#Biden's Inflation Reduction Act reaps benefits

[intelligentchristianlady]

And yet again the Republicans are proved wrong.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Why, after every electoral loss, is the left always the scapegoat? It’s easier to blame activists for pushing a progressive agenda than confront the real issue: the Democratic Party has long been shaped by far more powerful forces—corporate interests, lobbyists, and consultants—whose influence has neglected the real crises facing everyday Americans. We see this cycle again and again. Contrary to establishment narratives, the Democratic leadership has often resisted advocacy organizations pushing for bold reforms on immigration, Big Tech, climate, debt, healthcare, rent, mass incarceration, Palestinian rights, and for policies like the Build Back Better agenda. This tension isn’t just about differing priorities—it reveals the actual balance of forces in the party. Corporate donors on Wall Street and Silicon Valley pour billions into campaigns, shaping agendas to suit their interests. A consultant class reaps millions from flawed strategies and failed candidates yet continues to fail upward, perpetuating a pattern of mediocrity. They, not progressives, are the roadblock preventing Democrats from becoming a populist force that could disrupt the status quo and win back voters of all stripes. It was these elements within the party that kneecapped the Democrats’ most ambitious efforts to help ordinary Americans. The Biden administration entered with huge plans, notably Build Back Better, which would have delivered immediate relief: expanded child tax credits, free community college, universal child care and pre-K, paid leave, and more. Progressives pushed mightily for Build Back Better to pass. It was centrist obstruction—namely Senators Manchin and Sinema—that blocked those policies. The result was a patchwork of long-term measures like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, whose benefits won’t be felt until 2025 at the earliest, if at all. By failing to pass Build Back Better, Democrats lost the chance to deliver easy-to-understand, tangible economic benefits and solidify their image as the party of working people. And it was corporate Democrats—particularly lobbyists like Harris’s brother-in-law, former Uber executive Tony West, and David Plouffe—who held the most sway over Harris’s campaign. They advised her to cozy up to ultra-wealthy celebrities, Liz and Dick Cheney, and Mark Cuban, and avoid populist rhetoric that could have distanced her from the corporate elites who dominate the party. In 2024, the biggest spenders in Democratic Party politics weren’t progressives—it was AIPAC, cryptocurrency PACs, and corporate giants like Uber, all of whom poured millions into Democratic campaigns without regard for public opinion or the will of the people.

18 November 2024

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Lurie at Public Notice:

For months, Trump campaign operatives have said they want their candidate to “stick to his economic policies.” Trump supporters have repeated that shibboleth even more lately as their candidate continues to shed the GOP’s typically large and reliable large polling advantage on economic issues.  Trump held a 12 point polling advantage over Biden on “the economy” in 2020 and had a lead of as high as 22 percent only months ago, but his lead over Harris on the economy may now only be five or six points and is likely still shrinking.    Contrary to the received wisdom, Trump’s problem is not that he speaks too little about his economic policies — it’s that his policies would be undeniably bad for the economy and for working Americans. And the more voters learn about what Trump is planning to do, the worse it is for him. 

This intractable problem stands to become even more serious for Trump as voters learn more about Vice President Harris’s policies, which actually speak to the concerns and needs of working people and families. Trump has been a clear and constant exponent of his economic program, which can be boiled down to three proposals. First, impose massive, and hugely inflationary, tariffs on imported goods, which will hit consumers directly in the pocketbook. Second, massively cut taxes, again, for the wealthy. And, finally, the mass round up of and deportation of immigrants, including those playing crucial roles in the growing economy. Trump never hesitates to advocate this three pronged “economic policy” during his rallies, and as he did (over and over) yesterday during a two hour “speech” before the Detroit Economic Club. The problem is that — outside of the xenophobes who constitute his hardcore base and the mega-wealthy bankrolling his super PACs — Trump’s proposals hardly resonate as a prescription for making the American economy better for most Americans.

