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Pharmaceutical companies in the US will be required to provide rebates to buyers if they increase prices above the inflation rate. This is one of the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 also called the Climate and Tax bill. Medicare recipients total out of pocket costs for drugs will be capped at $2000 under the Biden bill.

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"This is a very, very, very, big deal," says Chuck Schumer about the Climate Change bill that is expected to pass in the Senate of the US this weekend August 6-7, 2022. This is the biggest climate bill in history, and may also be called the Schumer-Manchin bill after the compromise reached to give oil and gas some support with big moves for climate change action between now and 2030. It gets Biden and the US to within 40% reduction of carbon emissions over 2005 emissions by 2030, when the commitment by the US at COP26 Glasgow is for 50% reduction over 2005 emissions by 2030.

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Bill Gates of Microsoft calls the Biden climate change bill the single most important legislation in US history. He says only America can offer the vision for climate change action, and make it happen. Gates says he has talked to corporate leaders in America and most of them say they are ready to act once the climate change bill is passed. Many of the industries that need to be created are in the early stages and the climate change bill will create the right atmosphere for sustained innovation.

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The US has 124,000 charging stations for electric vehicles. The Biden administration wants to see that go up to 500,000 by 2030. For this to happen $7.5 billion is already going to states under the $1 trillion infrastructure bill of 2021. The Biden $369 Climate bill that passed the Senate last week will give companies that build each charging station 30% tax credit for maximum of $100,000, up from $30,000 earlier, to build one charging station. It costs about $100,000 to tear up pavement and build a conduit for a charging station.

Supply chain issues will linger for 2022 and 2023 with shortage of chips after which it will move much faster says this report in WSJ. For EV's to go mainstream charging stations are a priority.

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What is in the biggest climate bill in history, the Biden $369 billion Climate Bill, also called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022? The WSJ looks at the bill that passed the US Senate and now heads for passage in the House of Representatives this weekend. 

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President Biden signs the $379 billion Climate bill and tax legislation into law. Mr. Biden told a White House crowd to standing ovation "This is the biggest Climate Bill ever." At the signing event Mr. Biden tells Senator Manchin  "Joe, I never had a doubt." Senator Schumer quietly negotiated the final bill with Senator Manchin in one crucial week just recently to get it through a 50-50 split US Senate.

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As president Biden signs the biggest Climate Bill in history Jim Tankersley says there is still more to be done. In addition to the work remaining for children, women and families, he mentions the Civilian Climate Corps with financing for $10 billion that is patterned on the Civilian Conservation Corps set up during the Depression by FDR, which is still to be passed. This would form "the next generation of conservation and resilience workers," says Biden. Much like the 3 million people who helped build parks, cut trails and planted trees around the US in the 1930's and 1940's under FDR.

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Greg Ip of the WSJ cautions about thinking that the GDP growth of 3% is likely to be achieved with the Trump plan for a corporate tax rate of 15%. He says evidence from Britain and Canada- Britain reducing the tax rate from 30% in 2007 to 19% today, and Canada from 28% in 2000 to 21% in 2004- is disappointing. In Britain the increase in GDP averaged about 0.1% a year. Business investment increases with cut in corporate taxes, and the U.S. corporate tax rate is higher than other advanced countries such as Germany, yet GDP growth includes other factors, such as the business cycle, demographics, productivity growth, aging, technology, regulation, says Ip. It is better if the tax cuts are spread broadly over the population, and tax cuts are offset to a greater extent by savings in other areas, and that tax cuts promote productivity boosting investment, to create enough of a surge in growth above 2%.

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The U.S. Labor Department reports increase in payrolls by 215,000 for March 2016. Manufacturing continues to be a soft spot with loss of 29,000 jobs. Health care, leisure and hospitality, and retailing each added about 40,000 jobs. Jobs increased by 30,000 each in construction, and in professional/business services.

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Edward Lazear proposes "Z" visas for illegal immigrants offering a pathway to a green card, and strict employer enforcement.

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Larry Saboto, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, and editor of the crystal ball newsletter, www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball says a few states will determine the outcome of the U.S. presidential election of 2012. In the midwest and east the states are Michigan (16 electoral votes), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20), and Wisconsin 10), Iowa (6), Virginia (13). In the west and south the states with large Hispanic votes are Nevada (6), Colorado (9), and Florida (29).

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Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff under President Clinton, and Alan Simpson, former senator from Wyoming, say the U.S. Supercommittee members should remember that their personal priorities and the common good are not at odds. The authors of the Bowles-Simpson Presidents Commission for deficit reduction say there is growing discontent among voters with politicians who are obsessed with gaining partisan advantage. Using issues of national importance that require a common approach from all parties as a way to score political points will only backfire on these politicians. Personal priorities of members of Congress are now no longer at odds with the common good, they are converging. It is upto the Congress, members of both parties, to push back against the special interests and partisan politics, and show leadership on the deficit. The eurozone crisis has shown the dire consequences of any sluggishness or procrastination. The failure of the political class and leadership in Italy and Greece, and in other nations of the EU, has put the fate of these countries in the hands of markets, which have relentlessly pushed up the borrowing rates of Greece, Italy, Spain and other countries, and taken future direction out of the hands of politicians. Erskine and Bowles say don't wait for a fiscal crisis to take action because it will be disastrous economically and politically, with everyone as losers and no winners. Timidity is not an option, leadership is required to take action that is big and broad, tackling tax expenditures, entitlement expenditures, defense, across the board....

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Who are the biggest recipients of food stamps and Medicaid in 2023? Not black people in inner cities, says Krugman, they are white people in towns and rural areas that provide much of the support for the Republican party. There the effects of deindustrialization are still felt with the export of manufacturing jobs and the effects of neglect of rural areas under both parties. The rapid recovery from the Covid pandemic and the Biden recovery efforts have helped Black Americans recover from the pandemic and also from the bad effects of the 2009 crisis, that banks operating in a deregulatory environment caused. This is shown in graphs by Krugman on how even the 7-8 percentage points difference between white and black unemployment of the Reagan era is down to 1-2%. The economic effects of the moves to suburbs that left inner cities and black people poorer and the effects of deindustrialization are now fading and this is good for Black America.  

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A move by the Obama administration to reenergize its Hispanic base with action on immigration three months before the U.S. presidential election of 2012. A new policy issued as a directive by President Obama allows one million young illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. A 16 page guideline issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services states that applicants have to show they lived in the U.S. for five years and pay a $465 fee. The policy applies to people in the ages of 15 to 30, applicants must show they completed high school, or were honorably discharged from the U.S. military. The program will offer a two year renewable expemption from deportation and work permit to people coming to the U.S. as children. President Reagan was the last president who issued a directive of this type offering amnesty in 1986 to 3 million illegal immigrants. The Obama administration says this will help conserve enforcement resources are not spent on low priority cases of young people who came to the U.S. as children, as there are an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. The Dream Act legislation to legalize undocumented young people is stuck in Congress with no agreement on how to move forward. The states and cities where people mainly from Latin America and Asia would benefit are- California with 400,000 who could benefit, Texas with 225,000, and New York City with 55,000....