WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding the economy:
“When it comes to our economy, American families do not trust this Democratic Party government one bit.
“Nearly 90% of Americans are feeling anxious about inflation. 28% approve of how President Biden is handling it. Only 22% think things will get any better after another year on his watch.
“Americans’ distrust of Democrats stands to reason. Because a year and a half ago, every single Senate Democrat provided the deciding vote for a $1.9-trillion reckless spending spree that’s caused the worst inflation in 40 years.
“The Democratic Leader, Senator Schumer, said back then ‘I do not think the dangers of inflation, at least in the near term, are very real.’ He led every Senate Democrat to cast the deciding vote for the party-line spending spree that has destroyed families’ purchasing power through inflation.
“Now the very same people want to deal our economy another body blow on a party line vote.
“The same Democrats who said that a $1.9 trillion spending spree would not cause inflation are now saying it’s a good idea to raise taxes, kill jobs, attack American energy, and hammer American manufacturing. All in the middle of the apparent recession which they created.
“Everyone knows that raising taxes in a recession kills jobs. But that’s precisely what Democrats are desperate to do.
“They’re proposing a huge new tax hike on American jobs, more than $300 billion.
“The Joint Committee on Taxation says a whopping 50% of that burden would fall directly on our nation’s manufacturing sector. In the middle of a supply chain crisis, Democrats want huge, job-killing tax hikes that will disproportionately crush American manufacturing and manufacturing jobs.
“Democrats also want a huge new tax hike on American natural gas.
“Natural gas is the single largest source of electricity generation in our entire country. A plurality of all the power in America comes from natural gas. It’s also how countless families heat their homes. And it’s a lynchpin of our domestic energy independence and our ability to export to allies like Europe. But the Green New Deal Democrats are coming straight after American natural gas with huge new tax hikes.
“The result would be higher electricity bills, higher heating costs, less exporting to our European allies just as Putin is trying to cut them off, and 90,000 workers in the oil and gas industry out of a job.
“Democrats’ tax hikes on American energy don’t stop there. With gas prices still sky-high, our colleagues are also proposing to resurrect a defunct tax that would take direct aim at American oil refining — and they want it pegged to inflation, so the tax hike will automatically climb up and up exactly when the country can least afford it.
“On top of all this, Democrats also want to pour new funding into the IRS so they can more easily come after more small businesses. IRS agents get new cars and new computers; small businesses get more audits.
“Add it all up, these tax hikes and others, and Democrats want to drop an anvil on our economy at the worst possible time.
“The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation has demonstrated the Democrats’ plan would shatter President Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on households earning less than $400,000.
“Households making less than half that amount — less than $200,000 — would see a $16.7 billion tax hike in the year 2023 alone. Amazingly the very lowest-earning Americans who make less than $10,000 per year would see the largest percentage tax hike of any group in the entire bill.
“Democrats are labeling all these tax hikes the, ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’ But nonpartisan experts have already proven that is flat-out false. The budget experts at Penn-Wharton show this bill would slightly increase inflation in the near term and do nothing to meaningfully reduce it in the long term.
“When you raise taxes on something, Madam President, you get less of it.
“In the middle of a recession, Democrats want to raise taxes on American jobs.
“In the middle of an energy crisis, Democrats want to raise taxes on American energy.
“In the middle of a middle-class inflation crisis, Democrats want to raise taxes on households way below the President’s $400,000 threshold.
“All of this economic genius is brought to you by the same people who called a $1.9 trillion inflation time bomb the, ‘American Rescue Plan’ and promised it wouldn’t cause inflation right before it did.
“We know what it looks like when Democrats say they’ll help the economy. And American families can’t take much more of it.”
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