U.S. Rep. Jared Golden backed the Inflation Reduction Act on Friday, helping fellow House Democrats push it through by a slim majority and give President Joe Biden a legislative victory before the November midterm elections.
The House vote, which is expected to take place Friday, is set to send a $739 billion spending package to Biden’s desk aimed at lowering health care costs and promoting new clean energy projects.
In a Medium post, the 2nd District congressman said the legislation was “fiscally responsible” and targeted to address important concerns, including lowering health care costs, expanding renewable energy projects and clamping down on tax avoidance.
“This isn’t Joe Biden’s crazy Build Back Better proposal,” Golden said in an interview. “This is a bill that’s meant to ensure American energy dominance and independence.”
Golden’s yes vote on the Inflation Reduction Act comes as the two-term congressman faces a competitive House race this November against former Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin and independent Tiffany Bond. Poliquin, whose campaign didn’t immediately respond to an email for comment, has opposed the measure.
Golden’s 1st District colleague Rep. Chellie Pingree said she would vote for the bill on Thursday. Sen. Angus King voted for the bill in the Senate, meaning Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who called the act a “reckless spending bill” that would hurt the American economy, is set to be the only member of Maine’s delegation to vote against it.
His support was an early question, especially because of his tendency to break from the House Democratic majority. He was the only House Democrat to vote against a far bigger version of the bill, the Build Back Better Act, citing a tax change that would primarily benefit the wealthy. But he only had positive things to say about the new bill in Lisbon last week.
He especially praised provisions allowing for Medicare to negotiate drug prices with companies, a measure he has backed for years in concert with moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, who was instrumental in co-authoring the package after a year-and-a-half of political haggling over the spending bill.
In his statement Friday, Golden also contrasted the bill from other elements of President Biden’s “fiscally irresponsible” agenda, noting the bill’s provisions would reduce the deficit.
“This legislation represents a dramatic turnaround from misguided efforts in the last 18 months to pass sweeping, ill-designed legislation that tried to accomplish too many things,” Golden said.
Proponents estimate that the bill will reduce the deficit by around $300 billion over the next decade. The Congressional Budget Office estimated a net decrease in the deficit of $102 billion, but that does not include around $204 billion in new revenue expected from enhanced enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service.
However, experts generally agree that the bill will not do much to actually fight inflation. An analysis last week out of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business found that both its own analysis and one from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showed that the reduction in inflation was “statistically indistinguishable from zero.”
Golden was the only Democrat in either chamber to vote against final passage of a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill last year. He previously voted for another bill seen as a considerable success for President Biden’s agenda, a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, in 2021.
Running in an overwhelmingly rural district that voted for Trump in 2020, Golden has highlighted his willingness to buck his party in his 2022 campaign, including in a campaign ad released earlier this month.
There were elements of the bill that he said he disagreed with, including the elimination of a provision that narrowed a tax break for private equity. It was negotiated out of the package by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who was the last of 50 Democrats in that chamber to sign on.
“Sen. Sinema and I just don’t agree on tax policy,” Golden said. “I generally want to see wealthy people and big, billionaire corporations pay more.”