
In fiery floor speech
Congressman JAY OBERNOLTE
OPPOSSES
Inflation “Reduction” Act
August 12, 2022__ Washington D.C.__ U.S. Congressman Jay
Obernolte (R-Hesperia) took to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives
before voting against H.R. 5376, the so-called Inflation Reduction
Act on Friday to oppose the bill in no uncertain terms. The bill,
which a University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business study estimated
will have a “statistically indistinguishable from zero” impact on inflation, passed the U.S. House of
Representatives in a vote of 220 to 206 with no bipartisan support.
WATCH THE FLOOR SPEECH HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve2ct2BhhYA
REP.
OBERNOLTE: Mr. Speaker – New data from the Department of
Labor released this week indicates that inflation in America remains at a
40-year high. And numerous studies including one by the San Francisco branch of
our own Federal Reserve Bank indicate that the reason why Americans are
disproportionately suffering from this inflation is reckless levels of deficit
spending by our federal government. Yet only the United States Congress could
respond to this situation with a bill that increases federal spending by over
$700 billion at the same time it increases taxes on Americans. To add insult to
injury, our own Congressional Budget Office, as well as the University of
Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business and hundreds of economists tell us that
this bill, the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” will not actually reduce
inflation at all.
We need to get our fiscal house in order and solve
the reckless spending causing this inflation instead of taking action that
makes the situation even worse. I urge NO VOTE.
The major tax-and-spend legislation titled the Inflation
Reduction Act will increase taxes on businesses and Americans in every
income bracket, with Americans making less than $400,000 per year bearing as much of two-thirds of the tax burden by 2031 according to
the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.
The bill also spends $80 billion to allow the IRS
to hire 87,000 new agents (more
staff than the Pentagon, State Department, Border Patrol and FBI combined),
extends COVID-19 era Obamacare subsidies largely benefiting wealthy and already
insured Americans, and institutes price control schemes for prescription
drugs that could kill up to 342 cures according to a study by the University of Chicago.
H.R. 5376 also spends $350
billion on Green New Deal initiatives while instituting a new
American energy tax and a made-in-America tax that will raise gas prices,
heating bills, and consumer prices while increasing America’s reliance on
China’s supply chain and foreign energy sources. According to the nonpartisan
Joint Committee on Taxation, 25 percent of the burden of these new tax
increases on American companies and manufacturing will be borne by workers
through lower wages.