President Biden proposed a $2.2 trillion investment in stopping climate change, expanding health care, and other ambitious goals. But Democrats hold only 50 seats in the Senate, and the defection of only one vote would kill any bill. As it happened, the Democrats had two Senators who blocked Biden’s plans: Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Both demanded and won concessions. The bill that passed over the weekend is still a dramatic improvement over doing nothing, but the holdouts watered it down.
Except for Manchin and Sinema, every Democrat supported the bill; the two holdouts required concessions. Every single Republican opposed every part of the bill, except for the part lowering the monthly cost of insulin, supported by 7 Republicans, not enough to save the proposal.
As a general proposition, the vote on the bill shows that Republicans are staunchly opposed to any legislation to slow the devastating effects of climate change and overwhelmingly opposed to lowering the cost of prescription drugs. The seven Republicans who voted with the Democrats were probably given permission by Leader McConnell to break ranks, since their seven votes were insufficient to pass the provision.
WASHINGTON — After months of painstaking negotiations, Democrats are set to push through a climate, tax and health care package that would salvage key elements of President Biden’s domestic agenda.
The legislation, while falling far short of the ambitious $2.2 trillion Build Back Better Act that the House passed in November, fulfills multiple longstanding Democratic goals, including countering the toll of climate change on a rapidly warming planet, taking steps to lower the cost of prescription drugs and to revamping portions of the tax code in a bid to make it more equitable.
Here’s what’s in the final package:
It is the largest single American investment to slow global warming.
The bill includes the largest expenditures ever made by the federal government to slow global warming and to reduce demand for the fossil fuels that are primarily responsible for causing climate change.
Energy experts said the measure would help the United States to cut greenhouse gas emissions about 40 percent below 2005 levels by the end of this decade. That puts the Biden administration in striking distance of meeting its goal of cutting emissions roughly in half by 2030. Far more will be needed to help keep the planet from warming to dangerously high global temperatures, scientists said, but Democrats considered it a momentous first step after decades of inaction.
It would invest nearly $400 billion over 10 years in tax credits aimed at steering consumers to electric vehicles and prodding electric utilities toward renewable energy sources like wind or solar power.
A number of fossil fuel and drilling provisions as concessions to Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a holdout from a conservative state that is heavily dependent on coal and gas.
The measure would assure new oil drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Cook Inlet. It would expand tax credits for carbon capture technology that could allow coal or gas-burning power plants to keep operating with lower emissions. And it would mandate that the Interior Department continue to hold auctions for fossil fuel leases if it plans to approve new wind or solar projects on federal lands.
The tax credits include $30 billion to speed the production of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and critical minerals processing; $10 billion to build facilities to manufacture things like electric vehicles and solar panels; and $500 million through the Defense Production Act for heat pumps and critical minerals processing.
There is $60 billion to help disadvantaged areas that are disproportionately affected by climate change, including $27 billion for the creation of what would be the first national “green bank” to help drive investments in clean energy projects — particularly in poor communities. The bill would also force oil and gas companies to pay fees as high as $1,500 a ton to address excess leaks of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, and it would undo a 10-year moratorium on offshore wind leasing established by President Donald J. Trump.
Medicare could directly negotiate the price of prescription drugs, pushing down costs.
For the first time, Medicare would be allowed to negotiate with drugmakers on the price of prescription medicines, a proposal projected to save the federal government billions of dollars. That would apply to 10 drugs initially, beginning in 2026, and then expand to include more drugs in the following years.
Opponents argue that the plan would stifle innovation and the development of new treatments by cutting into the profits that drug companies can plow into their business, while some liberals expressed frustration that the policy would be too slow to take hold. Should the package become law, as expected, it would be the largest expansion of federal health policy since passage of the Affordable Care Act.
The package would cap the out-of-pocket costs that seniors pay annually for prescription drugs at $2,000, and would ensure that seniors have access to free vaccines. Lawmakers also included a rebate should price increases outpace the rate of inflation. (Top Senate rules officials, however, said that penalty could apply only to Medicare, not private insurers.)
Republicans successfully challenged the inclusion of a $35 price cap on insulin for patients on private insurance during a rapid-fire series of amendment votes early Sunday morning, forcing its removal. But a separate proposal that caps the price of insulin at $35 per month for Medicare patients remained intact….
