We all have our favorites, and Obamacare is one of mine. So I was very happy to see that, against all odds, the latest version of the Democratic spending bill¹ includes a three-year extension of the expanded ACA subsidies originally introduced last year in the American Rescue Plan. These subsidies ensure that no one has to pay more than 8.5% of their income for health insurance.
What's always gotten me about this is how cheap it is. Right now it's penciled in at $64 billion over three years. That's $21 billion per year. In other words, peanuts. We spend that much every year on WD-40 for our aircraft carrier fleet.²
The bill also includes a couple of other small but favorite things. First, it will place limits on the carried interest loophole, which allows hedge fund managers to make billions of dollars in personal earnings at very low tax rates. I'd love to see the CIL eliminated completely—especially since everyone claims to hate it—but I guess baby steps are better than nothing.
Second, it sets up a program to automatically file taxes for people with simple tax returns. This is a no-brainer of a program, but it's been stopped in its tracks for years by TurboTax and the other tax prep folks. It's long past time we told them to pound sand.
The bill also allows Medicare to negotiate prices for ten drugs, which is faintly absurd. But I guess it's a place to start.
And finally it has a huge boatload of money for climate change and a bunch of tax increases to pay for all this. But that part you probably already know about.
¹Officially called the Inflation Reduction Act, which is ridiculous. The acronym for this is IRA, which is even more ridiculous since it can be so easily confused with both the Irish paramilitary group and the retirement accounts of the same name. But I guess everything has to be related to inflation these days.
²Not really.
UPDATE: I originally said that the carried interest loophole had been eliminated in this bill. That's not true. It's been made less generous, but it wasn't killed off completely.
Sinema needs the spotlight and to protect her rich donors. I won't be surprised if she decides she just can't support a bill that gets rid of the carried interest loophole. Fortunately, that only amounts to something like $14 billion in revenue. So it can be jettisoned if need be, to get her to shut her mouth and vote for the bill.
It doesn't REALLY get rid of the carried interest loophole, it just makes it a little harder to qualify for the treatment. But I will bet anybody that even that small adjustment doesn't get through.
My gosh, what a bill! Does it grow hair?
A billion here, a billion there---soon you'll be talking about real money...
The costs of medical care is way out of line here. It's not just the insurance and co-pays, but the time you need for appointments--and you're ability (or lack thereof) to get time off of work. Obamacare was a start...
Re: IRA. The Democrats are crap at naming and worse at acronyms. In contrast, the Republicans use words as if they've got all of Madison Avenue on their staffs (staves?) Well, of course they do.
But exempli gratia, the so-called USA Patriot Act is actually
"Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism"
Note how "United States of America" actually has no part in the name. And there's actually nothing about patriotism or patriots, either.
What's wrong with Individual Retirement Accounts? Or, really, the Irish Republican Army (who've basically sovereign citizens, which the GQP love)?
As to GQP skill in naming bills, the Tax Cuts n' Jobs Act is childish. Though an improvement on Louis Gohmert, c. 2013, squatting on the USA JOBS Act to keep the Obummer administration from using that name.
This was no small win. I just hope Ds tell everyone about all the things inside this package that will help Americans.
As if that bitch Seung Min Kim & her cohort of assdicks in the lamestream media will let that message amplify.
It's not a win yet. Far from it, I fear.
Sinema is too cowardly to go it alone.
If Manchin, mercurial as he is, doesn't talk his own bill, Kyrsten will fall in line.
Yeah, I've been of a similar opinion re: Sinema.
However, what I'm really most fearful of is evisceration of the legislation, Odds do favor passage of something. There are some fairly robust swipes a rent-seeking in this bill, and K Street doesn't take that lying down.
But who knows? Good things sometimes do happen. Even in Washington, DC. I hope the vote is scheduled for very soon.
The bill that was sprung by surprise has so many oxen getting gored that it had better pass quickly, or it will be turned into a swiss cheese by the armies of lobbyists demanding that various provisions be removed or amended into nothingness.
Fifty Republican senators will vote against it or be absent that day, and the Democrats will use it against them in November.
It only covers 10 drugs? I hadn't heard that. Seems silly but I guess we grab at what we can get at this point. I also didn't know about the auto-file thing, and am shocked it wasn't mentioned anywhere else I read.
I'm both pleased and disappointed on the Obamacare thing. It's great in the event anything changes to my employment in the next couple years, but I was really hoping to see it extended indefinitely (or at least for 10 years...). I'm 55 and hoping to head for quasi-retirement in maybe the next 5 years or so, but insurance costs are deterring me. The 8.5% thing would make me entirely secure on that front.
$21B isn't far off the cost of a fully operational Gerald R. Ford carrier though. The carrier itself runs $13B. 75 F-35s at $100m a pot adds another $7.5B, so that gets you to $20.5B. The plan is to build 10 of them.
A great bill name and a great bill (under the circumstances).
Kevin you didn't even mention my favorite: More $$$ for IRS enforcement! This is big news and will bring in a huge amount of revenue that we currently leave on the table because a certain political party whose name begins with R loves to protect rich tax cheats from the "jackbooted thugs" of the IRS who want to enforce our laws.
More $$$ for the jackbooted thugs = less cheating, more money for America.
G. Gordon Liddy would know how to respond to that: HEADSHOTS! HEADSHOTS!
Wow, CIL reduction? Simple return program? Extension of Obamacare enhanced affordability credits? This bill is way better than I'd hoped. I wonder if there's any chance it gets gutted or defeated? Or is this a done deal?
(It also harmonizes the corporate tax rate, I believe, to allow for US participation in the multilateral minimum corporate rate agreement).