Biden’s green agenda pokes a big hole in America’s social safety net
With the current inflation rate still well above the Federal Reserve’s 2.0 percent target, it is only natural that critics of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) treated its recent one-year anniversary as an opportunity to once again stress that the bill never had anything to do with inflation. Biden himself has finally admitted as much. But what has received almost no attention is the degree to which big spending programs like the IRA — whose estimated cost has already spiraled up from $384.9 billion to $1.5 trillion — will further erode America’s social safety net. Especially the Medicare hospital insurance fund (Medicare Part A), which its trustees say will be depleted in 2031, and Social Security, which runs out of money just three years later, in 2034.
