This is Planet Money from NPR.

This week, President Joe Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

And it was a long, hard journey to get there.

In fact, parts of this legislation are on their second or third or millionth life.

Because it's mostly built out of stuff scavenged from last year's Build Back Better Bill.

And many of those ideas have been kicking around for years, even decades.

Legislators recycled and upcycled all those parts and gave them new life.

And this refurbished Frankenstein Bill arrived on the President's desk thanks in large

part to a modern makeover.

It's being branded as this big antidote, the cure to the problem plaguing our economy

right now.

Inflation.

Because as we all know, inflation has been running very hot for the past year.

So it sounds good to do something right now that will help with this big, scary, combustible

problem.

So this bill, which was not actually written to fight inflation, is telling us it's fighting

inflation.

So, okay, is it?

Hello and welcome to Planet Money, I'm Mary Childs.

And I'm Jeff Guowe.

Today on the show, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

A bunch of old recycled parts all made new.

...