Biden’s ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ Will Cost Up to $2 Trillion by 2035, Study Estimates

The Biden-Harris administration’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act will cost up to between $936 billion and $1.97 trillion over the next 10 years, according to a new study from the Cato Institute.

Democrats in the House and Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022, said to cost $891 billion at the time, without a single Republican vote. Then-President Joe Biden said the measure would lower inflation, as well as fight climate change, but critics say the opposite has been true.

The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, estimates that the energy subsidies in the act will cost between $936 billion and $1.97 trillion over the next 10 years, and between $2.04 trillion and $4.67 trillion by 2050.

Those numbers are well above the original estimation.

The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated the energy-related subsidies in the legislation would cost about $370 billion when Congress passed it. Goldman Sachs later estimated the Inflation Reduction Act’s 10-year cost would be $1.2 trillion.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Day One in office pausing funding on the climate and clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.

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Trump’s Jan. 20 directive “unleash[es] affordable and reliable energy and natural resources.” The order “ensure[d] that no federal funding be employed in a manner contrary to the principles outlined in this section, unless required by law.”

Biden called the Inflation Reduction Act “the most important climate legislation in the history of the world. It commits more public spending to addressing climate change than any other single piece of legislation or other government action.