The tax proposals were shaped by Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, who resisted her party’s push to increase tax rates on the country’s wealthiest corporations and individuals.
To avoid the rate increase Ms. Sinema opposed, Democrats instead settled on a far more complex change to the tax code: a new 15 percent corporate minimum tax on the profits companies report to shareholders. It would apply to companies that report more than $1 billion in annual income on their financial statements but that are also able to use credits, deductions and other tax treatments to lower their effective tax rates.
Ms. Sinema did protect a deduction that would benefit manufacturers, a change she successfully demanded before committing on Thursday to moving forward with the legislation. And she joined six other Democrats and all Republicans in narrowing the scope of that corporate minimum tax by backing an amendment in the final hours of the vote-a-rama Sunday afternoon.
Democrats, to make up for the loss of revenue forced by that amendment, extended a limit on tax deductions for business losses that was enacted as part of the Trump tax cuts in 2017.
She also forced the removal of a proposalsupported by Democrats and Republicans that would have narrowed a tax break used by both hedge fund and private equity industries to secure lower tax rates than their entry-level employees. And she committed to pursuing separate legislation outside of the budget package, but that would require at least 10 Republicans to support it.

I live in Arizona and will not be voting for Senator Sinema ever again. She should switch to the Republican Party. Her first concern seems to be money, not people or saving the earth from Climate change.
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My fear is that a lot of people like you will either not vote or vote [r]epublican. I hope I’m very wrong.
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GregB, I haven’t voted Republican ever, I don’t think. I’m a retired teacher in Arizona and constantly fighting the Republicans for better pay for teachers. I am totally against Charters. I have a completed petition to hand in now to put a stop to vouchers for charters. Republicans want to get rid of public schools.
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Lynn, you are an informed voter. Work for Adrian Fontes, running against a zealous Trumper. Replace Sinema with a real Dem.
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Not you I’m worried about, just a lot of others. For the record, I started out my political life as a liberal Republican, so I have voted for the party a few times. Many, many eons ago.
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It is great that the Democrats were able to build consensus and vote as a bloc on this bill. Cory Booker, who generally supports Big Pharma, set aside his loyalties to special interests to lower prices on certain drugs for seniors. This measure is a step in the right direction.
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I’m thrilled that 2 million acres per year of public lands and 60 million acres per year of seas will be opened for oil and gas companies. I’m thrilled that pipeline regulations have been relaxed. I’m thrilled that there’s not a dime for public transportation but lots of tax credits for people who can afford to buy electric vehicles (which require the mining of minerals that are even more harmful to the environment than fossil fuels, last and average of 7 years, and still use fossil fuels to power the electricity). I’m thrilled that we’re producing more solar panels rather than trying to figure out what to do with the ones that are now beginning to pile up in landfills because they have about a 15-20 lifespan. I’m thrilled that the prices of 10 drugs will be negotiable by 2029. I’m thrilled that there is no child tax credit and that hearing, dental and vision are still not part of Medicare
And most of all I’m thrilled that Sanders is getting excoriated for pointing all of this out and trying to push amendments that would have made it moderately palatable (even though he voted for the bloated thing anyway) while Manchin is getting credit for this “historic” and “consequential” event. Y’know, September 11 was also “historic” and “consequential”. Doesn’t mean it was a good thing.
Go Team Blue!
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Good God, girl! Do you not understand the art of compromise? There is a lot not to like but it is a move in the right direction. The Republicans must love people like you who will take their marbles and go home if they don’t get exactly what they want. Isn’t one totally dysfunctional party enough for you? Have you written off all progressives who dared to vote for the less than perfect bill?
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Republicans and dienne77 both agree — no plan is better than a Democrat plan that only does a little good but because of a 50-50 Senate does not do more.
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“……..and vision are still not part of Medicare”
Not true, vision care is part of Medicare. My visits to the ophthalmologist and the cataract surgery were covered by Medicare, saving me $$$$$thousand$$$$. Eyeglasses are not covered by Medicare but eye examinations are covered, I just make a $10 copay for the eye exams.
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“I’m thrilled that there is no child tax credit and that hearing, dental and vision are still not part of Medicare.”
There are many seniors who cannot afford dental care, hearing aids and have bad vision because they can’t afford new glasses or the ones they owned broke.
