(Washington) After 18 months of negotiations, the outcome seems close: the American Congress began to debate on Saturday a new version of Joe Biden’s major social and climate reform, which could offer a major victory to the American president.
Posted at 8:50 p.m.
“This bill will radically change the situation for American households and our economy,” promised the Democratic president who came to power with immense reform ambitions.
This grand plan — the result of numerous compromises with his party’s right wing — includes $370 billion to honor Joe Biden’s very ambitious greenhouse gas emissions targets and $64 billion for health.
Solar energy
This investment, the highest ever committed in the United States for the climate, is “historic”, assured the president.
Because if the United States is affected each year by deadly floods and devastating fires, the climate crisis is very low in the list of concerns of American households, far behind inflation or unemployment.
To ensure that these expenditures win the support of Americans, the Democrats have decided to hit them directly in the wallet: part of these funds will be used to finance tax credits for producers and consumers of wind energy, solar and nuclear.
Several billion dollars in tax credits will also be offered to the most polluting industries in order to assist them in their transition, a measure strongly criticized by the left wing of the party, which had to line up behind this text, for lack of being reached a more ambitious agreement after long months of negotiations.
This envelope must also make it possible to strengthen the resilience of the forests in the face of the monster fires which are ravaging the American West and whose multiplication has been directly attributed to global warming.
Cheaper drugs
L’Inflation Reduction Actas it is called, intends at the same time to tackle the exorbitant price of drugs such as insulin and thus partially erase the immense inequalities in access to care in the United States.
“The anguish of people who are unable to pay for life-saving drugs is going to be significantly alleviated,” said Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer.
This major reform would for the first time allow Medicare, a public health insurance system, to directly negotiate the prices of certain drugs with pharmaceutical companies, and thus obtain more competitive prices.
Joe Biden’s camp vehemently denounces the prohibitive cost of certain treatments, which can be up to ten times more expensive than in other rich countries.
An indignation however far from being unanimously shared in the United States, where some believe that responding to the vagaries of life is a matter of individual foresight in which the State does not have to interfere.
” Fail ”
This major spending plan, popular with Americans according to several polls, is indeed strongly denounced by the Republican opposition, which accuses Joe Biden of throwing oil on the fire in the face of record-breaking inflation.
“The Democrats have already looted American families once through inflation and their solution now is to loot them a second time,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blasted.
But the means of blocking the conservative camp are in fact limited: the Democrats exceptionally only need their votes to adopt the text. The opposition, however, is expected to try to slow down the legislative process by presenting amendments on the chain during debates that could extend late into the night.
In parallel with these massive investments, the bill intends to reduce the public deficit with a new minimum tax of 15% for all companies whose profits exceed one billion dollars. It aims to prevent certain large companies from using the tax loopholes which have allowed them to pay far less than the theoretical rate.
The text should be submitted to the vote of the senators at the beginning of next week. After that, he will take the road to the House of Representatives, where Joe Biden’s camp has a narrow majority.
The American president, who desperately needs a political success less than 100 days before the perilous midterm legislative elections, urges Congress to pass it without delay.