Pirate's Cove

She had her talking points down, as she didn’t refer to it as a climate bill, like so many did after its passage

Warren: Inflation Act Doesn’t Lower Utility Costs for Years, But That’s Where ‘Everybody’ ‘Would Like to See Those Prices Come Down’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) stated that the Inflation Reduction Act is “partly about bringing down utility costs, and it’s partly about bringing down healthcare costs.” But admitted it only does so in the long run and stated that “long-term is where, I think, everybody in America would like to see those prices come down.”

Host Andrea Mitchell said, “[T]he Inflation Reduction Act, so named, doesn’t really reduce inflation. It brings the deficit down, less than one might have hoped because of Manchin and Sinema taking things out on the tax piece of it.”

Warren responded, “It absolutely brings the deficit down. And remember, if you think that the problem that causes inflation is too much money floating around in the economy, then it absolutely attacks that directly. But what it does that I think we have to remember about inflation is it attacks costs directly where families live. So, the Inflation Reduction Act is partly about bringing down utility costs, and it’s partly about bringing down healthcare costs.”

Unfortunately, Mitchell missed the opportunity to ask “how? How will the IRA bring down utility costs?” The answer would have probably been along the lines of building more wind farms and solar farms while cutting off natural gas and coal, replacing reliable, dependable, and affordable energy with expensive and hit-or-miss energy. If Warren even answered rather than deflected

Mitchell then pointed out that both of those are “long-term” and don’t “kick in until ’25 or so.”

Warren responded, “But long-term is where, I think, everybody in America would like to see those prices come down. This is literally the first time that big pharma has lost in a battle to be able to keep raising prices forever and ever. And Democrats — again, Democrats have a real plan to bring down prices, while Republicans just stand by and scream.”

Mitchell failed to ask “how” on that, too. What will cause energy prices to come down, and, if they do, how will we know that the IRA had anything to do with it 3 years from now? Just the electric vehicle stuff will cause utility prices to rise as more use electricity to charge their cars. Most upper middle class and rich folks, of course, since the middle and working classes won’t be switching to too expensive vehicles.