WHATTAYA THINK OF “SLEEPY JOE” & “DYSFUNCTIONAL” DEMOCRATS NOW, AMERICA?
The Senate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act—with House passage assured this week—is a truly historic achievement. While of course not as sweeping as President Biden and almost all Democrats wanted, this bill is by far the largest effort to deal with climate change in the nation’s history, places a minimum 15-percent tax rate on large corporations, finally enables Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, extends subsides for health insurance costs under the Affordable Care Act, and much more.
Combined with such previous accomplishments as the massive American Recovery Act, the $1 trillion-plus infrastructure bill, making vaccines available to all, the CHIPs Act, the PACT Act, the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, standing up against enemies of democracy and freedom at home and abroad, standing with women’s control over their own bodies while Republicans almost unanimously refuse to do so, the appointment and confirmation of a large and diverse number of progressive federal judges, and more, this law marks the first year-and-a-half of the Biden Administration as the most successful and meaningful period of progressive advance since LBJ in 1964-65.
It has, moreover, been accomplished with razor-thin majorities in both Houses of Congress, not the huge majorities LBJ and FDR had.
President Biden issued a statement after the 51-50 passage: “Today, Senate Democrats sided with American families over special interests, voting to lower the cost of prescription drugs, health insurance, and everyday energy costs and reduce the deficit, while making the wealthiest corporations finally pay their fair share.”
As I argued in Salon even before the stunning Kansas vote for women and the Senate delivering with the Inflation Reduction Act, the political climate is changing even more rapidly than the planetary climate.
The vast majority of Americans now need to understand that the midterm elections this November are critical to what will become of the American experiment:
{Historian Robert S. McElvaine teaches at Millsaps College. His latest book, The Times They Were a-Changin’ – 1964: The Year the Sixties Arrived and the Battle Lines of Today Were Drawn, has just been published by Arcade.}