Deflate Manchin And Schumer’s Inflation Reduction Act
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) bears the fingerprints of Democrat Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Their 725-page ruin belies its billing, beginning with its fraudulent title. While Americans reel under 9.1% year-on-year inflation, IRA neglects the worst price surge since November 1981.
The Penn Wharton Budget Model politely mocks Democrat inflation-reduction claims. “The Act would very slightly increase inflation until 2024 and decrease inflation thereafter,” University of Pennsylvania economists reckon. “These point estimates are statistically indistinguishable from zero, thereby indicating low confidence that the legislation will have any impact on inflation.” IRA would fight inflation through higher government spending.
This is like battling alcoholism with just one more round of drinks. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, IRA would pour $485 billion of high-octane moonshine atop today’s inflationary inferno. This includes:
- $1.5 billion to plant trees
- $9 billion to help rich people buy electric cars
- $60 billion for “environmental justice”
- $64 billion to expand and extend ObamaCare subsidies
- $300 billion in corporate welfare for solar and wind projects, green batteries, carbon capture, and more
IRA also raises taxes by $470 billion, including $213 billion in corporate levies. This is dumb in boom times and idiotic in a recession, in which America is mired after two consecutive quarters of economic contraction — never mind Team Biden’s contradictory linguistic gymnastics.
Among these hikes:
- A new 15% corporate minimum tax
- A curbed carried-interest provision
- A boost in crude-oil and imported-petroleum taxes
IRA also would break President Joe Biden’s solemn pledge not to raise taxes on those earning under $400,000. The Congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) calculates that Americans earning $200,000 or less would pay at least $30.2 billion in new taxes through 2031 — $16.7 billion next year. Those making less than $10,000 can savor an aggregated $323 million tax hike starting in 2023.
Let’s go, Brandon!
The Tax Foundation previews this bill’s potential devastation:
“Using the Tax Foundation’s General Equilibrium Model, we estimate that the Inflation Reduction Act would reduce long-run economic output by about 0.1 percent and eliminate about 30,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the United States. It would also reduce average after-tax incomes for taxpayers across every income quintile over the long run.”
The Foundation added: “By reducing long-run economic growth, this bill may actually worsen inflation by constraining the productive capacity of the economy.”
IRA also would pump $124 billion into tax enforcement including $80 billion to double the Internal Revenue Service’s headcount. IRS last year answered just 10% of its phone calls. Largely ignoring this mess, some 87,000 new inspectors instead would investigate, audit, and litigate the returns of not just Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, but you and yours.
Why?
That’s where the money is.
Citing JEC, the Wall Street Journal editorialized on Wednesday: “… from 78% to 90% of the money raised from under-reported income would likely come from those making less than $200,000 a year. Only 4% to 9% would come from those making more than $500,000.”
Even worse, IRA’s “most damaging component by far remains its impact on health,” argues University of Chicago economics professor Tomas J. Philipson. This bill would empower Medicare to dictate drug prices. Impertinent pharmaceutical companies could charge more. But that would trigger a tax of up to 95%. This would strangle life-saving innovation.
Consequently, Philipson writes in Newsweek, “Over the next 17 years, the bill would reduce drug industry research and development by about $663 billion, resulting in 135 fewer new medicines. This will amount to a loss of 330 million life-years, about 30 times the loss from COVID-19 so far.”
In short, the Inflation Reduction Act would leave Americans poor, oppressed, sick and dead.
Nauseate? If so, please ring the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. Tell your senators and other lawmakers to deflate the Inflation Reduction Act. Just one Democrat No vote would avoid this catastrophe.
Manhattan-based political commentator Deroy Murdock is a Fox News Contributor. Aaron Cichon contributed research to this opinion piece.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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“The inflation reduction act” will further collapse our economy and destroy what’s left of the middle class. More inflation, billions in tax credits for “Green” energy and billions more for an army of armed IRS agents in case you are not compliant. The Globalists are wrecking economies across the world with their “Green New Deal” policies and our politicians (including many Republicans) are doing it here. It is inconceivable to me that they can watch Germany and all of Europe become slaves to Russian gas and oil, after decades of shutting down their coal fired plants and installing windmills and solar, and then want to do the same thing here. The supreme irony is destruction of the middle class in the name of “saving the planet”.
The recession is here and worse is coming. Their goal is to destroy our Republic and rule by a cabal between Democratic Politicians and big business. The Communists/Socialists in charge learned from watching Red China under Mao that, because they are incapable of producing anything, they must have an unholy alliance with big business otherwise millions will starve. That’s why the CEO’s of most big businesses have gone “woke”. The Democrats promise to leave their monopolies alone and provide all the cheap labor they can dream of by unfettered illegal immigration through our open border. Follow the money. Big Business also salivates over the virtually unlimited consumer market of 1.5 Billion Chinese vs. a mere 330 million in the U.S.. The CEO’s (and the Politicians) get richer and the Democrats are permanently in power.
As the country collapses further and the middle class is destroyed, Americans will beg for more government “help” and control. The new government policies (already being put in place) will purge the military, businesses, and, of course, the government of any opposition. The Mainstream and Social Media is obviously complicit. Coup complete. That’s also why they are “hands off” on the CCP; that’s their working model. We will become the western version with a Communist/Socialist ruling class in collusion with select monolithic corporations and the poor masses that will own nothing.