Democrats’ Reckless Taxing and Spending Spree Would Worsen Families’ Existing Problems
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Democrats reckless tax and spending spree:
“Inflation is hammering working families from coast to coast, but Democrats want to print, borrow, and spend trillions more.
“Our economy is already sputtering on their watch, but Democrats want to wallop the country with massive tax hikes that would kill American jobs and discourage industry from locating in the U.S.A.
“Everybody with a lick of common sense knows the massive, reckless taxing and spending spree that Democrats are writing behind closed doors is crazy.
“A supermajority of Americans, 67%, say that ‘inflation and rising costs’ are ‘harm[ing] everyone in the country’ and ‘government should cut back on spending and printing money’ as a result.
“Two in three Americans want Washington Democrats to step back from the precipice. An overwhelming consensus. But a few loud voices on the far left are yelling at Democrats to ignore the people… and take the plunge.
“The sheer financial cost of what Democrats want to do to our country is jaw-dropping.
“Even when the Congressional Budget Office had to swallow all the Democrats’ budget gimmicks and fuzzy math at face value, they still found that their reckless taxing and spending spree would add $800 billion to the deficit in the next five years. Another $800 billion in deficit spending during a time of inflation.
“But even that almost certainly undershoots it.
“The Democrats’ legislation pretends that liberals will let all these huge new entitlements expire after a few years. It’s a total accounting fiction. They are marketing these new welfare programs
as moral imperatives. Democrats don’t want them to expire. But they draft bills with these fake expiration dates to make it appear like it costs less.
“Outside experts have tried to estimate the real cost of the bill, if all these new welfare entitlements didn’t magically fall away after a few years. They say the bill would actually cost double what Democrats say and leave us with $2.8 trillion in new debt.
“Let me repeat that. Nonpartisan experts who look past the Democrats’ fictional accounting and fake assumptions find this bill would add $2.8 trillion to the deficit.
“That’s how you risk turning a couple years of inflation into a full-on lost decade.
***
“But the problem with their reckless taxing and spending spree is not just the price tag.
“It is not the case that Democrats have cooked up a great list of investments that would strengthen America, but we just can’t afford it at this particular moment.
“No, our colleagues want to ram through a far-left wish list that would hurt families and help China.
“There’s no grand national project waiting on the other side of all these trillions. No 21st century version of the Hoover Dam or the Interstate Highway System or the Space Race. Nothing to really make us proud.
“Just a mediocre assortment of new welfare programs, new transfers, and new bureaucratic power grabs.
“And somehow it all seems tailor-made to take existing problems in our country and make them worse. Take, for example, the nationwide labor shortage facing our economy right now:
“One of the most vocal of the House’s self-styled democratic socialists said last year that, even after workplaces were once again safe, people should simply refuse to go back to work.
“Forget science, forget economic recovery, ‘just say ‘no’.’
“Well, this spring, the far left got their wish: a massive, unnecessary spending package that stunted our comeback and literally paid people to stay on the sidelines. By summertime, unfilled positions were setting new all-time highs.
“And yet Washington Democrats now want to double down with a plan that would shatter a decades-old consensus about the link between welfare and work.
“They want to massively expand access to welfare – including to people in this country illegally – by hijacking the child tax credit that was designed for working families with actual tax liabilities.
“Or look at the ongoing obsession with Green New Deal policies.
“President Biden’s cave to the far left’s climate agenda started on Day One: Cancelling American jobs and the Keystone XL pipeline and freezing exploration on new sources of domestic energy.
“Last year, the United States was a net energy exporter. Now, on Democrats’ watch, we’ve doubled our imports of Russian oil. And American households are staring down an historic spike in home heating costs.
“Was it time to pump the brakes on green radicalism? Not if you ask Washington Democrats. Their reckless taxing and spending spree would heap a fresh batch of fees and mandates on producers of the most affordable domestic energy while showering incentives on the pricey and unreliable alternatives blue-state liberals prefer.
“Pouring government subsidies into ‘green’ pet projects like electric cars and solar panels would mean handing a massive windfall to Chinese producers that dominate the markets for a slew of the rare earth materials these products require. Hurts families; helps China.
“Look at education. The same Democrats who let their Big Labor benefactors rob kids of in-person schooling are now letting the Biden Justice Department scrutinize parents who dare to question woke propaganda.
“Their reckless taxing and spending spree would go even further to take power and control away from parents. Democrats want to bring even more of kids’ learning, down to pre-K, under the thumb of woke bureaucrats and Big Labor.
“And even prior to pre-K, Democrats have cooked up a crazy new labyrinth of regulations and subsidies and mandates for daycare. President Biden and Speaker Pelosi want to tell the American people how to raise their kids and how to structure their private family arrangements.
“These liberals want to take families’ most personal life decisions and have Washington pick winners and losers.
“The cost of childcare would actually be driven up.
“Families who’ve made different sets of sacrifices to have a parent or grandparent raise their young kids would get nothing.
“Many Americans’ faith-based providers would be intentionally shut out from important funding. And the culture-warrior Secretary Becerra would call the shots.
“It’s like I said, Mr. President: The actual substance of their bill is as awful as the price tag.
“Democrats’ plan wouldn’t just waste trillions and exacerbate inflation. It would also make American families lives’ considerably worse.”
###
Related Issues: Senate Democrats, Labor, Economy, Energy, Tax Reform, Taxes, China, Green New Deal, Inflation
Next Previous
