The White House has announced that administration members will travel to promote the legislation’s benefits. According to the White House, Cabinet members will visit 23 states on more than 35 trips in August. The White House says other events will highlight Biden’s work to pass bipartisan measures, including gun safety legislation and a bill to boost domestic semiconductor chip production to stay competitive with China.
To provide families and small businesses with easy access to information about tax credits, the White House plans to launch an interactive website on climate incentives as part of its digital campaign. Democrats will use various online and social media avenues to spread their message as part of a media blitz. According to a memo, the White House will hold briefings with influencers and content creators to “amplify our message on their own online social media channels.”
Biden said this law was a win for the American people and a loss for the special interests before signing the bill. $369 billion will go toward climate and energy policies, $64 billion will go toward extending Affordable Care Act policies to reduce health insurance costs, and 15% will go toward corporate minimum taxes on companies with a profit of more than a billion dollars.
Over the next decade, the $437 billion spending package will generate $737 billion in revenue, mostly from drug price reductions for Medicare recipients and corporate tax increases. The IRS expects to collect approximately $124 billion through increased enforcement, which means more frequent and tougher audits for the wealthy. The deficit is expected to be reduced within a decade by more than $300 billion.
Some of Biden’s favorite pieces of his original Build Back Better bill, including universal child care and middle-class tax cuts, had to be sacrificed. Manchin, a conservative Democrat, was also a late holdout until he and Schumer reached an agreement earlier this month.
The provision to close the carried interest loophole that allows private equity managers and hedge fund executives to pay much fewer taxes than most taxpayers was held up at the last minute by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz.
A narrow majority supported the bill in the U.S. Senate 51-50 on Aug. 7, with no Republican votes. With Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote, Democrats won. The U.S. House approved the bill Friday by a vote of 220-207.
While introducing the president, Schumer thanked Manchin along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and the White House staff “who gave it their all to finishing this bill.”
In remarks, Biden noted that every Republican in Congress voted against the measure. “Let’s be clear. In this historic moment, Democrats sided with the American people, and every single Republican in the Congress sided with a special interest in this vote,” he said. “Every single one.”
The Republican party believes the new law will harm businesses and the middle class. They also claim that the tax rebate for EVs will not benefit any U.S. company as they cannot meet the qualifications in the period laid out by the new law. Neither the U.S. nor their allies have the mining capabilities to produce the materials needed due to the lack of minerals or types of equipment and access to such areas that are capable of being mined. It is also questionable if the Medicare portion will work. Drug companies have a right to decline what is offered, and there is a limit to what can be offered.