U.S. Senator Steve Daines, a Republican from Montana, discusses the huge spending measure that is more than 700 pages long before the vote on it on August 7, 2022.
During the “vote-a-Rama” that began on Saturday evening and ended with the bill being approved 51-50 thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie, both Montana senators voiced their opposition to the Inflation Reduction Act. The “vote-a-Rama” lasted almost 24 hours.
Montana Sens. Both Jon Tester and Steve Daines voted with their respective parties, and both senators made use of the protracted session to bring forward some of the at least 400 amendments that were introduced to try to further their own policy priorities on a variety of issues ranging from timber harvests to immigration. In total, only 28 amendments were brought to the floor for debate, and the majority of them were defeated.
The budget reconciliation, which totalled $750 billion, is the most comprehensive federal investment in the history of the United States. Its goals are to reduce the cost of prescription drugs and to fight climate change.
Even though the Democrat Tester’s amendment was defeated on the floor by a vote of 56 to 44, he nonetheless cast his vote in favour of the bill.
In a statement, Senator Jon Tester said, “I have heard directly from people in every corner of our state asking me to find answers that would drive down expenses and help our country keep its role as the leading economic force in the world,” and the Inflation Reduction Act does exactly that.
According to his office, Republican Daines proposed 15 amendments, but he ultimately decided to vote against the package.
In a statement released after the bill was successful in its passage, he stated that “the Democrats’ reckless tax and spend package is bad for Montana families, bad for Montana energy employment, and awful for the pocketbooks of Montanans.”
Tester’s suggestion-
The solitary amendment proposed by Senator Tester came after an amendment proposed by Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma.
Lankford’s amendment called for withdrawing $1 million from the Affordable Care Act to maintain Title 42, a health order issued during the Trump administration that closed the border to migrants who did not already have legal permission, including those who were seeking asylum.
In May, a federal judge temporarily prevented the administration from repealing Title 42, even though President Joe Biden had already cancelled it. At this time, an appeal for the title is being considered by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The amendment proposed by Republican Lankford was defeated with a vote of 50 to 50, but Democratic Senator Tester immediately introduced a similar amendment using a different procedure.
This amendment demanded that the Biden administration have a comprehensive plan for the Department of Homeland Security in place before the order was lifted. The amendment proposed by Tester was also unsuccessful, but it did manage to garner support from five Democrats sitting in vulnerable seats.
According to the Texas Tribune, officials have used the Title 42 order to expel migrants more than 2 million times. Since it has been in effect, the rate of migrants who have been apprehended more than once (the recidivism rate) has increased from 7 per cent to 27 per cent.
It is anticipated that the repeal of Title 42 will result in a considerable rise in the number of people migrating to the United States, which will place more strain on a system that is already dysfunctional.
In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security that was sent immediately after Vice President Joe Biden withdrew the order, Senator Jon Tester expressed his concern that “these challenges not only harm the southern border but place extra strain on those attempting to secure the northern border as well.”
“Title 42 is an emergency order, and as such, it should not be in place indefinitely, particularly as we continue to make progress in eradicating the COVID-19 pandemic. It is not prudent for us to abandon this course of action before making adequate preparations.
Lankford accused Tester of playing politics while they were debating on the floor of the Senate. According to Lankford, Tester was trying to pass an amendment that he knew would fail because it required 60 votes to pass.
Lankford stated that at the time any individual was able to vote for Title 42, but actually oppose the one that would have actually implemented the policy. “This allowed any individual to be able to vote for (Title 42),” he said. “Because of things like this, people get so worked up about Washington, D.C.”
Daines Pitches Amendments
According to the communications office for Daines, he proposed fifteen modifications, but only one of them, which dealt with the royalty rates for oil and gas, was allowed to be debated on the floor.
It was unsuccessful 50/50. The revisions proposed by Daines included, among other things, the establishment of a wood harvest quota, the reallocation of revenue for the Internal Revenue Service to taxpayer services, and the provision of $900 million through 2029 for the recovery of natural disasters on public lands.
“While Montanans continue to struggle with sky-high prices on everything from gas to groceries to housing, every single Senate Democrat voted to raise energy costs, give taxpayer dollars to the rich for electric vehicles, increase taxes, and supersize the IRS to go after small businesses and families – it’s a slap in the face to Montana families,” Daines said in his statement after the bill passed.
“It’s a slap in the face to Montana families,” Daines said in his statement after the bill.
In addition, Daines voted with fellow Republicans to eliminate a price ceiling of $35 per vial of insulin for patients covered by commercial insurance, although the price cap for patients covered by Medicare was kept intact in the bill.
According to the communications office for Daines, the Republicans proposed an alternative amendment to fund $3.1 billion to support direct costs incurred by community health centres to make discounted insulin available to patients with low incomes.
However, this amendment would not have introduced a set cap for the prices of insulin, and it also failed to pass.
Insulin and other chronic treatments would be classified as preventative care under the Lower Costs, More Cures Act, according to the office of Representative Daines, who is a co-sponsor of the bill.
This would allow high-deductible health plans to cover the costs of the treatment before the patient reaches their deductible.
According to Kaiser Health News, Senator Daines has received a total of $237,500 in contributions from pharmaceutical companies since 2007. Of this total, $146,000 was contributed during the 2020 election cycle.
In his statement after the vote, Daines cited the Joint Committee on Taxation as proof that it would raise taxes on the middle classes, despite Biden’s promise that the bill would not raise taxes for Americans making less than $400,000 a year. Daines cited this as proof that the bill would increase taxes on the middle classes.
However, according to the study conducted by the Committee, imposing a minimum tax on corporations of 15 per cent would lead to higher effective rates for a wide range of American taxpayers, although the majority of the increase would be borne by businesses rather than by individuals.
The Republicans in the Senate have stated that the assumption made by the committee that higher corporate taxes will partially fall on workers whose wages could drop is the same as raising taxes on lower classes, even though the bill does not include an increase in those classes’ direct tax rates.
Additional Provisions
The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation projects that the Inflation Reduction Act will reduce the federal deficit by approximately $300 billion over a decade as a result of increased IRS tax enforcement.
Even though the bill is scaled back from the original $2.2 trillion Build Back Better Plan that passed the House in November, the Inflation Reduction Act is expected to reduce the deficit.
In addition, the package allocated $370 billion to climate and energy projects to enable the United States to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases to levels that are 40 per cent below those in 2005 by the year 2030.
In addition to a great number of other features, the plan will begin in the year 2026 and authorise Medicare to engage in direct pricing negotiations with pharmaceutical companies.
A yearly limit of $2,000 will be placed on the amount of out-of-pocket expenses that beneficiaries are required to pay for prescription drugs, and the Affordable Care Act’s big premium subsidies will be extended for persons with low and middle incomes.
236,473 people were living in Montana who was enrolled in Medicare as of July 2020. This represented 22 per cent of the state’s population, which was higher than the national rate of 19 per cent, which represented the percentage of people living in the United States who were enrolled in Medicare.
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It is anticipated that the Inflation Reduction Act will win approval from the House of Representatives in a vote that will take place on Friday.
However, likely, Republican Representative for Montana Matt Rosendale will not vote in favour of the bill, and it may end up on Vice President Joe Biden’s desk for him to sign into law over the weekend.
