During the August break, every Republican House and Senate candidate should challenge their Democratic opponents to defend the new, destructive, and unpopular Joe Manchin-Chuck Schumer bill.
Democrats hope to camouflage the bill by calling it the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.” In the business world, this title would lead to a lawsuit over false advertising. [bold, links added]
As I wrote in my latest best-selling book, Defeating Big Government Socialism, this kind of dishonest branding is standard procedure for the Orwellian party that modern Democrats have become.
An accurate title of the bill would be the “Higher Taxes, Bigger IRS, and More Inflation Act of 2022.”
If Republicans aggressively communicate the details of the Manchin-Schumer bill, it will become prohibitively expensive for any Democrats to vote for it.
Scott Rasmussen highlighted the American public’s opposition to this bill once it is accurately explained.
In a poll this past weekend, Rasmussen discovered that 55% of Americans favor cutting government spending and taxes, while only 23% favor higher taxes and spending.
Just on this overview, Republican candidates will have a more than 2:1 majority opposing higher taxes and bigger spending. And by 44% to 17%, Americans believe higher taxes and government spending will increase inflation.
According to Rasmussen, “when told half the tax burden will fall on manufacturing industries, 63% say it is likely to make supply chain problems worse.”
Only 19% of Americans think the bill’s so-called book tax will not affect the supply chain.
I would add that increasing taxes on our manufacturing industries when we are competing with China is totally backward-thinking—and virtually suicidal, in terms of national security.
Democrats should also take notice: The pain caused by the bad energy policies supported in the bill is undermining support for green policies.
Some 66% of Americans now think reducing the price of gas is more important than reducing carbon emissions.
In fact, according to Rasmussen, 46% say more spending on climate change and clean energy programs will increase the price of gasoline, while only 21% think it will lower the price of gas.
When told the new Manchin-Schumer bill will lead to 86,000 additional Internal Revenue Service agents (the IRS currently has 78,661 full-time staff), the Americans oppose it by 53% to 31%.
But the intensity factor is enormous. Some 29% strongly oppose the plan, while only 9% strongly favor it. That is a more than 3:1 opposition at the extremes.
When people realize most of these IRS agents will not be going after billionaires and big companies—but will instead be auditing waitresses, Uber drivers, self-employed people, and small businesses—I expect the opposition will grow even more intense.
As Rasmussen described it, “The new legislation being considered would double the size of the IRS so that the agency can conduct audits on an additional 1.2 million taxpayers every year. The agency has set a goal of increasing the audits of small business owners by 50%.”
Finally, despite the Democrats’ deeply dishonest title, the bill will increase the rate of inflation in the near term—not reduce it.
As The Daily Wire reported, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania found that the bill “could lead to a slight increase in inflation over the next two years.”
While the bill is touted as eventually reducing inflation after 2024, the Wharton School study found: “These point estimates are statistically indistinguishable from zero, thereby indicating low confidence that the legislation will have any impact on inflation.”
So, not only will the bill increase inflation over the next few years, it will ultimately have no impact in the long term.
The Manchin-Schumer bill is an enormous opportunity for Republicans—and a genuine learning moment for the American people.
It is crystal clear that the current economic performance failures of the Democrats are caused by the underlying destructive policies they promote.
Further, Republicans should also clearly expose the consistently dishonest and hypocritical language Democrats use to fool Americans.
Every Republican candidate for House and Senate should challenge his or her Democratic opponent to a series of focused debates during the August recess.
Republicans should assert that the Manchin-Schumer bill is a higher tax, bigger IRS, and more inflation bill that will be bad for America.
Every Democratic candidate for office this November should be made to debate the point.
When Democrats try to hide behind the bill’s phony title and dishonest talking points, Republicans should be ready to challenge them on substance with clear examples.
Read rest at Newsweek
Ultimately, Congress continues to compound every problem they originally created by adding more useless legislation to pretend to fix the mistakes. Congress is NOT your friend…never was and never will be.
Well, when you have folks that cannot clearly identify what a “woman” is, why would you be surprised they can’t identify what INFLATION is? The voters better not get “suckered” in November. Otherwise, we will be circling the drain…
Randy, or identify what a recession is.
I read, years ago, that every new auditor hired by the Canada Revenue Agency resulted in approximately one million additional dollars in tax and penalties. However, Ottawa knew that it was, politically, a net loss .
I’ll also point out to the Democrats that undocumented immigrant workers are probably paid with cash. Where does that cash come from?