Are US politics starting to turn towards a more hopeful future? | Gary Gerstle

Nevertheless, looking ahead to 2024, there are grounds for optimism, not just that Democrats can win but that they can begin to build bigger and more enduring majorities. Most importantly, three major legislative achievements of the Biden administration to date are likely to have a greater impact on the 2024 election than they did in 2022. The most important of these is the curiously titled Inflation Reduction Act. That bill has not gotten the credit it deserves, in part because of its silly name and in part because it is much smaller than the $5tn Build Back Bill from which it is descended.

Watching that original bill get whittled down and carved up across 2021 and 2022 was not a pretty sight. Yet the final version of the legislation contains truly important initiatives in multiple spheres, nowhere more so than the nearly $400bn appropriated for investments in green technology and for tax breaks and subsidies to businesses and homeowners to convert to clean energy. The bill constitutes the biggest single investment that the federal government has made in a green energy future.