Here's the text of the US House bill to avoid a default: https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/2811/text Section 232 basically puts the previous tax credit/rebates back into place, and it is backdated to when the old EV incentives were replaced: 16-aug-22 for place of manufacture, and 31-dec-22 for the rest. My question is: if the D's cave and give in to the R's request, what happens to all of those folks who leased an EV to get around the new rules? Does then lessor eat the cost of the lost tax credit? I pity the poor D's who purchased a Tesla with the hopes of filing for a tax rebate, only to have it yanked away at the last minute (like Lucy yanking away a football).
Of course the GOP wants to do away with one of the most significant legislative achievements of the Biden/Harris presidency (Inflation Reduction Act [IRA]). However, Biden will be president until at least January 2025 and maybe until January 2029. There is zero chance that he (Biden) will abandon what he worked so hard to get passed. The IRA is already showing some success after less than one year. The expected default date, if no debt limit deal is reached, is now projected to be late July. Funny how giving the IRS more money has resulted in better customer service AND more tax REVENUE! My 2023 taxes will be long since filed before the GOP can muck up the works. CNN has an April 28th story, "Debt default may hit later in summer as more tax revenue comes in". In the story: "If collections stay on this trend, Treasury is expected to come within $60 billion of exhausting its resources in the second week of June but should be able to continue making all scheduled payments until the end of July, Goldman Sachs said in its analysis." "Although House Republicans on Wednesday passed their bill to raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion, the effort has yet to move the needle on talks with the White House. The package – which also includes a wish list of GOP priorities such as spending cuts and work requirements for safety net programs – is dead on arrival in the Senate, and the Biden administration is holding firm that it will not negotiate on addressing the borrowing cap."
Another reason that Biden and the Democrats are unlikely to budge is that the debt limit is probably not even enforceable. Many legal scholars argue that the legislatively imposed debt limit is either completely or at least partially unconstitutional for two reasons. First reason, Section 4 of the 14th Amendment states in part: "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law … shall not be questioned.” Since default (not paying on the debt) would cause the validity of the debt to be questioned, the debt limit is not Constitutional. Second reason, Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have Power to Lay and Collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, to pay the Debts and provide for the Common Defence (Sic) and General Welfare of the United States; To borrow money on the credit of the United States.” In this case, the Executive Branch cannot usurp the Constitutional powers of Congress. Congress has established the taxes, authorized the spending, and established the debt limit. If the Congress does not raise the debt limit, it will be impossible for the Executive Branch to Constitutionally comply with the authorized spending. The Executive Branch does not have the power to establish higher taxes and cannot change the spending authorized by Congress. Thus, the Executive Branch must ignore the legislatively imposed debt limit. The $7,500 EV tax credit isn't going away anytime soon.
