On Sunday afternoon, it took all 50 Democratic senators, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, to pass their deceptively named Inflation Reduction Act (H.R. 5376) by a 51–50 vote, sending it to the House. The bill at one time was thought to have been “dead in the water,” but gained life with the support of Senators Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.).
Today’s sky-high inflation is largely caused by last year’s Democratic spending of $1.9 trillion in the taxpayer-funded American Rescue Plan. Spending another $740 billion on climate and healthcare boondoggles with this bill will only accelerate inflation.
Political analyst David Harsanyi notes, “The Inflation Reduction Act is to inflation what the Affordable Care Act — which doubled premium costs — was to health care insurance.”
Even Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who voted for the new bill, complained that it doesn’t do what its title claims — namely, reduce inflation — referring to it as the “so-called” Inflation Reduction Act. “I say so-called by the way, because according to the CBO and other economic organizations that have studied this bill, it will, in fact, have a minimal impact on inflation,” Sanders said on Saturday.
The Inflation Reduction Act includes hundreds of billions for boondoggle “green energy” projects, and hundreds of billions in tax increases — all of which will fuel inflation, not reduce it. Democrats have claimed this bill as a big win, especially for their leftist constituents, but it’s a big loser for American consumers and taxpayers, who will actually be paying for corporate tax increases and government redistribution of tax benefits for this bill’s pet projects.
Here are key points from the Democrats’ own summary of the Inflation Reduction Act:
• Enacts historic deficit reduction to fight inflation
• Lowers energy costs, increases cleaner production, and reduces carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030
• Allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices and caps out-of-pocket costs to $2,000
• Lowers ACA health care premiums for millions of Americans
• Make biggest corporations and ultra-wealthy pay their fair share
• There are no new taxes on families making $400,000 or less and no new taxes on small businesses — we are closing tax loopholes and enforcing the tax code.
In a recent interview on Fox & Friends Weekend, American Legislative Exchange Council economist Jonathan Williams hammered Democrats’ latest effort to combat inflation with the Inflation Reduction Act, arguing that raising taxes and increasing spending is “economic malpractice.”
Williams shared, “What we need is [to go] in the opposite direction and actually cut spending in Washington. It’s clear we don’t have a problem with the lack of tax revenue here. We’ve hit record tax revenue numbers time and time again in recent years, but we just spend faster than the taxes are coming in. And this is a huge problem here.”
All the Republican senators pushed hard against the bill, including Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) who blasted Biden’s $369 billion on “climate” and $433 billion in new spending: “This bill is going to fuel even more inflation. It’s not going to fight inflation, no matter what Joe Manchin says. And it is going to kill jobs by raising taxes on businesses. And by the way, those taxes will also fuel more inflation because businesses will pass tax hikes along to consumers. The last thing we should be doing is putting another trillion-dollar tax and spending bill into an economy that has both record-high inflation and a recession. That is something that only Joe Biden could have accomplished.”
If this bill becomes law, The Heritage Foundation estimates: “Taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes below $75,000 would ultimately shoulder an estimated $136 billion of new revenues from the corporate minimum tax and the IRS enforcement provisions, or about 26% of the total. Indeed, the revenues would fall disproportionately hard on taxpayers making less than $25,000 per year.”
What will the House of Representatives do with the Senate’s Inflation Reduction Act? If they pass it as it stands now, Americans will continue to suffer under Biden’s leftist regime. And with November elections nearing, Democrats in the House will need to consider their electability as their constituents decide if they deserve to remain in office. We can only hope this bill is too much for House Democrats to pass.