These are not new ideas, and they have already been political failures. Trump’s sole major economic legislative “success” during his presidency was passing a historically regressive tax cut bill that increased income inequality while ballooning the deficit. To the chagrin of the GOP, which was used to reaping political benefits from tax cuts, the public smelled a rat and punished Republicans at the polls in the 2018 midterms for Trump’s giveaway to the rich. For many months of the current campaign, the politically problematic nature of Trump’s economic “program” was obscured by the focus on inflation. But as inflation has receded, Republicans increasingly have had to face the question of whether an economic policy that is substantially comprised of strategies that have failed politically before can be made into a winner by the “populist” Trump ticket. While it may have escaped the notice of the mainstream press, the weakness of Trump’s economic policy proposals was on full display during the recent vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance. Instead of defending the actual MAGA agenda during the debate, Vance sounded more like the champion of government intervention on behalf of the disenfranchised he claimed to be before his cynical conversion to the Trump cult.

[...]

Trump wants to peddle hate, not discuss economic policy

The economic policy problem for the Trump campaign made evident by Vance’s debate performance is only becoming more obvious as we approach the final weeks of the campaign and the candidates spend more and more time in the industrial Midwest, which has been a singular focus of the Biden administration’s infrastructure and industrial development initiatives.

As Greg Sargent has detailed, Vance and Trump have been doubling down on their opposition to the hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits, loans, and grants resulting from Biden/Harris initiatives, including the Inflation Reduction Act. Large portions of those funds are headed to the industrial Midwest, where thousands of new jobs are being created in clean energy manufacturing. Economic development of this sort is particularly crucial to the future of the Michigan-centered US automotive industry, which — as Trump himself acknowledges — is at risk of ceding electric automobile manufacturing (the undisputed future of the industry) to China. The Detroit News revealed that some people seen wearing “Auto Workers for Trump” shirts behind Vance at a recent Michigan rally were not autoworkers. That episode served as a reminder of when Trump — a staunch opponent of organized labor who has boasted during recent speeches about stiffing employees who worked for him — held an event at a non-union plant during the UAW strike before non-union workers holding signs reading “union members for Trump.”

The economy, which the Republicans have historically led on, has been chipped away at by the Harris/Walz ticket.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Grist:

President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to upend the federal government, and he has enlisted firebrands Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to help him do it. The two men are set to lead the Department of Government Efficiency and aim to trim $2 trillion from the U.S. budget.

That’s about one-third of all federal spending, and the pair also believe they can cut the government workforce by 75 percent. In announcing the office, known as DOGE, Trump said that “these wonderful Americans” will “dismantle” bureaucracy, “slash” regulations, cut “wasteful” expenditures, and “restructure” agencies. Ramaswamy took to X to promise, “We will not go gently.”

Overall, that’s likely going to be bad news for U.S. environmental policy and the Biden administration’s landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. But there’s a chance that, if DOGE wields its cleaver widely enough, the department may actually please environmentalists by eliminating a few things they have long-loathed, including fossil fuel subsidies. 

“It’s a truth test to all of their messaging,” said Matthew Tejada, a former Environmental Protection Agency official who’s now a senior vice president at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “These handouts to the oil and gas industry, which allows these multinational corporations to earn billions of dollars a year, fly in the face of everything else they talk about.”

The extent of these federal subsidies depends on how they are counted. The Fossil Fuel Subsidy Tracker pegged them at nearly $18 billion in 2023. The International Monetary Fund estimate is $757 billion, including what it calls ‘implicit’ subsidies, such as undervaluing environmental harm. While the exact number is debated, it is clear that ending these industry benefits could reap billions in revenue. 

“The enormous handouts that we continue to make to an industry that extracts tens of billions of dollars out of our country already should certainly be somewhere within their line of sight,” Tejada said. “There are dozens and dozens of different subsidies.” 

[anon4268]

People love to say 'tax the rich and corporations' and go after these people and then turn a blind eye to the direct sabotaging that is being done to do this because when it comes down to it, they don't like the idea of taxes in general.

But know that in 2022, Biden Administration understood these growing concerns and passed the Inflation Reduction Act which mainly aimed to reduce the federal government budget deficit (through IRS actions), lower prescription drug prices, and invest in domestic energy production while promoting clean energy (through the Department of Energy). This Act and others passed in the last couple of years during Biden was in the process of correcting a lot of damage done to the federal government.