You get your thrills in weird places.
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While the passage of this bill should be celebrated by anyone wishing to see the ball get rolling on climate change and negotiated Medicare costs (and similarly celebrated by hedge fund billionaires) Dems shouldn’t take too many victory laps while the Barbarians are massing at the gate. The fascist Putin puppet continues his relentless soft extortion of America, peddling his corrosive election lies and stoking apocalyptic dread and dissension as his Russia RepubliQan minions stand poised to wrest control of our states’ election systems. Corpulent Christo-nationalist Orban’s cameo at CPAC this week is a fitting symbol of the GQP’s rapid descent into violent authoritarianism. Orban hollowed out Hungary’s democratic institutions from within after being elected a second time. The slide into zero press freedom, zero LGBTQ rights and political violence was incremental after his power was initially “legitimate” (having been elected democratically). With the evaporation of crucial J6 texts by multiple government agencies, insurrectionist coup plotter Ginny Thomas’ SCOTUS “get out of jail free” card and myriad other such attacks on our institutions our country is already being hollowed out from within. The question is… when does Susan Collins finally get “concerned”? Please Vote Blue if you value American democracy.
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The DNC and DCCC usually find a way to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory. Let’s see how they do it this time. I’m betting they go on perpetual defense against right wing nitpicking rather than on the offensive with many strong rhetorical and substantive advantages they don’t have to work hard to find.
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From now through election day, expect the NYT to run non-stop headlines about the “reservations”, “concerns”, etc. that “traditional Democratic voters” “progressives” and “moderates” have about the Democrats in which a single person (like our resident Putin-defender) expresses what the NYT presents as widespread dissatisfaction and concern by Democrats.
It will be like CRT. There wasn’t widespread concern about CRT (no one even cared about this non-existent thing) until a non-stop media campaign made people believe there was something seriously wrong and dangerous. And I include some parents who were Democrats but believed “things had gone too far” even if they never thought so until they heard about CRT.
If you don’t believe me about CRT, see a recent NYT article legitimizing and amplifying the view that a vast majority of pro-choice voters are extremely concerned with the untrustworthy Biden who may secretly be anti-abortion. Because they found a single woman to express how untrustworthy Biden is about it and the NYT presents her concerns as very valid because of what Biden did 40 years ago.
If you don’t believe me, then watch how the NYT turned Biden’s relatively decent withdrawal from Afghanistan (given impossible circumstances where there is no good way to withdraw and no good way to remain) into a terrible fiasco demonstrating pure incompetence and corruption by the Biden administration (and of course, the safe evacuation of over 100,000 Afghans was barely acknowledged because it was irrelevant because Biden’s inept administration didn’t use the secret Republican plan that would have led to peace and happiness for all). Only interviews with the folks who insist there was a secret better way which the NYT doesn’t question at all because NYT reporters believed that it was more important to present these secret alternatives as far superior.
I always want to ask the naysayers what alternatives they believe would have made this plan better. They never have any. We must presume their better plan is locked up with the secret Republican plan for a safe and happy Afghanistan withdrawal. I think it involves a time machine and pixie dust.
But the truth is that they would rather have nothing than half a loaf. Which (coincidentally) happens to be just what the right wing Republican party wants, too.
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I see it here too. Here’s tidbit from my community paper that I posted here before: “He added the teaching staff has been instructed to teach only those topics and concepts found in the Ohio State Content Standard for Ohio public schools and that Critical Race Theory is not addressed in either the social studies or English programs.”
A discussion like this would likely not be allowed in schools here:
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Three observations
1. Finally – – – A debate on important issues (the planet)
2. Finally – – – A debate on issues that was not derailed into one-word grandstanding to get votes – CRT, Social Justice, homophobia, 1619, masks, vaccines, a wall
2. Yet still – – – all but 7 republicans showed their true “party first” (or “elect-me first”) voting against capping an individual’s spending on INSULIN. How do these people sleep at night knowing full well they are sticking it to people who are ill, poor, disenfranchised)
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A psychopath is someone who is not moved in the slightest by what others experience or feel. Clearly, the Republican Party is MOSTLY made up of psychopaths.
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But, but windmills cause cancer, and you can barely get any documents down a low-flush toilet!
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