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Woke & Wasteful: Democrat Reconciliation Package Throws Money at Green Initiatives.

Electric Bikes, Energy-Efficient Windows, Green Workforce and More.


Photo for: Woke & Wasteful: Democrat Reconciliation Package Throws Money at Green Initiatives.

Key Points

  • Democrats are pushing to pass the $3.5 trillion dollar reconciliation package.
  • Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Krysten Sinema (D-AZ) are hold-outs.
  • The package is full of wasteful spending on green initiatives.

Democrats had hoped to pass the $3.5 trillion dollar reconciliation package today, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. While President Biden meets with hold-outs Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), people are starting to look closer at what’s in the package.

And that’s not necessarily a good thing.

According to Politico, Manchin and Sinema don’t want to spend $3.5 trillion on “social programs, climate action and safety net expansion.” But it can’t be that bad, right? Well, I guess it depends on how you feel about green initiatives and huge wastes of money.

First, there’s almost $64 billion dollars for solar subsidies to promote environmental justice. According to Americans for Tax Reform, “This provision…expands the energy credit for solar facilities in low-income communities, in which ‘the Secretary makes an allocation of environmental justice solar capacity limitation.’”

Environmental Justice is, of course, a favorite of HHS Secretary and former California AG Xavier Becerra who recently got the greenlight to treat the climate as a health crisis.

Buried deep within the depths of the trillion-dollar beast, is a tax credit for electric bikes. “Under this law, taxpayers could claim a credit of up to $1,500 for electric bicycles costing as much as $8,000 per bike,” Americans for Tax Reform reports. Estimated cost: $7.4 billion.

How about energy-efficient doors and windows? How about $15 billion dollars worth? According to Americans for Tax Reform, “this would replace the current $500 lifetime cap on nonbusiness energy property credits with an annual $1,200 credit.” $600 in credits for energy efficient windows and up to $500 for energy efficient doors.

And finally, a $10 billion dollar investment in the “Green Workforce.”

According to ATR, “Sec. 136501 allows the Secretary to allocate an additional $2.5 billion in credits for the advanced energy project credit. About $400 million in credits each year would be reserved for projects in “automotive communities.”

But the real good stuff doesn’t come until Sec. 136502, which provides a credit for costs incurred by the taxpayer while installing “mechanical insulation property into a mechanical system which was originally placed in service not less than 1 year before the date on which such mechanical insulation property is installed.”

Billions of dollars? For that? No wonder Manchin and Sinema are holding out.

[h/t Americans for Tax Reform]