What Does the ‘Big Beautiful’ Debate Tell Us About the Politics of the IRA?

One of the largest manufacturing investments in Ohio’s history has transformed cornfields in a rural county into a battery factory that could soon have thousands of employees.

The plant, a joint venture of Honda and LG Energy Solution, is part of a wave of new factories developed across the country following the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, most of them in states and counties that usually vote Republican.

So what happens now, when the tax credits that support this plant and others like it are under threat in Washington as Congress and President Donald Trump try to find a way to pay for large tax cuts?

The answer, so far, is unsatisfying. The debate over the budget reconciliation measure that its authors call “One Big Beautiful Bill” has included little discussion of t