Biden greenlights landmark climate change, health care law

President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed into law a sprawling multi-layered bill—dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—that promises a whopping $369 billion in spending to fight global warming.

It is the biggest-ever fiscal package for mitigating climate change in the history of the US, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter.

The new law will also lower the often-ruinous prices of prescription drugs. Its massive cost will in large part be covered by enforcing a minimum 15% tax on large corporations—a measure to get the wealthy, in Biden’s words, “to pay part of their fair share.”

Future-ready
“It’s about tomorrow. It’s about delivering progress and prosperity to American families. It’s about showing America and the American people that democracy still works in America,” Biden said in a speech that will likely form the basis of his campaign for the midterm polls in November.

Every single Congress Republican opposed the $740 billion IRA, which largely focuses on tackling climate change and reducing health care costs in the garb of cooling inflation—one of the things that “really matter to ordinary people.”

“The American people won and the special interests lost,” Biden said. “We can protect the already powerful or show the courage to build a future where everybody has an even shot. That’s the America I believe in.”