This will mainly be about the first part and this idea of 'taxing the rich' as it was announced the current regime started illegally fire probationary employees and will continue to do so because Congress isn't stopping them. The biggest amount of outside hiring that has been allowed in the IRS in over 15 years started in 2023 and they probably have the largest amount of probationary employees of just about any government agency.

In the federal government, probationary employees can be fired for documented conduct and work issues not just because they have been there less than a year (at a year, probationary employees are more protected by the union in certain positions) and actual layoffs can take months to years due to the government having to show position redundancy and financial impact and exhaust all other options like moving people to different departments before eliminating a position. So far, because they aren't following the law and changing procedures, but not changing actual federal employment law and regulations, they don't care where the cuts are coming from. If they did, they would have financial and accountants a part of the team. It's starting to come back at them with lawsuits and agencies delaying acceptance of that so-called buyout and early retirement. They've already tried to walk back firings, because the agency departments aren't being consulted and the regime doesn't want to admit they don't know anything about the government jobs they are cutting, because they work for the public and not the profit of a rich person who owns a company. They are illegally firing people to shift that money to the rich as fast as they can so that it will take years to fix, while they reap the benefits.

The Inflation Reduction Act would've raised $738 billion from tax reform once fully implemented, which they were estimating between hiring staff, training, and gaining experience would take about 10 years and continue to raise billions in revenue after procedures stuck.

To reduce the budget deficit, it gave $80 billion (of which $20 billion was taken away after the right lied about them going after the poor and middle class, they were going after the rich and corporations and businesses) over 10 years to the IRS to modernize its systems and processes; greatly expand DirectFile; and hire more employees to catch up in response to the outside hiring freeze many departments had for 10 years. Over 30% of the IRS employees are estimated to be due to retire or leave by 2032. This Act would've hired 87,000 people over 10 years to replace alone the attrition happening before and during that time and a bit more. Before hiring due to the Act, the IRS only had about 90,000 people agency wide. The IRS has been blocked from modernization and outside hiring for many years, only hiring when severely understaffed.

Despite the population now, THERE ARE MORE (REGULAR) PEOPLE PAYING TAXES EVERY YEAR. And the IRS has been deliberately understaffed and underfunded for almost 10 and more years when the first wave of Baby Boomers started retiring and unable to keep up with it. They haven't been allowed to properly modernize its systems, but still have to collect and process more and more.

In the last year or two through this Act, the IRS has allowed more and more people and businesses to actually use its website (like most private industries businesses) to monitor their own accounts, respond to notices, chat with someone and other advances securely (this is big in the government, making sure that it's secure because it's your private information) through their website. They also modernize their call center function that allows more calls to be answered (telework and remote work boosted this position), because people still prefer to talk to someone when it's dealing with someone as important as taxes. It has greatly reduced the amount of people being taken advantage of through outside "experts." So, it's easier to call IRS that can directly cite law, regulations, and procedures than that paid preparer that only opens their office from January through May.

DirectFile has always been around for people under a certain income bracket in certain states, but has now greatly expanded to allow more people and more forms to be accepted. This ALLOWS you to get your refund faster and tells them there at that time and not afterwards that you are entitled to more due to deductions and credits.

If you had to wait on the IRS to do it for you, then you would get less money. The government would default to give you the bare minimum, it doesn't care nor have the time to research if you are head of household single parent with two dependents; married couple with high child care expense credit; or a young adult with student loan interest deduction and education expense credit, for everyone wanting the government to have this information freely would be a massive amount of overreach into your life that you shouldn't be advocating. This is why institutions like your child care provider and colleges and universities are required to report to the IRS how much you paid. Also, this is why only some people get notices, and you submit information that is verified. And why you get the opportunity to submit information when the process breaks down (you have proof you paid daycare, but daycare didn't report it). Otherwise, it would just process you as single with no deductions and credits and make you pay. Also, as with some automatic technology, mistakes are made and with the IRS it is much easier for that, because there are so many variables due to the unnecessarily complex tax law that can't all be factored in for all situations.

