Dems race to adopt climate, health deal after Manchin breakthrough

With a long-elusive spending deal newly in hand, Senate Democrats set about finalizing their economic package Thursday, hoping they might be able to deliver on a central piece of President Joe Biden’s agenda as soon as next week.

The new, urgent push toward a vote came a day after the party achieved what once felt like an impossible breakthrough: an agreement between Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on a bill that would lower health care costs, combat climate change, reduce the deficit and revise the U.S. tax code.

Now in possession of 725 pages of legislative text, Democrats eagerly began digesting the size and scope of the measure, which amounts to far less than the more ambitious, roughly $2 trillion proposal that House Democrats adopted last year. But a wide array of party lawmakers appeared ready to embrace the new agreement anyway, having seemingly put months of acrimonious bickering with Manchin finally behind them.

“It doesn’t include everything people wanted in the earlier package,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. “But compared to where we thought we were 48 hours ago, I mean, this is light-years — lightyears — forward.”

The bill includes the largest investment in fighting climate change in U.S. history, aiming to boost clean-energy technology even as it delivers some of the support Manchin sought for fossil fuels. It also aims to lower health care costs, particularly through changes to Medicare that could reduce some prescription drug prices for seniors. Speaking to reporters later Thursday, Schumer announced that Democrats plan to add other elements that target the price of insulin.

To cover its costs, the bill looks to bolster the Internal Revenue Service to pursue tax cheats while setting a minimum tax on corporations, targeting profitable firms that pay nothing to the U.S. government. And it raises more than $300 billion that can be used to reduce the federal deficit.

Speaking at the White House, Biden sounded an optimistic note about its prospects. While the proposal, called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, omits many of his original, core priorities, the president still described it as a set of investments that put the U.S. on “sounder economic footing.”