Local Business Taxes, Regulations, and Reduced Workforce

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARR. Madam Speaker, I thank my good friend from Missouri, a real leader on the Financial Services Committee, and also our ranking Republican and leader on the Small Business Committee and tireless champion for America's small businesses. That is where all of the jobs are created in this country.

For the life of me, Madam Speaker, on the heels of horrible third- quarter GDP numbers, I don't know why the Biden administration wants to put new taxes on small businesses. The GDP numbers for the third quarter were far short of what economists predicted and, yet President Biden's plan to so-called Build Back Better is actually a $400 billion tax hike on job-creating small businesses.

The bulk of this comes from an expansion of the 3.8 percent net investment income tax that is now going to hit active income for these pass-through businessowners. Democrats want to expand this to investment income of individuals actively involved in LLCs, S corporations, and partnerships, those small mom-and-pop Main Street businesses that really create jobs in our country.

Additionally, the Democrats are also pushing an $800 billion tax hike on American businesses that will be a gift to China, Russia, Japan, and Europe, making it better to be a foreign company than an American one. These crippling tax hikes will kill American jobs, drive economic activity overseas, and destroy small businesses as they struggle to recover from the pandemic.

As if this wasn't bad enough, Democrats want to arm the Internal Revenue Service with $80 billion in additional funds to target American small businesses and families. So not only will small businesses in Kentucky have their taxes go up, but they should prepare for an avalanche of new audits coming their way courtesy of this Big Government socialist bill.

On top of that, this legislation will only add fuel to the fire of the burning inflation crisis. This year the Consumer Price Index is up 5.4 percent, the highest in 13 years, but the Personal Consumption Expenditure Index, less food and energy costs, is up 3.6 percent, well above the Fed's 2 percent target and the highest in over 30 years.

Madam Speaker, the longer this inflation surge drags on, the risk of inflation becoming embedded in our economy grows more and more. This multitrillion-dollar Big Government socialist tax-borrow-and-spend bill will bury American entrepreneurs in taxes and debt. But one interest group that will be happy with this Big Government socialist bill, if it passes, are the unions that fund the Democratic Party.

Tucked inside of this bill is a proposal to provide a $4,500 additional incentive exclusively for union-built electric vehicles. This provision runs counter to the Democrats' purported goal of reducing carbon emissions and getting more electric vehicles on the road. That is because nearly half of all U.S. automotive production comes from automakers with workforces who have chosen to not unionize. In fact, of the 60 automakers in the United States who build electric vehicles, only 2 are unionized. So Democrats are effectively pitting American autoworkers at union plants against the autoworkers who work in my congressional district at the Toyota manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, the largest Toyota manufacturing plant in the world. But small businesses are impacted because small businesses that are not unionized are part of the supply chain.

So let me be clear: There is no environmental benefit or additional carbon reduction achieved by favoring union-made vehicles over nonunion-made vehicles. While Democrats lecture about the need to provide alternatives to the combustion engine, to gas-powered vehicles, the irony here is that this bill greatly restricts the ability for tax credits to actually reach consumers. This is because Democrats are limiting the tax credit to union-built, U.S.-assembled vehicles and applying these proposed limitations to the current EV market. Estimates indicate that only 2 of over 50 electric vehicles would qualify for the full tax credit.

This is not building back better. This is a payoff to political supporters. Nearly half of all U.S. automotive production comes from automakers with workforces that have chosen to not unionize. Why are we punishing these manufacturers of electric vehicles? Because it is not about the environment. It is not about promoting electric vehicles. It is about a political payoff to union supporters of these campaigns. This provision is nothing more than that; a payoff to the union bosses who control Democrat politicians in Congress and the Democrat in the White House.

We should be for small businesses. And if we are for the environment, we shouldn't discriminate against nonunion automakers and the small businesses that support nonunion manufacturers like Toyota in Kentucky's Sixth Congressional District.

I thank my friend from Missouri for his leadership in opposing this massive tax increase on small businesses and for helping me highlight the hypocrisy of the supporters of this bill.

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