The IRS also aimed at doing what the public claimed to ask for, looking at high income individuals, large businesses and corporations, and small businesses and focused on enforcement where they loved to loosely interpret tax laws, procedures, and regulations to pay less. They added more people, all which were required to have knowledge or experience of some business, finance, and related fields as well as accounting.

The high income people audited income tax for those making over $400,000 a year. The large businesses and corporations people audited businesses, think for the sake of this post, like Walmart and Amazon, corporate business income tax. Small businesses people audit businesses who don't pay FICA and withholding when required. You as a worker/employee don't get credit for paying into Social Security, if they don't get your money.

These changes already implemented in the past year have seen some impacts with increased satisfaction in the service provided and revenue coming in. Which it is being targeted through illegal firings of government employees and the deliberately gutting of agencies.

The Act would have prevent the federal debt from growing by $1.9 trillion over a 20-year period.

IRS tax collection would have increased revenues by $280 billion over 10 years and put more high income and businesses on notice about enforcing tax laws with them.

Through this Act, IRS hired over 9,000 people in IT, customer service, and enforcement in the last year. The Department of Energy, because a lot of what was implemented actually flowed to the state and city levels created more science and blue collar jobs through federal funding (states run and monitor the program, federal gave them the money to pay employees) which ended up giving more to red states as most of those states don't care about investing their own state funds in domestic energy production and climate change prevention, but will gladly take the federal funds to do it.

So, it's no coincidence that not only hiring was frozen, but also that they are illegally firing probationary employees to sabotage the Inflation Reduction Act.

They didn't get rid of DirectFile, but they did illegally fire the majority of its new staff that maintained and expanded it to basically make it breakdown and become inefficient. So if things continue to go this way, with limited staff patching as they go and no expansion, don't be surprised when it's announced that the project is a 'failure' and completely scrapped. You also shouldn't want this privatized/contracted out, because they would put profit over servicing the public, and it would be the "free" filing like what's out there now and why the IRS took the initiative to expand it and make it easier after complaints with their own system.

They are illegally firing customer service people to go back to the times where people were on hold for 4 hours, because IRS is severely understaffed at this position, who yell and curse at the representative who said hello. So, don't be surprised if due to decreased satisfaction, this turns into a regular old call center privatized, but with a large government contract, with high staff turnover earning minimum wage that now has access to your full tax information and bank account without the proper background check and security clearances. They will rush through a call without answering your questions or providing wrong information on tax law and possibly tell someone not authorized, your information without repercussions.

They are illegally firing the people that review the information you sent to a notice received that takes the time to read what you provide, do the appropriate law research, and provide determination that cites laws, regulations, and procedures. So, don't be surprised if suddenly you get AI (federal employees personal information was all taken to feed into AI [EPA is announced that they will help make the U.S. the AI capital of the world]) auto generated canned response letter that reads like they didn't look at your information or provide the wrong information or violate your rights as a taxpayers. On a tangent, there's a taxpayers bill of rights that you should be familiar with. Again, tax law is unnecessarily complicated and changes as the courts and judges and congress ideology changes and don't be surprised if AI can't keep up.

Here's the biggest thing, they are illegally firing enforcement staff. The rich donors, individuals and businesses, don't want to be audited and pay the proper amount of taxes (even though tax law benefits them the most). So, don't be surprised when you start to see these people slyly make comments about not paying their fair share of tax while also lobbying to make tax law more complicated to pay even less. See the "budget" bill that could shutdown the government in March that gives the rich a $400 million tax break, while all federal employees salaries are $280 million and all the reports of aid and grant being taken back to meet this goal after they failed to freeze already allocated funds.

With the illegal firing of employees in the Department of Energy and the withholding of funds (that was already allocated), don't be surprised at the state and city layoffs because red states don't take care of their citizens, they just take everyone's money to stuff their own pockets and give to the rich.

So, this 'tax the rich' statement while everyone but the rich agree with it, it is consistently being undermined and twisted by the rich who are now tearing about the federal workforce to weaken it for profit (as private industries do only 'profit' is tax breaks for the rich) instead of how the federal workforce was set up to be nonpartisan there to protect the public it serves while upholding the Constitution.

