“A country can be transformed. This is what is happening today,” said the American president when signing what is the biggest investment in the United States in the fight against climate change.
Le Monde with AFP
The ultimate march is crossed: American president Joe Biden promulgated, Tuesday, August 16, his vast investment plan on climate and health, bringing to his Democrat camp an important political victory within three months of ‘decisive legislative elections.
Largest investment in the United States in the fight against climate change, the text provides for a series of financial incentives intended to develop the American economy towards renewable energies, limits the price of certain drugs and creates a rate minimum taxation on large companies.
“A country can be transformed. This is what is happening today,” said Mr. Biden, in a speech with pronounced electoral accents before signing this reform, baptized Inflation Reduction Act, the White House . “This is the future. It is a question of bringing progress and prosperity to American families,” he said. “It is a question of showing America and the American people that democracy still works in the United States.”
a new tax for big companies
Fruit of difficult negotiations with the right wing of the Democratic Party, the envelope includes the largest investment ever engaged in the United States for the climate – 370 billion dollars (around 360 billion euros) to reduce emissions greenhouse gas from 40 % by 2030.
The second part of this large investment plan intends to partially correct the immense inequalities in access to care in the United States, in particular by lowering the price of medicines. Medicare, a public health insurance system intended, among other things for over 65, may for the first time negotiate the prices of certain drugs with pharmaceutical laboratories, and thus obtain more competitive prices.
To finance these investments, the reform provides for the adoption of a minimum tax rate of 15 % for all companies whose profits exceed one billion dollars. This new tax aims to prevent certain large companies from using the tax loopholes which allowed them so far to pay much less than the theoretical rate.
According to estimates, this measure could generate more than $ 258 billion in revenue for the American federal state over the next ten years.