PORTLAND, Maine — Amid considerable fanfare, President Joe Biden this week signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act. With inflation running at its highest rate in four decades, Americans are feeling the pinch everywhere they turn, from the gas station to the drugstore to the supermarket.
So will this legislation really help bring inflation down, and will it live up to its name?
“I think it will, both short term and long term,” Sen. Angus King, an independent who voted for the bill, said.
King pointed to its subsidies for electric vehicles as an example of relief he believes the bill will bring fairly quickly.
“An electric vehicle costs about 6 cents a mile to operate. A gas vehicle 15 to 20 cents a miles. So if people take advantage of those subsidies to buy an electric vehicle, they’re going see their annual costs of fueling their vehicle go down $500 to $1,000. That can happen very soon," he said.
King believes another provision will have an impact in the long term.
“The cap on prescription drug prices for seniors—anything over $2,000 will be capped—that’s going to be a big help for seniors.”
Republicans do not share King’s outlook. Not one Republican in the Senate voted for the bill.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, referred to a study that suggested the bill will do nothing to tamp down inflation when detailing her opposition to it.
On another matter, King—who is a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee—says two things immediately struck him about the FBI’s removal of government documents from former President Trump’s home in Florida.
His understanding is that some of the documents were classified as top secret. When he reads such documents for his committee work, he said, he can’t even do so in his own office. He has to go to a secure facility to look at them.
Which leads to his second thought: Why?
“I can understand the president leaving and wanting to take souvenirs, a picture of him and Kim Jong-Un or a letter from the queen or something," he said. "Why were these documents, of all the documents in the White House, why were these taken?”
For now King is waiting to see where the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation leads and what it uncovers.
“I’m trying to reserve judgment on this. I believe in ready, aim, fire, [and] not ready, fire, aim. I think there are a lot of unanswered questions and people should be keeping their powder dry until we find out more.”
King also talked about what factors will carry the most weight when he decides whether to run for re-election in 2024. Watch our interview to learn more.