Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, a month ago yesterday, Senate Democrats shoved another partisan spending bill through the Senate--this one, the inaccurately named ``Inflation Reduction Act.'' I say ``inaccurately named'' because the so-called Inflation Reduction Act will do nothing to reduce inflation. That is right. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act will not actually reduce inflation. You don't have to take my word for it; the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model said this about the bill's impact on inflation: ``The impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero''--``statistically indistinguishable from zero.''

Democrats also claim that the bill will lead to deficit reduction, but that is not really true, either. In the first place, Democrats arrive at their deficit reduction assumptions using some extremely fuzzy math. A substantial part of their deficit reduction claims depend on not extending a program that they have already called for extending and on supposedly eliminating a rule that at this point was never going to be implemented anyway.

But even using their rosiest assumptions, the deficit reduction they would have achieved with the Inflation Reduction Act was wiped out completely 8 days after the bill was signed by the President's costly, reckless student loan giveaway.

Democrats have clearly been seeing the polling on Americans' opinion of the economy and their lack of faith in President Biden and Democrats to deal with the economic challenges we are facing. That is unquestionably why Democrats named their bill the ``Inflation Reduction Act'' and touted their commitment to deficit reduction in an attempt to suggest fiscal responsibility. The problem, of course, is that their commitment to deficit reduction, inflation reduction, and fiscal responsibility was and continues to be nothing more than window dressing.

At its core, the Inflation Reduction Act, like the so-called American Rescue Plan before it, is just another big government, big spending piece of legislation. It will do nothing to address the real economic challenges facing our Nation. Instead, it will waste taxpayer dollars on Democrats' big government fantasies. It will drive up energy costs in the service of Democrats' Green New Deal agenda. It will push people off private insurance and into government-run healthcare, driving up the cost to taxpayers. The legislation imposes socialist-style price controls that will discourage medical innovation and reduce the number of new treatments and cures. It imposes new taxes on businesses that will slow economic growth and result in lower wages and fewer jobs. And the list goes on.

In case there was any doubt about their intentions with this bill, Democrats made their priorities very, very clear when the Senate considered amendments. Democrats' so-called Inflation Reduction Act hikes taxes on domestic oil and gas production--something that will unquestionably result in higher energy prices for American families, who are already facing higher energy bills in the Biden economy.

During the amendment vote-arama on this legislation, Democrats made it very clear that they are, indeed, just fine with restricting American energy production and seeing Americans' energy bills soar.

Democrats rejected attempts to ease their tax hikes on domestic oil and gas. They rejected amendments to make it easier for companies to develop American oil and natural gas. They also rejected a comprehensive amendment to reform the burdensome permitting process, which is one of the biggest obstacles to new energy investment. They even rejected an amendment to prevent Democrats' new electric vehicle tax credit from going to wealthy Americans. So apparently it is just fine to support measures that would drive up Americans' energy bills, but electric vehicle tax breaks for wealthy Americans have to be preserved, not to mention the irony of U.S. automakers recently hiking prices on certain electric vehicles by $6,500 to $8,000, which roughly matches the $7,500 tax credit in the Democrats' inflation reduction bill.

Now, I have been a longtime supporter of clean energy, but the fact of the matter is, clean energy technology has not advanced to a point where we can solely rely on alternative energy. We need oil, we need natural gas, and we will continue to need them for a while yet. Efforts to discourage domestic production of conventional energy will simply drive up energy costs for hard-working Americans and force our country to rely on unstable foreign sources of oil and gas. Now, that may very well be the Democrats' plan in hopes of hastening the arrival of their Green New Deal future.

Democrats like to bill themselves as the party of the little guy, but their track record gives the lie to that. Democrats couldn't bring themselves to support measures to lower Americans' energy bills by increasing domestic oil and gas production because it conflicts with their Green New Deal ideology. They did all unite to protect a tax deduction that mainly goes to wealthy Americans in high-tax States and to make sure, as I mentioned, that wealthy Americans are able to access tax credits for electric vehicles.

Of course, they opposed a measure to prevent more audits of Americans making less than $400,000 a year. That is right. Democrats' legislation includes tens of billions of dollars for new IRS agents and increased audits. Democrats' hope is that more audits of Americans will help pay for some of their spending measures like increased government healthcare subsidies and their Green New Deal priorities.

The Biden administration put out a statement claiming that this wouldn't mean increased audits of Americans making less than $400,000 a year, but when Democrats had the opportunity to confirm that by supporting an amendment that would have prevented the new enforcement funds from being used to audit Americans making less than $400,000 a year, they unanimously--unanimously--voted against it.