The general public will constantly vote and turn against it (because eww taxes and for 4 years of low taxes, in exchange for 6 years high taxes is a "good" deal while the rich keeps paying next to nothing for all 10 years) and deem it as not working. Society loves instant gratification over long term effects until they are directly impacted and not doing their own research questioning why the millionaire Congressman from their red district would be against it and help tearing down the federal workforce.

TLDR; the government was trying to tax the rich but now the rich owns the government and they are dismantling it while the only ones trying to stop it are those working there, the federal employees. And even if this gets stopped, the damage has been done to the federal workforce that will take 10-20 years to fix. But won't stop the public from being ill informed and voting against their own interests, making the results slowing coming hence it taking that long to rebuild, because they don't like to research and understand things that no one likes like taxes.

Preach.

[arpov-blog-blog]

"When reminded about it, 7 in 10 Americans say in polls that they support President Joe Biden’s landmark climate and social spending law, the Inflation Reduction Act. But only about half of the country has ever heard “a lot” or even “some” about it.

A new $1.4 million advertising campaign in Michigan and Wisconsin aims to change that for voters in the two key battleground states.

TV spots set to air over the next three weeks on local channels in Milwaukee and in Michigan’s Grand Rapids and Flint areas pitch the Biden administration’s legislative cornerstone as the spark for a new manufacturing boom in a region long devastated by outsourcing.

Passed without a single Republican vote in 2022, the law pumped hundreds of billions of dollars ― by some projections, potentially trillions ― in the form of federal tax credits and subsidies into building out a domestic economy for green energy and competing directly with China. The legislation spurred what may be the dawn of a manufacturing renaissance in the U.S.: With hundreds of clean energy projects and factories to make electric car batteries and solar panels announced since Biden signed the law, federal data shows that manufacturers’ spending on construction has doubled and the U.S. has added nearly 1 million new manufacturing jobs.

So far, Republican-dominated states have reaped the biggest benefits, yet even Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp ― a Republican whose state has become a magnet for federally backed green-energy investments ― said as recently as March that former President Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, would “be better than Joe Biden.”

Paid for by Evergreen Collaborative, a climate group founded by alumni of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s ill-fated but influential campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, the ads offer a starkly different gubernatorial viewpoint.

The Democratic governors of Michigan and Wisconsin, who both won reelection against Republican challengers in 2022 and now enjoy higher approval ratings than Biden, appear in the ads. Trump won both states in 2016 and lost them in 2020, but polls now show the former president tied with or ahead of Biden. With Trump still polling strong despite a felony conviction, Biden’s best chance of defeating Trump in the Electoral College depends on winning both Midwestern states.

In a 30-second spot, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, clad in a stylish black jacket, speaks to the camera from a shop floor where two workers in T-shirts assemble equipment and another welds in the background. Accompanied by pounding rock music and the governor’s narration, we see scenes of General Motors’ electric pickup trucks and Biden trotting out on stage between battery-powered SUVs at the Detroit Auto Show."

[shahananasrin-blog]

