” vote,’ Johnson stated.
‘In reality, the Dems wanted to break Senate rules to pass insulin pricing cap instead of going through regular order. They put this in a bill it wasn’t allowed in, all for show.’