House Passes $740 Billion Tax, Climate and Health Care Bill, Includes $80 Billion for IRS Enforcement
The House gave final legislative approval Friday to a $740 billion package President Joe Biden has said he will sign.
The so-called Inflation Reduction Act passed the House 220-207 with all Democrats supporting it. Four Republicans did not vote; the rest opposed it.
The bill passed the Senate after Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote, with all 50 of the Republicans in that chamber opposing the bill.
Newsweek noted that Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado attacked the bill to the point where her microphone had to be cut off after she exceeded her time limit.
Boebert gets gaveled and her mic gets cut pic.twitter.com/xK9neRYKL0
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 12, 2022
“Insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result,” she said. “That makes the supporters of this legislation, by definition, insane. Reckless spending in this town is what causes inflation. You are sacrificing American families at the altar of climate change.”
Boebert called the bill “just another con game by the Democrats” and “armed robbery against Americans.”
The bill increases taxes on corporations to fund the additional spending, according to The Hill. A 15% minimum tax would be levied on the income large corporations report to their shareholders, and a new 1% excise tax on stock buybacks would be created if it is signed into law as expected.
Spending will include $369 billion in energy- and climate change-related projects and $64 billion over two years to expand Obamacare subsidies.
One of the bill’s most controversial pieces is pumping $80 billion into the Internal Revenue Service to collect more of the federal revenue it claims is owed.
Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia said Democrats would also “weaponize” the IRS with agents, “many of whom will be trained in the use of deadly force, to go after any American citizen,” according to Time.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa has raised the specter of an IRS “strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small business person.”
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called the bill a “misguided, tone-dead bill.”
“Democrats more than any other majority in history are addicted to spending other people’s money, regardless of what we as a country can afford,” the California Republican said, according to The Hill. “Today, now they are choosing to end the session by spending half-a-trillion dollars more of your money, raising taxes on the middle class, and giving handouts to their liberal allies.”
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