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Senate approves to advance Inflation Reduction Act with VP Harris breaking tie

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WASHINGTON (AP) - A divided Senate voted Saturday to start debating Democrats’ election-year economic bill, boosting the sprawling collection of President Joe Biden’s priorities on climate, energy, health and taxes past its initial test as it starts moving through Congress.In a preview of votes expected on a mountain of amendments, united Democrats pushed the legislation through the evenly divided chamber by 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie and overcoming unanimous Republican opposition.

The package, a dwindled version of earlier multitrillion-dollar measures that Democrats failed to advance, has become a partisan battleground over inflation, gasoline prices and other issues that polls show are driving voters.The House, where Democrats have a slender majority, could give it final approval next Friday when lawmakers plan to return to Washington.RELATED: Democrats' economic package: What remains in and what's out?The vote came after the Senate parliamentarian gave a thumbs-up to most of Democrats’ revised 755-page bill.

But Elizabeth MacDonough, the chamber’s nonpartisan rules arbiter, said Democrats had to drop a significant part of their plan for curbing drug prices.MacDonough said Democrats violated Senate budget rules with language imposing hefty penalties on drug makers who boost their prices beyond inflation in the private insurance market.

Those were the bill’s chief pricing protections for the roughly 180 million people whose health coverage comes from private insurance, either through work or bought on their own.Vice President Kamala Harris cited deadly floods that have swept through Kentucky and Missouri, "washing away entire neighborhoods,'' leaving at least 35 dead, including children..

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