The reconciliation edition. The Senate is finally poised to enact legislation to address some urgent problems. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is estimated to reduce disastrous carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030, and its support for the transition to renewable energy sources will save the average family $500/year. The bill will prevent millions of people from drastic increases in their health insurance and will stop 3 million from becoming uninsured. At long last, Medicare will be able to negotiate to lower drug prices, and Medicare recipients’ drug costs will be capped, with prescription and health insurance savings expected well beyond Medicare.

Multi-billion-dollar corporations will start to pay more of their fair share of taxes. A watered-down 15 percent corporate minimum tax, funding to help the IRS enforce our tax laws so the richest do not evade taxes, and a proposal to tax corporate stock buybacks would likely raise revenues by over $470 billion. Adding in savings from prescription drug pricing reform, new revenues would approach roughly $760 billion.

Our nation needs this legislation. It glaringly, painfully leaves out badly needed help for people/families with low incomes – the expanded Child Tax Credit, child care, home/direct care for seniors and people with disabilities, housing assistance, paid leave. All of these await action. Even now, it is still within the Senate’s grasp to add critically needed help: they could amend the bill to provide health insurance to more than 2 million poor uninsured people, now denied Medicaid in a dozen states. They could add child care funding, and funds to reduce the hugely disproportionate maternal mortality rates among Black women. But the help already in this bill is essential. Some examples of help for low- and moderate-income people are below. Week after week in COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship, we’ve seen disproportionate harm to low-income communities and communities of color. They need the affordable health insurance this bill will provide. They also are more likely to be exposed to pollution from toxic dumps, power plants, and diesel fumes in their neighborhoods. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 addresses this through investments in clean air, clean transportation, and the cleanup of toxic pollution, with billions of dollars targeted to low-income communities.

Tell the Senate to vote for this, to add funds to help those most in need, to reject harmful anti-immigrant amendments and to reject amendments that ladle out more tax breaks for powerful corporations or the wealthy. Click here – the Senate will be voting this weekend.

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