I could go on. I haven't even talked about the border security amendments the Democrats opposed. Republicans thought that perhaps, while Democrats were throwing money at environmental justice and climate slush funds and identifying gaps in tree canopy coverage, perhaps they could spare some money for the crisis at our southern border--a crisis that Democrats have largely chosen to pretend doesn't exist. But Democrats quashed any attempt to divert money to address the border crisis. Apparently, identifying gaps in tree canopy coverage is more important than securing our southern border.

Democrats went so far as to oppose--oppose--an amendment that would have prohibited hiring additional IRS agents until additional Customs and Border Protection agents are hired to help secure the border. You heard that right. Now, I am pretty sure Americans are more worried about our border crisis than what Democrats apparently think is an IRS enforcement crisis. But

clearly Democrats don't want to let border security get in the way of funding for the Green New Deal priorities or supersizing the IRS.

It may have an appealing name, but, as the substance of the bill demonstrates, the so called Inflation Reduction Act is nothing more than the latest installment of Democrats' big government and big spending agenda. It will do nothing to address the real economic challenges facing Americans, and it will do nothing to address Americans' priorities. What it will do is spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on Democrats' socialist and big government fantasies and raise taxes to help pay for it. Meanwhile, our inflation crisis and our border crisis and rising crime will continue.

I yield the floor.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr) and the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowsi), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Portman), and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, sometimes around here, in what a lot of people refer to as the ``ivory tower,'' we talk about issues like they are abstract issues, like they don't have any real world effect. And I just wanted to touch on something, before I begin on my other subject here today, which is related to recent information that has been put out by the Department of Agriculture, the USDA's Economic Research Service, which is the arm that does projections on the economy and the farm economy, generally. What they are now concluding is that in 2022, there are going to be record cash receipts--record cash receipts--crop production, livestock production--record levels, 14-percent higher year over year. But what they go on to say is that even with record cash receipts up by 14 percent, net cash farm income is going to be down. Net cash farm income is going to be down by 1 percent.

Why is that? Well, because if you look at what has increased, increased costs on farmers in this country, they have reached some record levels. If you look at, for example, fertilizer. Farmers will spend 84 percent more, or $21 billion more, on fertilizers than they did in 2020; 65 percent, or nearly $8 billion, more on fuel and oil; and more than $18 billion more on feed for livestock. Then you add in, on top of that, debt, which, for a farm operation, obviously, they are a very debt-intensive operation. So with higher interest rates and record farm debt of $496 billion, that is expected to increase interest payments by 37 percent, or more than $7 billion, from 2020, or 2 years ago.

So my point, simply, is that, at least in my part of the country, with corn, soybeans, wheat, livestock, and cattle prices expected to go up in record numbers in terms of overall gross farm income--gross cash receipts--that you would think would lead to good times in American agriculture, because of inflation, a 14-percent increase in gross cash receipts is going to result in an actual loss, a reduction year over year from 2021, when it comes to inflation-adjusted net farm income.

So I make that point simply to illustrate how critical it is that, as policymakers, we acknowledge what is happening in the real world, because I think around here the Biden administration tries to downplay this inflation issue like it is a nonissue.

It is a real issue. It is hitting the pocketbooks of every American in this country to the tune 8\1/2\ to 9 percent for a family. I said this before, but the analysis is out there. For an average family in this country, you are talking about, year over year to buy the same basket of goods you bought last year, an additional $9,000 over last year--$700 and some per month, year-over-year, month-over-month increases in costs for average families in this country. That is a $9,000 tax increase on every family in this country.

Now, it is borne arguably more easily by people in high-income categories, but if you are a working family who is trying to make ends meet and is putting more and more on your credit card or dipping into savings--and there are more and more people in this country. I just saw this number yesterday where one out of every six Americans now is behind in their utility payments. There are people living paycheck to paycheck, and inflation is killing them. And it is like this administration has a blind eye to that and wants to talk about a lot of other issues. And I can see why, because this is an issue I would not want to have to take responsibility for.

In many respects, all the spending--all the spending pushed through here, advocated by the President--the $2 trillion last year, the American Rescue Plan, and just in the last month, another $750 billion in spending and taxes, and the heavy-handed regulation, the shutdown of oil and gas production in this country, which drives up the cost of energy and which is reflected, as I pointed out, in a lot of these numbers--if you look at the fuel costs year over year, you actually have a situation in American agriculture today where you have record gross cash receipts and a reduction in inflation-adjusted net income. That is the impact of inflation.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Crapo), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from North Dakota (Mr. Cramer), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), and the Senator from Alaska (Mr. Sullivan).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Braun), the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Daines), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Hawley), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Sasse), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Hawley) would have voted ``nay'' and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall) would have voted ``nay.''

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Braun), the Senator from Montana (Mr. Daines), the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Hawley), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall), the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Risch), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Sasse), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Scott), and the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Tillis).

Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Hawley) would have voted ``nay'' and the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall) would have voted ``nay.''

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, we are somehow continuing to consider the Democrats' grab bag of bad ideas, otherwise known--I would say, misleadingly--as the Inflation Reduction Act.

Let's start with the bill's title. It gets you feeling somewhat hopeful, doesn't it? The Inflation Reduction Act sounds like a bill that is going to address perhaps the No. 1 problem facing our Nation-- inflation. Then you actually look at the bill's contents and discover that the bill will do nothing to reduce inflation--nothing.

And you don't have to take my word for it. Here is what the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model had to say about the bill's impact on inflation: ``The impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero''--``statistically indistinguishable from zero.''

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office also found that the bill would do nothing to address our current inflation crisis. So did the Tax Foundation.

So much for inflation reduction.

So what about the deficit reduction the Democrats are touting? Well, unfortunately, there is a good chance there won't be much of that either. Democrats rely on some very shady accounting to reach their supposed deficit reduction number--most notably from the repeal of a rule that has never been implemented and, at this point, was never expected to be.

No matter what this rule was predicted to cost, if it was never going to be implemented, its cost was effectively zero. So repealing this rule leaves you with exactly zero--zero dollars to spend, not $120 billion.

Then there is the question of the bill's expanded ObamaCare subsidies. The Democrats' bill extends the expanded ObamaCare subsidies by 3 years. But it is common knowledge that the Democrats want to extend them permanently, as the President explicitly said in his State of the Union Address. And when you figure in the cost of extending them permanently, most of the purported cost savings in the bill, which the Democrats claim will go toward deficit reduction, dwindle away.

So no deficit reduction, an extremely doubtful amount of deficit reduction--what else? Well, there are the hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes. Yes, hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes. Our economy has posted two consecutive quarters of negative growth. In fact, by any common definition, we are now in a recession. And Democrats think now is a good time to hike taxes on businesses-- businesses that are already struggling with 40-year high inflation?

The Democrats' book minimum tax, as proposed last week, would be a $313 billion tax hike, with roughly half of the increase falling on American manufacturers.

I don't think I need to tell anyone what happens when you raise taxes on businesses, particularly when the economy is shrinking. You get less growth, lower wages, and fewer jobs.

According to an analysis from the National Association of Manufacturers, in 2023 alone, the version of the bill Democrats introduced last week would reduce real gross domestic product by more than $68 billion and result in more than 218,000 fewer workers in the overall economy.

The Tax Foundation also found that the bill would, unsurprisingly, reduce economic growth, reduce wages, and reduce jobs. In short, a big part of the burden of the Democrats' tax hike on businesses would fall on American families and American workers.

And the book minimum tax on American businesses is not the only tax hike Democrats are proposing on this bill. They just purportedly replaced a $14 billion tax hike on investment with a new $74 billion stock buyback tax designed to punish investors who choose to keep their own money invested in a business--a tax hike that will likely discourage new investment and have a negative impact on Americans' retirement savings.

And, of course, they have included a number of taxes and fees on oil and gas production. I guess Democrats would like our current sky-high energy prices to continue long-term, because I am at a loss for any other reason why Democrats would choose to hike taxes on oil and gas production at a time when Americans are already struggling with high gas prices and high utility bills.

The Democrats didn't always think raising taxes during a recession was a good idea. In fact, President Obama once said:

[T]he last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the

middle of a recession.

That was from President Obama.

As the current Democratic leader once said:

You don't want to take money out of the economy when the

economy is shrinking.

Well, unfortunately, now that their Green New Deal fantasies are on the line, the Democrats have changed their tune. That is right. Democrats are hiking taxes during a recession not to address our border crisis or inflation or rising crime but so that they can implement their Green New Deal agenda.

Their so-called Inflation Reduction Act is chock-full of Green New Deal spending, things like $1.5 billion--billion dollars--for a grant program to plant trees; $1 billion for electric, heavy-duty vehicles like garbage trucks, which is something that communities used to normally provide for; $3 billion for the U.S. Postal Service to purchase zero-emissions delivery vehicles; and $1.9 billion for things like road equity and identifying gaps in tree canopy coverage.

Yes, the Democrats are apparently willing to send us into a longer term recession--or stagflation--in order to provide billions of dollars for things like road equity and identifying gaps in tree canopy coverage.

All told, the Democrats provide more than $60 billion in this bill for ``environmental justice''--$60 billion. Now, to put that number in perspective, that is more than the Federal Government spent on highways in 2019.

The bill also contains at least $30 billion in climate slush funds, part of which is allocated for, among other things, climate-related political activity--yes, climate-related political activity--because, for sure, there is nothing more that families who are struggling with ballooning grocery bills and the high price of gas are eager to see their tax dollars going toward than Green New Deal activism. Apparently, it is a very high priority for Democrats, but I would say, in all likelihood, not for the American people and American families.

