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One of the leading investors is Eric Schmidt, the former chairman of Google. He is now an investor who wants to maximize his supply of cheap, controllable, skilled labor. In 2013, he helped form the secretive FWD.us lobby group which consists of wealthy West Coast investors, such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.
Despite his Wall Street, big business, Big Tech, and billionaire donations, Biden has attempted to portray himself as a small-town fighter from Scranton, Pennsylvania
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Ralph Nader: Biden's First Year Proves He Is Still a "Corporate Socialist" Beholden to Big Business
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Hauser also didn’t like the prevalence of Big Law talent on the Department of Justice team, which signaled to him that the Biden administration could go soft on corporate malefactors. Alexander Nazaryan
As a senator, Biden vigorously voted for several similar bills. In short, based on his voting record, Joe Biden is not (and never was) a champion of disadvantaged Americans, unless you consider multi-billion-dollar credit card corporations and millionaires “disadvantaged.” Chris Talgo
US House passes pro-corporate climate bill
On Friday, the US House of Representatives passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 on a strict party-line vote. All Republicans voted against and all Democrats, who hold a narrow majority, voted in favor. The bill, having been passed in a similar party-line vote by the Senate last Sunday, will now be sent to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.
The Democrats and media outlets aligned with the Democratic Party are hailing the measure as a “landmark” and “historic” breakthrough in the fight against global warming and a major advance for tax fairness, affordable health care and inflation control.
None of this is true. The World Socialist Web Site has published several articles detailing the actual provisions of the bill and exposing the Democrats’ cynical and misleading hype. It is clear that the orchestrated effort to present this pro-corporate bill as a major piece of social reform legislation is a desperate attempt to reverse Biden and the Democrat’s collapsing popular support in the run-up to the November 8 midterm elections.
All the substantial social measures included in previous versions of Biden’s domestic initiative, at one time dubbed “Build Back Better,” already downsized last year from $3.5 trillion to some $2 trillion over 10 years, have been removed from the current legislation, whose outlays are estimated at only $433 billion.
Last November, in fact, the House passed a $2.2 trillion “Build Back Better” bill that included universal pre-kindergarten, subsidies for child care, expanded financial aid for college, hundreds of billions of dollars in housing support, home and community care for older Americans, a new hearing benefit for Medicare, an expanded child tax credit, and four weeks of paid parental and medical leave.
That bill died in the Senate due to opposition from two Democrats, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema.
The 2021 House bill also included a surtax on ultra-high earners and increased taxes on corporations estimated to bring in nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
None of these provisions are included in the current legislation. Its provisions for “clean energy” consist of massive handouts to solar, wind and other renewable energy corporations in the form of $369 billion in tax credits over 10 years. This is accompanied by far-reaching concessions to the fossil fuel industry demanded by Manchin, a coal business multimillionaire and unabashed shill for Big Oil.
Manchin, the Senate’s biggest recipient of campaign cash from oil and gas companies, used his leverage in the evenly divided Senate to demand that the bill include unprecedented guarantees of new leases of federal lands and offshore territories for gas and oil exploration. He also secured the agreement of Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to vote this fall on a bill that would weaken the ability of environmental agencies to restrict permitting of new oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure projects.
Since the Inflation Reduction Act contains no caps on greenhouse gas emissions or penalties on carbon polluters, there is good reason to believe that the net result will be a worsening of the climate crisis.
The other major spending in the bill is $44 billion to extend for three years enhanced subsidies to purchasers of private insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges, which were enacted as part of the CARES Act in March 2020. The Democrats made sure to include this in the bill because the increased support would otherwise have expired at the end of the year, and voters would have learned they faced sharply higher premiums right before the November elections.
Much is being made of provisions that for the first time empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical corporations. This is estimated in the bill to generate $265 billion in federal revenue from lower Medicare outlays for prescription drugs, with the benefit passed on to enrollees. However, as is typical of the entire bill, this “reform” is hemmed in and pinched so as to minimize any loss of profits on the part of the drug giants.
The government will not begin negotiating drug prices until 2026 and will be limited to a mere 10 drugs. That will increase only to 20 drugs by 2029. A $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare enrollees will take effect only in 2025 and will aid only some 1.4 million seniors. A fee on drug companies that raise prices higher than inflation will apply only to drugs purchased through Medicare, not to the private market. And a $35 monthly cap on insulin costs will similarly be limited to Medicare.
The claims about inflation reduction are entirely bogus. Supposedly, the bill will generate a net surplus of $300 billion in additional government revenues over net outlays in the course of 10 years, a drop in the bucket of ever-expanding government debt. That, plus projected decreases in drug costs, is the entirety of the so-called inflation reduction impact.
The Congressional Budget Office called the bill’s impact on inflation “negligible at best.” The Bipartisan Policy Center projected “small impacts one way or the other,” and the Penn Wharton Budget Model said the impact would be “statistically indistinguishable from zero.”
Claims about significantly shifting the tax burden from working people to corporations and the rich are no less fraudulent. The 2017 tax overhaul that dramatically slashed corporate and individual income taxes for the rich remains intact. The minimal tax hikes that were included in the deal worked out last month between Manchin and Schumer were gutted or removed at the insistence of Sinema, the biggest recipient in the Senate of campaign cash from the hedge fund and private equity billionaires.