[ad_1] NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! It has been one year since Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats passed their signature Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – a disastrous law that did nothing to address inflation and is now confirmed to have added hundreds of billions to the deficit. President Biden himself, in a recent, rare moment of candor, even said he wishes he had named the IRA something different since it "has less to do with reducing inflation." Nevertheless, working families are paying the price for that law while the wealthy and well-connected continue to reap its benefits. As hard-earned taxpayer dollars from the IRA go into the pockets of billion-dollar corporations and big banks, inflation continues to steal from workers’ paychecks. One year in, it is clear that what is needed today is relief for the working class and Main Street businesses – something the IRA will never provide.BIDEN ADMITS INFLATION REDUCTION ACT HAD 'LESS TO DO WITH REDUCING INFLATION' THAN HE ORIGINALLY SAIDThe so-called "green" special interest tax breaks passed in the IRA are now estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to cost over $650 billion, 240% higher than originally projected. This money will flow primarily to big business and Wall Street. JCT has confirmed that 90 percent of these tax credits go to pad the pockets of large corporations with sales of a billion dollars or more. As a matter of fact, Democrats rewrote the rules of these credits to make them more easily transferred to the wealthy. Financial institutions will take in three times as much of these tax benefits as any other industry. So, while the president talks big about the wealthy "paying their fair share," his policies pay for the lifestyles of the wealthy and well-connected.To make matters worse, the Biden administration’s implementation of these tax credits fails to secure our supply chains for critical minerals and sends taxpayer dollars to adversarial nations like China. For example, the electric vehicle credit will not only cost 7 times as much as Democrats originally claimed but will also require that less critical mineral and battery components be sourced and made in America. MANCHIN BACKTRACKS, DOWNPLAYS INVOLVEMENT IN INFLATION REDUCTION ACT AFTER CLAIMING HE 'WROTE' ITThis means there will be no reshoring of our critical supply chains from this law. Additionally, the Brookings Institution confirmed that 73 percent of electric vehicle (EV) owners covered by the IRA’s $7,500 EV tax credit would have purchased those vehicles anyway.At the same time, American companies who are cashing in on these credits are also funneling tax dollars to foreign countries like China. Ford, for example, is using the IRA’s special interest tax credits to hire Chinese workers at a Michigan plant as part of its newly announced partnership with a Chinese company that is clearly under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party, and which allegedly has a history of using forced labor. Bottom line: Democrats and President Biden are keeping America dependent on the Chinese Communist Party and willing to look the other way on supposed bipartisan concern for global human rights issues when it comes to their extremist environmental agenda.The implementation of this law has been so bad even members of the president’s own party have called him out, with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., the architect of the IRA, calling it a "betrayal." These special interest tax breaks will undoubtedly expand China’s dominance over America’s energy and critical supply chains. The United States cannot afford to put the left’s radical green agenda over our national security – much less our entire economy. CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONRather than spending $650 billion in tax subsidies for the wealthy and corporate elite, Congress must look at policies that build upon the American economic renewal resulting from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). TCJA delivered tangible results for the working class. Following its passage, the lowest earners saw the greatest benefit, with their wages increasing at a 50 percent higher rate than those with higher incomes. Those same earners saw their federal tax rate fall to its lowest level in 40 years as people making less than $100,000 a year received on average a 16 percent tax cut. Unfortunately, the president remains dead set on drowning the middle class in higher prices at the grocery store and gas pump. At the same time, he is targeting American energy producers with higher taxes, he insists, contrary to all evidence, that workers and families are actually benefiting from his failed economic agenda – the same agenda that has produced the highest spike in prices and the largest increase in interest rates in a generation. For the entirety of President Biden’s first two years in office, inflation outpaced wage growth. Prior to his presidency, that had happened for only two months in the previous nine years. While Americans struggle with high prices and watch their retirement savings shrink, the Biden administration has been doing backflips to spin the data – proudly branding their agenda of handouts to the wealthy and well-connected as "Bidenomics."CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPIronically, the president’s namesake agenda is entirely divorced from the study of economics and doubles down on its worst elements. Moreover, it disrespects American taxpayers struggling to makes ends meet and provide for their families by funneling their hard-earned dollars into the pockets of the wealthy, Wall Street, large corporations, and the Chinese Communist Party. Maybe President Biden should spend less time talking about economics and more time studying it before taxpayers see even more of their money flow to the rich and politically connected. Republican Jason Smith represents Missouri's 8th Congressional District and is Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. [ad_2]

[hbclife]

Consumers may qualify for up to $10,000 — or more — in climate tax breaks and rebates in the Inflation Reduction Act

Consumers may qualify for up to $10,000 — or more — in climate tax breaks and rebates in the Inflation Reduction Act

Getty Images The Inflation Reduction Act, passed by House Democrats on Friday and headed to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature, is the most ambitious climate spending package in U.S. history — and households that take steps to improve their energy efficiency stand to reap financial benefits. The package would pump $369 billion into measures to fight climate change, boost energy…