Leah Stokes: “Joe Biden’s signature climate law was not just about climate. The Inflation Reduction Act was also a big bet on a particular theory of politics: Pass a law that creates factories and good-paying jobs in communities across the country, and voters will reward you at the ballot box. Such a law might even become too popular to repeal.”
“The conventional wisdom today is that Biden’s bet was a bust… According to this line of thinking, the IRA poured billions of dollars into left-behind places, only for voters to decisively reject Democrats in 2024… Then, when restored to the White House, Trump partnered with a Republican Congress to effectively wipe the IRA from existence.”
“Every part of that story, however, is at best incomplete and at worst simply wrong. The law did, in fact, deliver votes for Democrats. And key components of it are still on the books—still growing the clean economy and cutting pollution.”
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