Biden Marks Anniversary of Inflation Reduction Act, Previewing 2024 Message

President Joe Biden on Wednesday marked the first anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act by laying out the steps he's taken to tackle climate change, create new jobs and reduce health care costs, issues that will be top-of-mind to voters in the 2024 presidential election.

The celebration of the Inflation Reduction Act's passage last year served as a victory lap for Biden and Democrats in Congress who overcame opposition from Republicans and members of their own party to enact the sweeping tax, energy and climate legislation.

On Wednesday, Biden framed the legislation as a historic investment in clean energy that would create new jobs for middle class Americans left behind in the changing U.S. economy.

"It's taking the most aggressive action ever on climate and energy," Biden said in a speech at the White House before an audience of Democratic lawmakers and others. "This law is one of the biggest drivers of jobs and economic growth that this country has ever seen."

The legislation includes more than $300 billion in energy and climate funding aimed at reducing the nation's carbon emissions by 40 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. The Inflation Reduction Act also sets aside $64 billion to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies through 2025 and allows Medicare to negotiate the cost of some prescription drugs.

Additionally, the law established a 15 percent minimum tax rate for large corporations that is projected to generate more than $300 billion in revenue.

To date, the law has created 170,000 new clean energy jobs, Biden said, with the total expected to grow to 1.5 million new green jobs in the next decade.

The Inflation Reduction Act is a major achievement for Biden, who promised as a candidate to prioritize many of the issues addressed in the law.

But it's far narrower than the ambitious domestic policy plans Biden proposed in 2020 -- and it almost never came to pass.

Soon after taking office, Biden rolled out a $2.3 trillion proposal to create new jobs and tackle climate change. A month later, he proposed spending an additional $1.8 trillion on education, health care and child care programs.

The proposals formed the core of "Build Back Better," Biden's sweeping agenda to grow the economy while bolstering the nation's social safety net.

However, Republicans opposed Biden's domestic agenda from the start. Two moderate Senate Democrats—Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who switched her party affiliation to independent late last year—also balked at the president's spending plans.

Months of tense negotiations followed on Capitol Hill as Democrats struggled to bring Manchin and Sinema on board. Along the way, Democrats agreed to pass a separate infrastructure bill rather than tie it to the larger social spending packages, and pushed it through with Republican support in late 2021.

But as the midterms approached last year, it appeared as if Biden's campaign promise to make major investments in climate and health care would go unfulfilled. In his speech Wednesday the president alluded to the difficulties in getting the bill through Congress.

"Everyone was telling us there was no possibility" of getting a deal done, Biden said.

But then, in July of 2022, Manchin shocked Washington by striking a last-minute deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Inflation Reduction Act. Democrats passed the bill on a party-line vote with no Republican support.

The law immediately bolstered Biden's domestic policy record, handing him a victory ahead of the midterms and the 2024 presidential election.

But the messy process and the final contents of the law are a double-edged sword for Biden.

Supporters view the Inflation Reduction Act and other legislation, including the infrastructure law and CHIPS and Science Act, as proof that Biden made good on his pledge to end the gridlock in Washington and make progress on important issues.

The funding in the Inflation Reduction Act for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) protects a program that was deeply opposed by Republicans but is now a widely accepted part of the social safety net, said Richard Frank, a health economics professor at Harvard Medical School.

"The ACA is here to stay. Red states and blue states have both benefited considerably from it," Frank said. He added that the Inflation Reduction Act's provision lowering drug prescription costs was a "significant accomplishment."

Still, Republicans—including some of the candidates running to take on Biden in next year's election—have been heavily critical of the act. And the president has also faced criticism from the left for compromising with Manchin on the energy and climate provisions in the legislation. Manchin secured concessions for the oil and gas industries that climate advocates argue negate the investments in clean energy.

"This law will not accomplish what we need to have a livable future," Allie Rosenbluth, U.S. campaign manager for the advocacy group Oil Change International, said in a statement to Newsweek.

"We simply cannot afford a world with fossil fuels," Rosenbluth said. "President Biden, whose upcoming election may lie in the hands of climate voters, must step up and lead."

How Biden sells the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the rest of his domestic policies, to Democratic and independent voters will help determine his success in the 2024 election. Biden made the case Wednesday that one of his main legislative accomplishments was worth all the political drama required to get it over the finish line.

Biden didn't address the upcoming presidential election directly Wednesday or mention former President Donald Trump, the leading 2024 Republican candidate.

But he did not pass up the chance to remind the public which party was responsible for the Inflation Reduction Act, which he called "one of the most significant laws I think that has ever been enacted."

"It fell entirely to Democrats to deliver it," Biden said.