Yeah, I wonder about the options to invest in trying to decrease wait times, and maybe even cut fares (never mind free)... you have to start with populist impacts, and work backwards.

To be fair and clear, the IRA was MANCHIN's policy, not Biden's. BBB was Biden's plan, it was smarter, holistic

Exactly

Not a strategy for making working class ppl feel included in climate policy, or care about, or even feel like it's good for them. But for sure has been the strategy for growing the industry, which has had a certain logic as you point out...

Right... and IRA made a minimal impression on US electorate, automakers are now pivoting their strategies dramatically, and climate has fallen off the political map.

Maybe the admin did best they could, maybe not. My point is that green=luxury is not inevitable.

www.ft.com/content/2daa...

My point is that Dems ended up creating a political brand for green that undermined their effort to create a working and middle class alliance behind green industrialism.

I think everyone is aware that there are elections every 2 years... but yes, there were ofc many constraints.

Bidenomics ended up being pro-labor for the tiny% of ppl in affected factories (unfortunately, many of those planned but not yet built), but it wasn't at all pro-workers in terms of the mass of US consumers, which vastly outnumbers the % of ppl who might have gotten a good green job under IRA.

I'm not even saying this to dunk on Biden. I just think it's easy to conclude that climate policy and greening are inevitably elitist politics, but that's 0% true. It's a question of how do you construct a political culture around climate policy.

Exactly. I wonder now why they didn't make the affordable, union-built EV the moonshot of the IRA. I prefer transit, but this is USA...

Manchin killed Biden's effort to link rebates to union-construction. Public chargers hard to build fast... but even culturally, didn't prioritize cheap EVs 🤦🏻‍♂️

2nd Bonus: One can argue this was the only viable EV policy available 2021-24. Fair enough. But this was the *only* high-profile, consumer-facing element of IRA. Green housing subsidies were subtler—and even *more* skewed toward the affluent.

For consumers, the IRA was trickle-down greening.

4/2

Bonus: Yes there was the Bolt. But GM never saw it as a profitable long-term model. As seen in current write-downs & strategy resets, US automakers are only NOW trying to focus on affordable EVs. That wasn't anyone's priority under Biden.

Whatever ppl's intentions, this was a predictable fail.

3/2

There were subsidies for used EVs, but this was a tiny market. And lower-income buyers often lacked the garages or driveways needed for EVs to seem reasonable.

All the hype was around expensive EVs, like the Mach-E.

Rhetoric aside, this was trickle-down greening.

Link 4 chart archive.is/Q7mfh 2/2

Taxing the rich… is a pretty effective strategy

Thanks for a brilliant piece @jwmason.bsky.social!

Maybe it turns out that for a significant amount of that infra, only the public sector that's ready and willing to manage those homes. If so, it's our responsibility to reform public agencies as necessary, to ensure that they do right by tenants. That seems like a viable approach to me.

If there are landlords that can't afford to operate public infrastructure, they should get out of the way. No private entity is entitled to guaranteed money from highly regulated housing.

It's near-white out conditions in Chicago as the snow comes down, and tonight's anti-ICE/CBP rally is wrapping up in front of city hall.

But not before the crowd bounces and chants, "I believe that we will win!"