Key Vote Alert – No on Schumer-Manchin Reconciliation

NO” on So-Called “Inflation Reduction Act”

The Club for Growth opposes the offensively named “Inflation Reduction Act” and urges all Senators to vote NO. A vote is likely to occur soon. If the bill passes the Senate, the key vote will extend to the House of Representatives. The results of this vote (or votes) will be included in the Club for Growth Foundation’s 2022 congressional scorecard.

The Inflation Reduction Act assumes the American People are stupid. Already, independent analysis reveals the legislation would actually increase inflation. This legislation is bad for economic growth.

Schumer/Manchin:

• Spends $369 billion on green/radical environmental climate policies and increases taxes by over $700 billion, just days after the U.S. officially entered the Biden Recession, which has been felt by the American People for many months through a 40+ year high in inflation, exceeding 9%.
• Kills over 27,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs and will vastly increase energy costs in America. The bill is loaded w/ budgetary gimmicks so that Manchin can argue it will reduce deficits. These budgetary smoke & mirrors are exposed by CBO’s analysis.
• Includes $80 billion to hire 87,000 new IRS agents that will work to fulfill Socialist Dems’ mission to confiscate wealth in America.
• More Socialism, more socialized medicine, more Socialist price controls to force drug manufacturers to accept whatever prices Joe Biden or unelected bureaucrats in the Biden Admin thinks is fair, distorting the free market economy with price controls, causing less innovation & stopping new drugs from making it into the marketplace.
• Expands Obamacare, subsidizing the costs of health insurance for people that make as much as $300,000.
• Includes carveouts for union bosses by implementing prevailing wage requirements for companies that utilize tax credits in the bill.
• Includes $60 billion in corporate welfare for green energy corporations. This Green New Deal Steal once again is an example of government picking winners and losers in the marketplace.

Over the past two and a half years, the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed economic calamity. Wasting no crisis to enact a policy agenda, Congress repeatedly passed laws throwing trillions of dollars into the economy, while giving workers government stimulus checks to incentivize millions of workers to stay out of the labor market altogether. Congress’ overreaction to COVID, and not COVID itself, created the economic recipe for the Biden Recession and historic inflation, which currently stands at 9.1 percent. Inflation has been known as the “hidden tax increase” because it decreases purchasing power and erases wage growth. But Bidenflation is not a hidden tax increase. It is an economic reality faced by all Americans at the kitchen table balancing the checkbook, at the gas pump filling up the family car, and at the grocery store when buying food.

Americans recently learned what they’ve been feeling for many months: America is officially in the Biden Recession.

Last month the Biden White House even took steps to redefine what constitutes a recession in order to distort the economic news that would hit the American People days later. Despite a mostly-complicit main-stream media echoing the White House’s propaganda, the reality of a recession sunk in long ago for the American people through higher costs, lower wages, an energy crisis, and a supply chain crisis caused by the mischievous politicians in Washington.

Make no mistake, Congress cannot spend its way out of this economic recession. America cannot tax its way out of economic recession. And America cannot regulate its way out of an economic recession. Increased taxes, increased spending, and increased regulation will only make the recession worse.

But that is just what the latest hair-brained idea from the Schumer/Manchin reconciliation bill does. The Fake-Inflation Reduction Act increases taxes by $739 billion, spends $433 billion more on Green New Deal Climate policies and socialized health care, and increases the economic burden on innovation by providing for new regulations that will suffocate economic growth from America’s private sector innovators and entrepreneurs. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the bill will increase taxes by billions of dollars on households earning less than $200,000 – which is half of the amount ($400,000) that President Biden promised repeatedly never to increases taxes on! President Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on the American People is another political lie. The political reality is that Democrats are addicted to tax increases, confiscating the American People’s wealth in order to fundamentally transform the United States into a socialist country.

Congress should firmly reject this atrocious reconciliation bill. The American People demand it.

But what can Washington do to address the Biden Recession and Bidenflation?

For starters, Congress must freeze spending. Milton Friedman said, “Inflation is just like alcoholism. In both cases when you start drinking or when you start printing too much money, the good effects come first. The bad effects only come later. That’s why in both cases there is a strong temptation to overdo it. To drink too much and to print too much money. When it comes to the cure, it’s the other way around. When you stop drinking or when you stop printing money, the bad effects come first and the good effects only come later.” Freezing federal spending may cause a government hangover that tempts lawmakers into spending more of the federal taxpayers’ dollars, but enacting a spending freeze in statute will force Congress to prioritize federal spending programs and make tough decisions over what to fund, rather than funding everything and increasing spending again and again and again.

Next Congress should reduce taxes in order to increase competitiveness, reassert investor confidence, and give job creators certainty in their short and long-term planning decisions. Returning taxpayer dollars through decreased taxation will force Congress to live within its means, unleash new economic activity, and provide for robust economic growth activities, like new job creation, increased productivity, and increased wages – resulting in higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which is necessary given the recessionary effects being forced on the economy through higher taxes, excessive spending, and endless regulation.

Last, Congress should finally pass the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. The REINS Act redefines a “major” rule as one that OMB determines may have an economic impact of $100 million or greater each year. Once the major rule is drafted, it must be affirmatively approved by both chambers of Congress and signed by the President. The bill will rescind unelected bureaucrats’ power and return more power to the American People.

The Biden Recession includes DNA from Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, career politicians and unelected bureaucrats. In order to rescue America’s economic future, it will take a bipartisan approach that drastically limits the federal government’s involvement through fiscal restraint, tax cuts, and deregulation. America must be given the chance at rebuilding the private economy without intervention and a heavy hand from disconnected politicians.

It is passed time to give the American People what they want and what they need to get through the COVID Pandemic, Bidenflation, and the Biden Recession. We need real leadership – not to make people feel good by spending taxpayer-dollars like drunken sailors. But what we need is leadership for freedom.

Club for Growth Foundation’s Congressional Scorecard for the 117th Congress provides a comprehensive rating of how well or how poorly each member of Congress supports pro-growth, free-market policies and will be distributed to the public.