On Monday, Just the News posted an article about the actual cost of the Inflation Reduction Act. The Inflation Reduction Act was not about inflation–it was about subsidizing green energy.
The article reports:
When former President Joe Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in 2022, it did so along party lines with not a single Republican voting for it. At the time, a Senate one-pager summarized the law as costing taxpayers $369 billion, based on Congressional Budget Review (CBO) estimates.
A new study from the Cato Institute finds that the law could cost as much as $4.67 trillion by 2050. That’s roughly 12 times the stated cost. The study also concludes that the subsidies are undermining innovation and driving investments toward subsidy farming rather than satisfying consumer demand.
“The government should not have a hold on the economy in such a way that it can truly distort entire markets, and that’s what the Inflation Reduction Act is,” Joshua Loucks, research associate with Cato Institute and co-author of the analysis, said in a video explaining the study.
…The subsidies for the IRA come in two forms — production tax credits (PTC), which provide tax credits per unit of energy produced, or investment tax credits, which provide tax credits for various investments in carbon-free energy. Which one developers take depends on the project and their business preferences. With the ITC, the subsidies provide an infusion of cash up front, whereas the PTCs provide payouts over time.
Some of these are not capped, and others are only phased out when certain greenhouse gas emission reductions are met. Using models from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the study shows there’s little likelihood that these reductions will be met in the next 25 years, meaning the subsidies have no meaningful end date.
The article concludes:
The study’s authors argue that, in light of the IRA’s actual costs, a full repeal of its energy subsidies is needed. If a full repeal isn’t possible, Congress should limit taxpayer liabilities by placing caps on the dollar value of the subsidies, add expiration dates instead of emission reduction targets — or both.
“Delaying action only strengthens the political and economic interests tied to its subsidies, making reform even more difficult as the web of government handouts expands,” Loucks and Fisher warn in an article on “The Fishtank,” Fisher’s Substack.
Repealing the energy subsidies in the IRA is a wonderful idea. This is another budget cut the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) needs to look at.