Inflation Reduction Act is welfare for the wealthy

By U.S. Rep. Jason Smith
R-Missouri
https://waysandmeans.house.gov/

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Democrats’ so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA) was never anything other than a smoke screen for their extreme spending agenda and handouts to the wealthy and well-connected. 

On the one-year anniversary of President Biden signing the IRA, it is as clear today as it was then that the law was not intended to help working families, but rather spend hundreds of billions of tax dollars on special interest tax breaks for the wealthy, big banks, billion-dollar corporations and foreign countries like China. 

The cost to taxpayers for the special interest tax breaks alone is now estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to be at least $650 billion, 240 percent higher than what Democrats originally told the American people.

The so-called Inflation Reduction Act is a massive transfer of tax dollars from working families to the wealthy, big banks, billion-dollar companies, and the Chinese Communist Party. 

Even President Biden has openly admitted that this law had little to do with combatting the high prices families are facing every day. 

These same families that are struggling to afford groceries and school supplies are being forced to pay for a $7,500 tax break for the wealthy to buy a luxury electric vehicle, pay for Obamacare subsidies to households making up to $600,000, and finance Wall Street’s green obsession. 

Over 90 percent of the tax breaks go to companies that make over a $1 billion in sales every single year, but nothing for small businesses. 

The Biden Administration is using the IRA to weaken our trade rules, kill American jobs and spend billions to keep America dependent on China for critical minerals. At the same time, Democrats supercharged the IRS with 87,000 new employees to audit more working families and small businesses.

The Inflation Reduction Act shows that Democrats are selling out taxpayers and America’s interests for the sake of their extreme climate agenda. That is why House Ways and Means Committee Republicans took action on legislation that would replace these handouts to the wealthy and well-connected with tax relief for working families. 

Our priorities could not be more different.