TOPLINE: Democrats’ radical agenda has caused inflation to soar to its highest level in 41 years. Now, Democrats are lying to the American people about the true cost of another reckless bill. Democrats’ Inflation, Recession, and IRS Army Act would devastate the U.S. economy, reverse American energy independence, and hurt middle class families. How can Democrats support raising taxes on struggling American workers and small businesses in the middle of a recession?   A Tax Increase on Hardworking Families During A Recession

Despite the Biden White House’s pathetic attempts to redefine what a “recession” means, the American people know the pain of Biden’s cruel economy all too well. Unfortunately, the Democrats are worsening this economic reality by spending more money and raising taxes on businesses and families even higher. 

When he was Governor of West Virginia, Joe Manchin said, “I don’t think during a time of recession you mess with any of the taxes or increase any taxes.”

Now, despite decrying wasteful government spending and new taxation, Senator Manchin’s legislation, which he co-authored with Senate Majority Leader Schumer, increases taxes on families and will exacerbate inflation.     In an analysis conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, the Manchin-Schumer bill’s impact on inflation is “expected to be statistically indistinguishable from zero.”     Inflation has reached a 41-year high in Joe Biden’s America. Prices are rising faster than paychecks, and the impact disproportionately hurts families with lower incomes.

American workers and small businesses had their hard-earned money wasted by Democrats on non-COVID-related, liberal wish list items that have hurt our economic recovery and led us into a recession.

Now, Democrats want to use the Inflation, Recession, and IRS Army Act to collect more taxes from all Americans.

President Biden said that “not a single American in the middle class will pay higher taxes” because of Manchin and Schumer’s legislation. 

He’s wrong. 

Their bill will allow the Internal Revenue Service to hire an additional 87,000 agents to audit Americans. This is more than four times the current amount of Border Patrol agents protecting our country.     A Back Door for the Green New Deal

President Biden and his allies in Congress are attempting to ram another tax increase and spending plan on a simple party-line vote.

By declaring war on American energy, banning drilling on public lands, and killing the Keystone pipeline, President Biden has increased electricity and home heating costs and caused the price of gasoline to skyrocket to record levels.   

Democrats fought hard to include their liberal climate mandates in Manchin and Schumer’s Inflation, Recession, and IRS Army Act. These provisions include:  

• Superfund Tax: The bill includes a superfund tax increase on crude oil refining and imported petroleum products. This tax will increase costs that may be passed on to consumers in the form of higher gas prices.
• Natural Gas Tax: The bill includes a natural gas tax that will make it more expensive for Americans to heat their homes, purchase food and basic goods, and will increase costs for manufacturers that may be passed onto consumers, further increasing costs on everyday items.
• Solyndra on Steroids: Democrats are proposing a $250 billion expansion of the Department of Energy loan program to provide taxpayer subsidies to Democrat special interests for “green” energy technologies that are so risky traditional banks will not back them. This $250 billion slush fund will be ripe for even more waste, fraud, and abuse than the Obama-era Solyndra fiasco.
• EPA-Run Climate Bank: Democrats propose an additional $27 billion to fund more Democrat special interest pet projects for their radical rush-to-green agenda.
• Climate Justice: The bill includes grants intended to shut down American energy with a $3 billion down payment on Green New Deal programs. These grants will be used by “non-profit community groups” to advance their political and legal activism and in their rush to transition, which will make America more dependent on Chinese supply chains and critical minerals.
• Electric Garbage Trucks: The bill includes $1 billion to electrify local garbage trucks and bus fleets.
• Oil and Gas Leasing: Raises the royalty rate for onshore oil and gas leasing, imposes a new per-acre fee to nominate lease parcels, imposes a new royalty rate for offshore oil and gas leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf, and continues ban on oil and gas development in the Eastern Gulf and certain areas of the Atlantic Ocean.
• Department of Interior Slush Fund: The bill provides $500 million that will likely be used to fund more liberal pet projects and misguided endeavors.
• A new handout for Californians and the coastal elite. The bill includes an electric vehicle tax credit of up to $7,500 tax credit for wealthier Americans to buy new electric vehicles, which is likely to overwhelmingly benefit elites in California as they currently have 39 percent of all EVs in the U.S.

  Make no mistake: This legislation will do nothing to lower gas prices and forces the United States to continue to beg foreign countries like Venezuela, Iran, and Saudi Arabia for oil rather than turn to U.S. energy producers.   Soviet-Style Price-Fixing and Special Obamacare Subsidy Rules That Ignore Income

In their far-left Inflation, Recession, and IRS Army Act, Democrats included price controls on drugs for seniors. This anti-free market legislation comes at the expense of pharmaceutical innovation.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates these price controls will result in 15 fewer drugs over the next 30 years under this bill. Others estimate the impact on drug innovation and development will be much greater.   If this socialist scheme is passed into law, millions of patients could die waiting for new drugs and cures that will no longer be developed in their lifetime. For context, about 10 million seniors currently use the top 15 drugs in Medicare.

In addition, the Inflation, Recession, and IRS Army Act will actually increase drug prices.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that the inflation-rebate and negotiation provisions would “increase the launch prices for drugs that are not yet on the market relative to what such prices would be otherwise.”

This is primarily due to the inflation price controls that apply to drugs each year. That policy gives manufacturers an incentive to launch new drugs at a higher price to offset slower growth in prices over time.   The bill also includes a three-year extension of the massive Obamacare expansion that Democrats put into their first reckless spending bill last year.

The three-year Congressional Budget Office estimate of this policy is $64 billion, but of course, Democrats want this policy to last forever, which will actually cost the taxpayers $248 billion over this budget window.

This expansion of Obamacare does two terrible things: 1) it expands subsidies for already eligible enrollees, allowing millions of enrollees to pay $0 for their coverage, and 2) expands who is eligible for subsidies by removing Obamacare’s original income cap, allowing wealthier individuals to qualify.

The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that 54 percent of the new spending on Obamacare subsidies will go to people that never qualified for a dime from taxpayers under Obamacare’s original design.