Inflation Reduction Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on one final matter, Democrats want to pass huge, job-killing tax hikes in the middle of a recession that they themselves created--hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes on American jobs, American manufacturing, American electricity, and American investment.

Nonpartisan experts have proven these tax hikes will break President Biden's promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. The working class and the middle class will shoulder huge--huge--new burdens.

And all these tax hikes would buy American families no relief whatsoever from inflation. Nonpartisan experts say Democrats' bill would make inflation actually even worse until 2024 and then do basically nothing--nothing--to inflation thereafter. In the teeth of the inflation crisis, Democrats' bill would make inflation even worse over the next 2 years.

Even the most optimistic estimate, the best figures for Democrats, say it would take their legislation--listen to this--9 years--9 years-- to unwind as much inflation as the country added every week in the month of June--9 years of runaway taxing and spending in order to subtract 1 week's worth of inflation. And that is an optimistic projection.

Obviously, the point of this bill is not to reduce inflation. Clearly, this taxing-and-spending spree has a different purpose. And when you look at the legislation, the real purpose is absolutely clear: This bill is a massive goodie bag of far-left environmental activists at the expense of working families.

Democrats want to use their own inflation as a pretext to dump hundreds of billions of dollars into Green New Deal nonsense. This bill declares war on American energy independence and affordability. It will push working families' bills higher in order to send cash kickbacks to rich elites if they buy fancy cars and redo their kitchens.

Democrats literally want to increase working families' gas bill, electricity bill, and heating bill so they can send rebates to rich people who buy $80,000 luxury electric cars.

I am not making this up. They have come up with a huge new tax on American natural gas, which millions of Americans use to heat their homes, cook their food, and dry their clothes. On top of that, natural gas is the Nation's largest source of electricity. So Democrats want to add new taxes on top of two of the major bills that millions of American working families pay every month.

That is not all. There is also a new per-barrel tax on American oil and new royalties and fees to drive up the cost of oil and gas production on Federal lands.

With all the money they collect from shaking down American families, Democrats want to finance new credits for people who can afford to buy fancy new cars, stoves, and clothes dryers. Why? Because that is really ``green''--subsidizing retail therapy for liberal elites to rip out working appliances, throw them away, and replace them with the latest fashions.

We have the worst inflation in 40 years right now. Working families can barely afford gas and groceries right now. And Democrats' answer is to offer them a mail-in rebate if they buy an $80,000 car or remodel their kitchen? A specific subsidy for electric car buyers that the senior Senator from West Virginia once called ludicrous is in this bill which he has now authored.

Oh, and the bill tries to skirt a Supreme Court victory that West Virginia just won to stop Democrats' illegal regulations from crushing the State's economy. The legislation intentionally--intentionally-- flouts the victory that people of West Virginia just won a few weeks ago at the Supreme Court.

There are billions of dollars for environmental and climate justice block grants to directly enrich far-left nonprofits, including explicit language that would send taxpayer funding to political activism.

Democrats literally want to raise your electric bill in order to pay off their own protesters. I guess the people who stand in the middle of highways during rush hour to make some protest gesture now want to receive taxpayer money for their trouble. Oh--oh--and their bill would send billions of dollars to the Secretary of Transportation to tear up highways instead of building more highways.

If that is not enough, here is the kicker. All of this expensive nonsense adds up to no--no--meaningful impact whatsoever. All of these hundreds of billions of dollars to bankroll new appliances for rich people will not put so much as a dent--a dent--in worldwide emissions or temperatures.

The Washington Post admitted on Monday this legislation ``can scarcely be expected to have an immediate, measurable impact on the warming planet.''

Huge developing countries like China and India are dramatically increasing their emissions every year. Even according to liberals' own modeling, this bill that is supposedly worth looting--looting--the American people would have basically no measurable impact on global warming whatsoever.

Liberal waste, subsidies for the rich, and, according to their very own models, no meaningful impact on the climate--I guess Democrats think their 30 percent approval rating on the economy is actually still too high.

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