For The Washington Post

**ONE TIME USE ONLY FOR OP-LAMOTT

Sonia Sotomayor,Clarence Thomas,John Roberts,Samuel Alito,Elena Kagan,Amy Coney Barrett,Neil Gorsuch,Brett Kavanaugh,Ketanji Brown Jackson,Michael Dreeben

Children holding hands

Contributor

The Washington Post

ONE TIME USE FOR OP-CARNEY KIDS 

FEDERALISTGALA

Four Dalmatian Puppy

other

People visit the site of the Nova festival, in Reim

Fake Electors Indictment Arizona

Israel Palestinians Campus Protests

US-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-EDUCATION-CONFLICT

**ONE TIME USE ONLY FOR OP-SMITH-HIGHER-ED

Former U.S. President Trump's criminal trial on charges of falsifying business records continues in New York

POOL

Westminster Dog Show

ONE TIME USE ILLUSTRATION FOR OP-RIEVES-HUBRIS

(Chloe Cushman for The Washington Post)

Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

Twitch streamers become go-to news source for campus protest coverage

After years of delay, Boeing to try again with Starliner space capsule

Divided Trump campaign weighs joining TikTok, the app he tried to ban

A frank look at hot dog prices at MLB ballparks

Sloppy first inning dooms the Nationals in a 6-3 loss to the Blue Jays

In a pinch, the Nationals finally find some offense

Top RNC lawyer resigns after rift grows with Trump

Trump escalates attacks on prosecutors, says Democrats run ‘a Gestapo administration’

How Pope Francis opened the Vatican to transgender sex workers

Israel shuts down Al Jazeera’s operations, raids Jerusalem office

Hamas attacks border crossing, killing 3, as Gaza cease-fire talks drag on

In photos: The 150th running of the Kentucky Derby

Bodies found in Mexico where 3 tourists went missing

Protesters clash with law enforcement at U-Va.

Ask Amy: I live with my boyfriend – and his sister and her family

Carolyn Hax: Working for a celebrity has this employee feeling ‘small’

Carolyn Hax: Longtime friend won’t forgive being last-minute canceled for a guy

Strangers help Sesame Street puppeteer after heirloom necklace was stolen

Teen grabs wheel when driver passes out and school bus veers into traffic

Cat climbed into Amazon return box, found alive 630 miles away

There’s still time for Congress to Trump-proof the Insurrection Act 

The Post endorses April McClain Delaney and Tom Royals for Maryland’s 6th District

On Press Freedom Day, little to celebrate for Hong Kong’s journalists

The new cure-all for vacation excess: the IV drip 

What’s the best bus to New York? We tested 5 for comfort and value.

You asked: Do I need a passport for my cruise?

The New York Times, alone in its outrage over access to Biden

The ‘Access Hollywood’ video cemented Trump’s air of invincibility

Stephen A. Smith would like even more of your attention

Trump hush money trial live updates: Witness testimony continues 

Trump Hush Money Glossary

Drew Angerer

In a democracy, cynicism is the enemy of progress and realism is progress’s friend. A realistic view would insist that what happened in the U.S. Senate on Sunday is a big deal.

On a straight partisan vote, Democrats approved the largest investment in history to fight climate change married to first steps toward controlling prescription drug costs and helping Americans buy health insurance.

The bill also raised corporate taxes and increased tax enforcement to begin what should be a sustained effort to reform the tax code by way of bringing revenue closer to long-term alignment with spending.

Pause for a moment to consider what the world would look like if this bill — expected to pass the House later this week and go to President Biden for his signature — had failed.

Anyone with a modest interest in the news and in the work of scientists (and, for that matter, anyone who has stepped outside during this scorching summer) knows that the climate crisis is real.

Biden had pledged to put the United States at the forefront of efforts to reduce the world’s dependency on carbon-emitting fuels and proposed an ambitious program to begin this journey.

If Congress had done nothing, the United States would have squandered any claim of global leadership on one of the central challenges of our time. It also would have been a signal that our political system is so dysfunctional that it could not even enact comparatively painless, positive incentives for moving toward cleaner energy.

We were very close to this policy cliff until Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) negotiated an agreement with the two holdout members of his caucus, first Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and then Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), leading to Sunday’s victory.

Here is where an oh-so-easy cynicism about the messy workings of any democratic process could take hold, especially a system such as ours with a wildly unrepresentative Senate that gives more sway to conservative-leaning states than their populations justify in a one-person-one-vote system.

Of course, a lot of good was negotiated away, including, to get Sinema’s vote, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/08/04/inflation-reduction-act-sinema/">much-needed reform</a> in how hedge-fund millionaires and billionaires are taxed. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was entirely right in <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3591303-sanders-rips-inflation-reduction-act-says-it-will-have-minimal-impact-on-inflation/">insisting</a> that this bill falls short of the hopes Biden and his party once had of constructing a sturdier platform of public support for families, children and Americans without health coverage.

