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Brady: Manchin-Biden Bill Means Higher Taxes, Harassing IRS Audits on Walmart Shoppers, No Relief from Inflation as America Battles Recession

August 12, 2022 — 'Inflation Reduction Act'    — Blog    — Health    — In Case You Missed It...    — Press Releases    — Select Revenue Measures    — Work and Welfare   

Democrats’ Manchin Biden Build Back Better bill means higher taxes, harassing IRS audits on lower- and middle-income earners, and no relief from inflation, all as America battles a recession, Ways and Means Republican Leader Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) said in remarks on the House Floor. “Do you really trust the same President and Democrats who drove this economy into a recession and drove prices sky high with yet another spending spree?”

 

CLICK HERE to watch Rep. Brady’s remarks.

Rep. Brady’s full remarks as prepared for delivery appear below.

 

Thank you Madame Chairman.

 

Sadly, this massive Senate bill – drawn in secret, stuffed with government checks to the wealthy and favored interests, rushed through Congress – is a hoax on the American people.

 

It fails to reduce inflation, fails to reduce the budget deficit, and fails to reduce the world’s temperature.

 

Who in their right mind raises taxes in a recession? 

 

The answer is, only President Biden and his supporters in Congress who bungled this economic recovery think this is a good idea.

 

You remember them. They told you they would defeat COVID, that inflation was a rich person’s problem, that their $2 trillion spending spree would strengthen the economy.

 

Instead, what did their promises deliver? The worst inflation in 40 years, a recession, and a crippling worker shortage that continues to hammer Main Street businesses. 

 

Today, we have a shrinking economy, shrinking paychecks, and a shrinking workforce. 

 

Families are skipping meals, running up credit card debt to pay for daily essentials, delaying retirement, and struggling to afford gas just to drive to work. Yet Democrats today insist inflation doesn’t even exist – they say it’s “zero.” 

 

The truth is, most Americans have lost confidence in President Biden’s failed handling of the economy. By contrast, the majority of the jobs in the COVID recovery came under President Trump. Under Republican leadership, paychecks grew twice as fast as prices. The economy was surging, not shrinking, and 600,000 more Americans were working than today than under this unpopular White House.

 

Why would you trust the same Democrats responsible for this cruel economy with another of their misguided spending bills?  

 

While other countries are lowering taxes to fight inflation, Democrats impose over $350 billion in taxes that land on local manufacturers that build right here in America. It will kill jobs, slow the economy, and raise prices even higher.

 

Small businesses – who hire nearly half of all workers in America – get hammered with $50 billion in new taxes.

 

Senior citizens and savers will bear the impact of $74 billion in new taxes that punish companies from investing in their stock value. 

 

All these taxes will hurt the economy, drive inflation further, and harm workers’ paychecks, according to the independent Tax Foundation. 

 

Democrats promise that no American will “see a penny” of tax hikes. Yet Congress’ own Budget Office debunks that claim, confirming the largest burden of higher taxes will come from middle-class families starting next year.

 

President Biden is violating his own pledge not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans. He’s denying that truth. 

 

Yesterday, House Democrats insisted there are no new IRS agents funded in this bill. Read their lips: “No new IRS agents.” They say it’s all fear mongering and they’re just hiring replacements. 

 

Unfortunately, the fact is the IRS budget already budgets for those who are leaving through attrition, and the Treasury Department itself outlines the next decade of adding 87,000 new IRS agents. That’s what this bill unleashes.

 

The Congressional Budget Office reports “audit rates will increase for every income level,” that “almost 90 percent of unreported tax income comes from middle-class taxpayers.”

 

How will Democrats collect $200 billion in more taxes? With thousands of new agents targeting what I would call Walmart shoppers. You know them: they’re real hard working American families. They are my constituents, they are my neighbors in my district. They’re living paycheck to paycheck, struggling with inflation and high gas prices. 

 

They will be hit with over 700,000 new audits thanks to a skyrocketing surge in IRS agents. 

 

Maybe that’s why Democrats blocked any language in the Senate that protects Walmart shoppers and other value-shopping families against these new IRS audits. 

 

Man, in this bill, they love the wealthy. If the Green New Deal and corporate welfare had a baby, it would look like this. 

 

Nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in Green New Deal subsidies – government handouts – go to the wealthy and to the biggest, most successful businesses in America.

 

Look at this: a single working mom will pay higher taxes so they can be sent in a government check to wealthy investors and massive corporations. 

 

A yardman will send his taxes in a government check to the very well-to-do family whose lawn he’s cutting – so they can splurge on an $80,000 luxury electric vehicle.

 

Incredibly, to fund all these government handouts, every Senate Democrat and the Vice President chose to impose higher taxes on small businesses so millionaires and billionaires would be protected from higher state and local taxes.

 

Everyone facing devastating diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s will pay a deadly price. This crazy bill increases the cost of health care and medicines – and kills new life-saving cures – while providing Obamacare subsidies for the wealthy and those choosing not to return to work – making the worker shortage harsher. 

 

Congress’s nonpartisan scorekeeper, and the Penn Wharton School of Business, and the University of Chicago, all confirm the government price-fixing scheme could be a death sentence for patients, raising the costs of new drugs, crushing innovation, and killing hundreds of cures.

 

Higher taxes, harassing IRS audits on our Walmart shoppers, no relief from inflation – all as America battles a recession.

 

Let me ask again: Do you really trust the same President and Democrats who drove this economy into a recession and drove prices sky high with yet another spending spree? 

 

I strongly urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill.