Rationalizing

New York City NY

Description

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin just resurrected key pieced of Biden's 'Build Back Better' agenda, agreeing to join his fellow Democrats in signing the "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022" - a bill that has nothing to do with reducing inflation and everything to do with raising taxes and destroying reliable energy resources. Democrats have been trying to pass a spending bill for the past year, but Manchin [the final vote they need] has previously stood in their way, rightfully claiming that spending would only increase inflation. Manchin caved. Now, Manchin's office put out some bare facts on how it plans to raise money and how it plans to spend it: Raising money: The bill aims to raise $739 billion dollars over the next 10 years by: Raising taxes on businesses: $313 billion, but if you raise taxes too much on business they will move the business to another country 'Prescription drug pricing reform': $288 billion -Lower Drug Prices too much and you will lose research. Increasing IRS audits on Americans: $124 billion - How exciting is that ! Carried interest loophole: $14 billion, so that they will be taxed at the tax rate of the taxpayer. Historically when spending money: Govt has earned serious doubts that the numbers above will be raised. And we don't know yet what 'prescription drug pricing reform' means. But assuming the numbers work, they will be redistributed towards: Climate change and energy security: $369 billion Pay for Obamacare for 3 years: $64 billion The $300 billion left over would go towards reducing the federal deficit that currently sits at $30 trillion. This is how Manchin is RATIONALIZING his decision to vote for the bill. Again, I doubt the bill will raise what Democrats are projecting. So this could be just an inflation inducing pipe dream. "Democrats have already crushed American families with historic inflation. Now they want to pile on giant tax hikes that will hammer workers and kill many thousands of American jobs." McConnell got played: He had previously threatened to kill a separate bill to fund semiconductor chip manufacturing if Democrats tried to do this social spending bill. But as soon as the chip bill passed the Senate, Democrats announced this new spending bill.