After months of legislative back-and-forth, Congress passed, and President Joe Biden signed, the Inflation Reduction Act, the new law that tackles health care, climate challenges and the tax code.
“The Inflation Reduction Act will lower costs for families, combat the climate crisis, reduce the deficit, and finally ask the largest corporations to pay their fair share,” the Biden White House said in a release Aug. 15. Like any piece of legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act has its pros and its cons. But Catholics regardless of political affiliation should be pleased to note that the ideas contained within the new law are, in principle, in concert with the bedrock of Catholic social teaching. As such, it is gratifying to see the second Catholic president of the United States support them.
Pope Francis, building on the magisterium of Pope Benedict XVI, has made concern for creation a priority of his pontificate. In his encyclical letter Laudato Si’, Pope Francis writes, “I urgently appeal, then, for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet.”
For many, environmentalism feels like a zero-sum game. Taking steps to protect creation seems to come at a high cost for many families. But responding to environmental needs does not have to come at the cost of advancing Americans’ quality of life. The Biden administration states, “Overall, families that take advantage of clean energy tax credits can save more than $1,000 per year.” Initiatives that are good for the family and good for the environment should be welcomed by all Americans.
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, wrote to the Senate in early August, saying, “It is good that the act makes significant investments for innovation in clean energy, including domestic manufacturing as well as research and development in clean technologies.” Coakley also highlighted the fact that the Inflation Reduction Act includes “significant environmental justice investments that focus on the poor and vulnerable.”
Catholics and people of goodwill must redouble our efforts to mitigate future harm to the environment and support innovation that offers sustainable solutions to the energy crisis and supports economic development for all. Regardless of the decisions made by other nations, a moral choice stands before us to be good stewards of our common home.
The legislation also includes provisions that will allow Medicare to negotiate drug costs with pharmaceutical companies. “Today, Americans pay two to three times what citizens of other countries pay for prescription drugs,” the White House reports. The bill will cap pharmacy costs at $2,000 a year for 50 million Medicare Part D recipients.
In his encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti, released amid the height of the global pandemic on Oct. 3, 2020, Pope Francis cautioned the Church, saying, “Once this health crisis passes, our worst response would be to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism and new forms of egotistic self-preservation.” As we work to renew our country after years of insecurity, we cannot allow our concern for the most vulnerable to be resigned to the past.
However, the Inflation Reduction Act was passed with several glaring omissions. Despite the reforms to health care, especially those that rightly care for the poor, no work was done to end all taxpayer subsidies which fund abortions. As Pope Francis reminded the Church in Laudato Si’, “Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion.” To protect the dignity of every human life, we must begin, the pope insists, by protecting the most vulnerable life: the life of a child in the womb.
This protection of vulnerable human life includes the protection of children and families. The U.S. bishops rightly ask, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the constitutional right to abortion in our country, what is being done to support single mothers, provide increased resources for adoption, or support other families in need. For too long bills that would have supported these and other measures have languished.
Now that the Inflation Reduction Act has been turned into law, perhaps Congress can direct its attention to our children, single women and struggling families.
Our Sunday Visitor Editorial Board: Gretchen R. Crowe, Scott P. Richert, Scott Warden, York Young
