After 18 months of negotiations and a marathon night of debates, the US Senate seemed on the verge of approving Joe Biden’s great plan on climate and health this Sunday, and thus offering a stage victory to the president, less than 100 days before crucial elections.
“I think it’s going to happen,” Trump told reporters Sunday morning of the $430 billion investment plan.
Democrats have a narrow majority in the Senate and only need their votes to pass the text. If passed, the bill will return to the Democratic-majority House of Representatives on Friday for a final vote, before Joe Biden signs it into law.
· What does the text contain?
The fruit of difficult compromises with the right-wing of the Democratic Party, this envelope includes the largest investment ever committed in the United States for the climate: 370,000 million dollars to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in 2030.
With this reform, an American would receive up to $7,500 in tax credits for the purchase of an electric car. The installation of solar panels on your roof would be covered at 30%.
This endowment should also make it possible to strengthen the resilience of forests against the monstrous fires that devastate the American West and whose multiplication has been directly attributed to global warming.
Several billion dollars in tax credits will also be offered to the most polluting industries to help them in their energy transition, a measure strongly criticized by the left of the party, which had to line up behind this text, for not reaching a more ambitious agreement. after long months of negotiations.
· How did the president convince elected officials?
Coming to power with immense reform ambitions, Joe Biden saw them buried, resurrected, and then buried again by a very moderate senator from his camp, Joe Manchin. Given the very slim Democratic majority in the Senate, West Virginia’s elected representative has a virtual veto power over his bills.
In late July, the leader of the Senate Democrats, Chuck Schumer, finally managed to wrest a commitment from Joe Manchin, known for his coal mines. On Saturday, senators finally began debating the text on the floor.
In the evening, elected officials began a marathon procedure called “vote-a-branch,” during which they can propose dozens of amendments and demand a vote on each one.
The opportunity for the Republican opposition, who considers the Biden plan too expensive, and the Democratic left, who would like it to be more ambitious, present their complaints.
· Why stay with some Democrats?
Influential left-wing senator Bernie Sanders overnight proposed several amendments aimed at strengthening the social component of the text, which has been cut considerably in recent months.
In the state, the text provides for 64 billion dollars of investment in health and the gradual reduction in the price of certain medicines, which can be up to ten times more expensive than in other rich countries. But progressives had to abandon their ambitions for free public kindergartens and colleges and better care for the elderly.
“Millions of retirees will continue to have rotten teeth and not receive the dentures, hearing aids or glasses they deserve,” criticized Bernie Sanders from the hemicycle. “This bill does nothing to solve this problem,” said the former presidential candidate.
But the Democratic field, eager to implement this plan before the dangerous legislative elections in November, united and rejected any modification of the text.
Parallel to these massive investments, the bill aims 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 that have allowed them to pay a rate much lower than the theoretical one.
It is estimated that this measure could generate more than $258 billion in US federal revenue over the next 10 years.
Source: BFM TV
