This is intercepted.

I'm Nalcika Renner, deputy editor of The Intercept.

On Sunday, a historic thing happened. The Senate finally passed the bill they've been trying

to pass for an entire year, or at least a version of it. What started as billback better got

whittled down and whittled down and set aside and eventually re-emerged this summer as the

Inflation Reduction Act, written in secret by Senator Joe Manchin and Senate Majority Leader

Chuck Schumer. The bill includes billions in funding for climate initiatives, but is also

primarily a deficit reduction bill. That means it includes way more savings than it does spending.

Just a few weeks ago, it was unimaginable that something of this size was going to pass.

It's an incredible accomplishment with important ramifications, and the climate side of the

bill is worth scrutinizing. But it also gives us a window into the politics around the economy,

and the fight between the Republicans, Joe Biden, and Joe Manchin to own the narrative about what's

happening in the economy, a narrative that is often out of touch with the on-the-ground reality

for working people. In some ways, to understand the battle that's going on to own the narrative of

inflation, you have to go back to 2008. In 2008, Obama was criticized for going too small in his

big bill to address the housing crisis. Biden, on selling the American Rescue Act in 2021,

compared the pandemic response to 2008. So, the way I see it, the biggest risk is not going too big.

If we go too small, we've been here before. When this nation hit the great recession

that Brock and I inherited in 2009, I was asked to lead the effort on the Economic Recovery Act to

get a past. It was a big recovery package, roughly $800 billion. I did everything I could to get

a past, including getting three Republicans to change their votes and vote for it. But it wasn't

enough. It wasn't quite big enough. It stemmed the crisis, but the recovery could have been faster

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