The measure would have been better had it extended the poverty-fighting child tax credit; built a robust child-care and paid-leave system; and included money for the <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/federal-action-needed-to-close-medicaid-coverage-gap-extend-coverage-to-22-million" target=_blank>2.2 million</a> mostly low-income Americans who lack health coverage because they live in states that refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

But Senate rules are what they are, Democrats have only 50 votes to work with, and Republicans put up a solid wall of resistance.

The GOP attitude on climate was epitomized at around 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?522197-1/senate-debates-amendments-inflation-reduction-act" target=_blank>told his colleagues</a>: “Don’t waste time on stuff that doesn’t matter to real people.” I don’t know what Rubio’s definition of “real people” is, but a warming planet sure as heck threatens a lot of real people in his state, surrounded as it is by rising seas.

There’s much quarreling about whether concrete legislative achievements play much of a role in how voters cast their ballots. Here again, the cynic/realist distinction is helpful.

A purely cynical view says the average citizen won’t much care that a government under the control of Biden and other Democrats — in some cases with Republican support — managed to enact “a whole string of significant accomplishments,” as Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.) <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/week-transcript-22-sen-chris-coons-sen-mike/story?id=88045753">put it</a> Sunday on ABC News’s “This Week.”

They include a big infrastructure bill; a substantial measure to strengthen the country’s technological competitiveness; the first new gun-safety law in decades, modest though it was; a major expansion of help to veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances; and now the climate and prescription drug proposal.

The realist view accepts that voters don’t tote around lists of bills passed by Congress but insists that most of them do notice when the system seems to be working — or failing.

Democrats have promised to contain drug costs for years. They finally did something. (And 43 Republican senators did themselves no political good by casting procedural votes on Sunday to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/08/07/insulin-cap-budget-congress/?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=wp_news_alert_revere&location=alert">block a cap on the cost</a> of insulin for people who are not on Medicare.) Younger Americans especially were angry when Congress seemed ready to leave town without doing anything about climate change. Frustration gave way to something close to elation when a climate deal was finally reached.

Nothing feeds cynicism about democracy and collective action more than abject institutional failure. That’s why what happened on Sunday matters. Despite partisan obstruction, arcane rules and dilatory habits, the Senate struck a blow against hopelessness.

Named among the 25 most influential Washington journalists by the National Journal

Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Political Science Association’s Carey McWilliams Award, 1996

Empathy Award from the Volunteers of America, 2002

National Human Services Assembly’s Award for Excellence by a Member of the Media, 2004

Hillman Award for Career Achievement from the Sidney Hillman Foundation, 2011

One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported (co-authored with Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann)

Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism – From Goldwater to Trump and Beyond

Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent

Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith & Politics After the Religious Right

Stand Up Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge

They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate The Next Political Era

Why Americans Hate Politics

We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama (co-editor)

One Electorate Under God?: A Dialogue on Religion & American Politics (co-editor)

United We Serve: National Service and the Future of Citizenship (co-editor)

Sacred Places, Civic Purposes: Should Government Help Faith-Based Charity? (co-editor)

Bush v. Gore: The Court Cases and the Commentary (co-editor)

What’s God Got To Do With the American Experiment? (co-editor)

Community Works: The Revival of Civil Society in America (co-editor)

Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country

Oxford University, D.Phil.

Harvard University, BA

E.J. Dionne Jr. writes a twice-weekly column for The Washington Post. He is a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His latest book, with Miles Rapoport, is “100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting.”

E.J. Dionne

washpost

Senate Democrats pass Inflation Reduction Act and strike a blow against cynicism

the-washington-post

U.S. Senate Votes On Amendments To Inflation Reduction Act Over The Weekend

Staff

Getty Images

Getty

Editorials

Columns

Guest opinions

Cartoons

Submit a guest opinion

Today's Opinions newsletter

Opinions

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance

iptc-media/politics/government_policy/taxation

iptc-media/health/healthcare_policy/government_health_care/Medicaid

iptc-media/politics/election

iptc-media/politics/government_policy

iptc-media/politics

iptc-media/politics/political_process/political_system

iptc-media/science_and_technology

iptc-media/politics/political_process

iptc-media/politics/election/voting

iptc-media/environment

iptc-media/health/healthcare_policy/government_health_care

iptc-media/politics/government

iptc-media/health/healthcare_policy

iptc-media/health

iptc-media/politics/government/congress

iptc-media/economy_business_and_finance/economy

iptc-media/environment/climate_change

iptc-media/health/healthcare_policy/government_health_care/Medicare

client-blocklists/Client List: Becton Dickinson KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/CLIENT LIST: Nomura KWs 2021 - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Tito's KW List - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Bed Bath & Beyond KWs - EXCLUDE ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Johnson & Johnson KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/P+ The Offer KW List - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Exxon Mobil  - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: USAA KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: T. Rowe Price KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Discover Card KWs – EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/T. Rowe Price KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Client List: Microsoft KWs 2 - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Ford/Lincoln KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/HBO KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Google PG KWs - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Kyndryl KW List - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Louis Vuitton KW List - EXCLUDES ALL

client-blocklists/Capital One (One Tech) KWs - INCLUDES ANY

client-blocklists/Client List: Navy Federal Credit Union NFCU KWs 2 - EXCLUDES ALL - 12.23.20