When Republicans took the House majority in 2011, it took them barely a month to hold the first of what would be several dozen symbolic votes repealing the Affordable Care Act. Six years later, Republicans went all-in on repealing the Obama administration’s landmark health-care law immediately after taking full power in Washington.
If past were prologue, upon taking the House in January, Republicans might have been expected to swiftly set their sights on President Joe Biden’s marquee legislative achievement: the sprawling Inflation Reduction Act, which passed last year.
Instead, for most Republicans, the past seems to be something else: a cautionary tale.
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Three months into the new House GOP majority, there has been scant movement toward undoing that bill, which contains some of the most significant climate change and health-care measures to pass Congress in recent memory.
So far, the only noise on repeal has come from 20-some members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, who introduced legislation to fully repeal it in March. There is no indication that their bill will be put on the floor anytime soon, but those lawmakers have demanded an undoing of the IRA as a condition of their vote to raise the U.S. government’s borrowing limit.
Still, the push’s supporters are confident it would be at the top of the agenda should Republicans win Congress and the presidency in the 2024 election.
“I totally believe, like, that piece of legislation would be undone,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), a cosponsor of the repeal bill, adding that the IRA’s passage through the party-line budget reconciliation process would allow the GOP to do the same in repealing it.
That confidence is poised to put House conservatives on a collision course with many of their colleagues, who have far a different take on how they would approach the IRA—namely, in selective fashion.
When asked about repealing the bill, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) quickly invoked the GOP’s failure to jettison Obamacare in 2017. “We know from experience that’s not likely the way to go,” he said.
“Fine if you want to try something like that once, but… you want to do more than make a point,” Cramer said. “Let’s drill down to the most offensive areas and make adjustments between here and there.”
House Republican leadership has already signaled a piecemeal approach. The GOP’s omnibus energy package, which passed on Thursday, takes aim at several climate-focused aspects of the IRA, but not the largest ones, like the subsidy program for electric vehicles.
Meanwhile, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), a member of the Appropriations Committee, suggested House Republicans could leverage the power of the purse and “look to see whether or not we can claw back maybe some of that money that’s not been spent yet.”
Through their Obamacare debacles, Republicans may have learned that it’s not only hard to totally undo a sweeping law; it’s also hard to undo a law years after it passed and piles of cash have gone out the door. The IRA included some $700 billion in direct federal investments.
Beyond that, businesses are already planning around the IRA’s clean energy and manufacturing incentives, for instance, and millions of Americans who use insulin are now buying it at maximum copays of $35 per month, a cap instituted by the IRA.
The insulin cap, along with provisions allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices, have helped to make the IRA far more popular than Obamacare was in its early days. Even Republican lawmakers welcome those provisions, along with several other tax reforms.
Undoing it could be a politically painful experience for Republicans. And if some GOP lawmakers insist on pushing for a repeal, many Democrats would more than welcome that challenge.
“We should take them at their word that they want to repeal the biggest climate action America has ever taken,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI). “I think we should take them at their word that they want to increase the price of prescription medicine, including insulin. And I think Democrats should be thrilled to litigate that next election.”
Some Democrats doubt Republicans could touch the law at all, even if they got the chance. “I don’t think they’ll be successful,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “It would be a terrible misstep for them.”
With those factors at play, it’s perhaps unsurprising that apathy appears to be the GOP’s prevailing attitude when it comes to repealing Biden’s signature legislative achievement.
That’s not to say Republicans like the bill. But compared to Obamacare, which dominated GOP messaging for years, what might be most striking about Republicans’ thinking on the IRA is how relatively little they seem to think about it.
When The Daily Beast approached eight GOP lawmakers to ask their thoughts about repealing the IRA, several seemed surprised to have been asked at all. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) called it an “interesting question” but indicated he “would look seriously at” repealing the law.
One of Congress’ fiercest critics of Biden, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), said he would “have to go back through” the IRA’s contents before specifying his views.
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), a member of House GOP leadership, said “I assume” Republicans would move to repeal, but indicated it was still early.
“I haven’t heard about it, to be honest,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) when asked about his colleagues’ bill to repeal the IRA. “I’m sure there are parts of many bills that people want to reconsider.”
Those responses reflect what has been an enduring challenge for Republicans: crafting a cohesive negative branding for the IRA. They had no such issues with Obamacare, which they quickly tarred as a hostile government takeover of the health-care system.
But the IRA is remarkably broad: it contains numerous provisions on energy and health care, offering a mix of direct spending and tax reforms to advance Democrats’ goals of fighting climate change, lowering prescription drug costs, and compelling the wealthy to pay more in taxes.
Ahead of the 2022 midterms, Republicans broadly preferred to campaign on cost of living issues, crime, and immigration; to the extent they talked about the IRA, it was in reference to the bill’s funding for the Internal Revenue Service, which they painted as a force for auditing middle-class taxpayers.
Some Republicans will even admit that there are actually parts of the law that they like. Donalds noted the insulin price cap, for instance, but argued Republicans could address that point themselves. “You don’t need the Inflation Reduction Act to do that,” he said.
Cramer, meanwhile, mentioned the IRA’s provisions to incentivize domestic manufacturing and its tax credits for businesses’ use of carbon capture technology, which can lower industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
“If you go to repeal the whole thing, you might have some people that like some parts of it,” he said. “There’s some things that we can work on, that we could targeted repeal, and then some things you can leave in and I think would advance some of our priorities.”
The question for Republicans is how serious their right flank is about undoing the IRA—or how much of their rhetoric is posturing that will be forgotten should the GOP return to power in Congress and the White House in 2025 or beyond.
Some Democrats, at least, aren’t holding their breath.
“People are often incredulous, because [Republicans] propose to do unpopular things—and think, ‘Well, they can’t really mean that,’” said Schatz. “But then they end up doing unpopular things. I take them at their word.”
