Dear Editor: Listening to those screaming “Democrats equal inflation” louder and more often just doesn’t make it so.
Inflation was jump-started by a post-pandemic surge in demand for goods while supply chains were (and are) trying to gear back up. Corporate greed adds to inflation, as you could see when oil companies were posting record profits, but still continuing to raise prices.
Inflation is a global, complicated problem.
Along comes the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in Congress and the nay-sayers are at it again.
This bill is meant to reduce our deficit, fight inflation, invest in domestic energy production and manufacturing, reduce carbon emissions, allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and extend the Affordable Care Act until 2025.
The revenue from these programs is estimated at $737 billion, mostly gained through a 15% corporate minimum tax (note that at least 55 of the largest corporations in America paid NO federal corporate income taxes in the most recent fiscal year despite enjoying substantial pretax profits in the United States), lowering Medicare drug costs, and enforcing the tax laws by collecting from delinquent payers. The expenditures include $437 billion in energy security measures and extending the ACA to help families afford medical care.
Net deficit reduction is $300 billion.
The Act will cap prescription drug costs for hundreds of thousands of Georgia Medicare beneficiaries, reduce health insurance premiums for hundreds of thousands of Georgians by about $600 per year on average while expanding coverage to about 142,000 Georgians, and cap insulin co-payments for the tens of thousands of Georgia Medicare beneficiaries that use insulin.
This bill plans to invest $180 million in Georgia to develop large-scale clean power generation and storage, offer tax credits, and boost the manufacturing of clean transportation technologies. Georgians pay the 8th highest electric bills and the 4th highest natural gas bills in the country. Only 10% of Georgia’s current electrical generation mix is renewable. This is not sustainable.
The 2017 Republican tax cut legislation for the upper wealth holders and corporations did NOTHING in its promise to “trickle down” to our working class. Tough times require tough decisions. And chanting misnomers is not productive nor warrants anyone’s attention.
We are behind the Biden administration’s attempt to address inflation, healthcare and climate change. Stay the course. Keep the faith. We can solve these issues by electing leaders who will work on both sides of the aisle. Re-elect Warnock as our Senator. He has earned it.
B. Hamilton, B. Gilkison, K. Harris, R. Pandina, Greensboro