She demanded and got the removal of a provision, estimated at $14 billion, to effectively end the notorious “carried interest” tax loophole that allows hedge fund and private equity managers to pay taxes on their income at the capital gains rate, barely half what they would pay at the normal rate for their income level.
The other major tax provision is a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations reporting annual income of $1 billion or more, projected to generate $222 billion over 10 years. However, Sinema, after a private call with the National Association of Manufacturers and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, demanded and got the reinsertion of an accelerated depreciation allowance for manufacturing companies. This tax dodge, which is used by many highly profitable manufacturers to pay virtually no federal taxes, will render the 15 percent minimum corporate tax largely meaningless.
In place of the ending of the “carried interest” loophole, the Democrats inserted a 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks, estimated to produce $74 billion in tax revenues over 10 years. The Wall Street Journal published an article last week headlined “Plan Isn’t Expected to Affect Buybacks,” citing various finance analysts who predicted the small fee would not dampen the enthusiasm of companies for purchasing their own stock, a parasitic use of profits to drive up the portfolios of big investors and the compensation packages of executives. Last quarter, in the midst of soaring consumer prices and shortages, US stock buybacks hit a record of $281 billion.
Every one of the so-called “progressive” Democrats in the House voted for this miserable pro-corporate bill. Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement: “While we are heartbroken to see several essential pieces on the care economy, housing and immigration left on the cutting room floor…we know that the Inflation Reduction Act takes real steps forward on key progressive priorities.”
Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, a member of the so-called “Squad,” said, “While our work is unfinished—on paid leave, housing, disability justice, immigration, the care economy, environmental justice and more—this bill is historic and desperately needed. This is one more example of progressives pressing in support of the President’s agenda and the Biden White House delivering. …”
Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, another Squad member who is backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), called the bill a “massive step forward.”
Biden’s America: 95 Percent Say They Have Been Impacted by Inflation
The overwhelming majority of Americans say they have been impacted by inflation, a poll from The Economist/YouGov found.
The survey asked, “How much have you felt the impact of this high inflation in your own life?”
The vast majority, 95 percent, said it has affected them at least a little, but of those, 56 percent said inflation has impacted them “a lot.”
There is a consensus across the board, as 98 percent of Republicans, 95 percent of independents, and 94 percent of Democrats say inflation has impacted them at least “a little.”
The survey was taken August 7-9 among 1,500 United States adult citizens and coincides with the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing consumer prices rising 8.5 percent over the last year, as Breitbart News detailed:
Economists had expected CPI to rise at an annual rate of 8.7 percent, down from 9.1 percent in June. They expected a month-over-month increase of 0.2 percent, a sharp decline from the 1.1 percent recorded in June.
Inflation has hit American families hard by raising prices for everyday necessities like food, gasoline, housing, transportation, and utilities. A sizeable decline in the price of gasoline in July, which retreated from record highs hit the prior month, helped bring down the overall rate of inflation. The index for gasoline fell 7.1 percent in July. Compared with a year ago, the gas index is up 44 percent.
However, a closer look at the Consumer Price Index Summary shows prices even higher in some sectors. Food, overall, is up 10.9 percent, but “food away from home,” specifically, is up 13.1 percent.
Energy is up 32.9 percent over the last year, but gasoline, specifically, is up 44 percent. Electricity, per the report, is up 15.2 percent.
President Joe Biden attempted to brag about the latest economic report, touting “zero inflation” in the month of July. However, rising prices continue to impact Americans, including at the grocery store:
But inflation at the grocery store continues to rise. Prices were up 1.3 percent compared with a month earlier and 13.1 percent compared with a year ago.
The cost of rent also increased by 0.7 percent from the previous month; 6.3 percent from the previous year.
The latest report follows the Senate passage of the $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which focuses largely on expanding the IRS and enacting Green New Deal policies. Experts say it will not actually reduce inflation.
Americans Are Dipping Into Savings To Weather Bidenflation
More than a third of Americans have drawn on their savings accounts to handle rising prices, taking out hundreds of dollars on average, according to a recent survey by New York Life Insurance Company.
Since January, 36 percent of Americans have drawn an average of $617 from their savings to pay their bills, the company found. Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed expressed anxiety that a recession is approaching, and roughly a third reported being "uncertain" or "anxious" about their personal finances. Respondents cited monthly bills, health care costs, grocery prices, and gas prices as their areas of greatest financial concern.
Voters overwhelmingly blame President Joe Biden for the state of the economy. Sixty-four percent of Americans, including 53 percent of Democrats, believe the president’s policy decisions are to blame for soaring costs. While White House officials boasted this week about slowing inflation, prices are still up 8.5 percent from last year, with that number even higher in several key swing states.
Americans are not replenishing their savings accounts as they drain them. The personal savings rate, or the proportion of income people don’t spend or lose to taxes, more than halved between July 2021 and June 2022, falling from 10.5 percent to 5.1 percent.
To make up for tightening purse strings, Americans are increasingly turning to debt. Americans' collective credit card debt jumped to $890 billion last quarter, marking the largest yearly increase in two decades. The number of credit cards also hit an all-time high in the second quarter, with more than 500 million in circulation.