I haven't even talked about the tax credits and rebates the Democrats' bill will provide for wealthy Americans who purchase new electric vehicles or who remodel their kitchens with Democrat-approved green appliances.

Well, I could go on for a while here. It is difficult, really, honestly, to squeeze all of the bad ideas in the Democrats' bill into just one floor speech, and I haven't mentioned the socialist-style price controls that the Democrats' bill would pose on prescription drugs--price controls that would result in fewer new drugs and treatments--or the additional $80 billion--yes, $80 billion--that the Democrats' bill would give to the IRS, with the majority of it being used to boost IRS audits.

Now, of that $80 billion, $45 billion of it would go to IRS enforcement--$45 billion, or 57 percent. Do you want to know how much of that $80 billion would go to taxpayer services? Four percent. Four percent--that for an Agency that only succeeded in answering about 1 out of every 50 taxpayers' phone calls during the 2021 tax season.

There is $80 billion to the IRS for an additional 87,000 employees-- 87,000 new employees at an Agency that, I am told, only has about 53 percent of its workforce actually going back to the office--87,000 employees. You are going to have tax agents moving in with families around this country.

The Democrats aren't focused on improving taxpayer services but on boosting the number of IRS audits. No one should be deceived into thinking these increased audits will fall solely on millionaires and billionaires. No matter what the Democrats and some officials at the IRS conveniently claim, the fact of the matter is that it is exceedingly unlikely the Democrats will be able to collect the revenue they want to collect from increased IRS enforcement without auditing small businesses and ordinary taxpayers. In fact, based on data from the Joint Committee on Taxation, somewhere between 78 to 90 percent of the revenue that is projected to be raised from underreported income would likely come from those making under $200,000 a year.

So 87,000 new IRS agents are sent out with the purpose of collecting more revenue, allegedly, according to the Democrats, from high-income taxpayers and businesses that are escaping taxation; yet the Joint Committee on Taxation finds that 78 to 90 percent of the revenue projected to be raised from underreported income would likely come from those making under $200,000 a year.

Almost 18 months ago now, the Democrats passed a massive, partisan $1.9 trillion spending spree, which fueled inflation--record inflation--that Americans are still struggling with in this country. By the way, that $1.9 trillion spending spree was all on the debt--all on the debt. They didn't attempt to pay for it; they just put it on the debt.

So now, to talk about possibly reducing the deficit by what I think, when it is all said and done, in this bill will be under $100 billion, that will assume all kinds of things like actually they are going to raise revenue from these 87,000 new agents whom they are going to hire at the IRS to audit American taxpayers. It also assumes things like the ObamaCare premium subsidies are only going to be limited to a 3-year extension rather than a full 10 years, which we all know is ultimately going to happen.

In the end, I believe there will be zero deficit reduction, but the fact of the matter is that that piece of legislation, in addition to fueling inflation and adding to the debt--and having learned from that experience, I would hope you would think that the Democrats here would not double down with yet another terrible economic idea, which is another tax-and-spending spree. Like the so-called American Rescue Plan before it, it will leave our economy and the American people worse off.

For their sake, I hope the Democrats will think better of this bill before it is too late. We are going to have an opportunity to debate it here, probably in a few hours, and will have an opportunity to vote on lots of amendments, and we will see what that process yields.

I can tell you one thing: The American people are tired of 40-year high inflation; they are tired of higher energy prices; they are tired of higher food prices; and they are concerned about an economy that is in recession. They are looking at a Democrat leadership in Washington, DC, that has as its No. 1 goal--out of all of the things you could do to attack inflation, attack high energy costs, to deal with a broken border, crime in our cities, and to deal with a wobbly economy, their prescription, as always, is the same thing no matter what the problem is; that is, to raise taxes, increase spending, and grow government-- all at the expense of the American people.

I yield the floor.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Blackburn).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all remaining votes be 10 minutes in duration.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby).

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 5472 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, Democrats say that the book minimum tax will apply only to very large corporations with a 3-year average financial statement income in excess of $1 billion, but as their bill is currently proposed--and this change occurred basically in the last 24 hours--the bill

would now require unrelated companies of any size held by funds or partnerships to combine their otherwise unrelated income to determine if they meet an aggregate $1 billion income threshold, subjecting each respective company to the book minimum tax even if its own income is far too low. This significant expansion of the tax has the potential to subject thousands of American businesses to the book minimum tax's administrative and financial burdens.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation said this change would raise $35 billion in taxes on potentially thousands of small- and medium-size businesses, not merely a hundred or so large companies as our Democratic friends would have you believe.

My amendment is fully offset by extending for 1 year the cap on the State and local tax deduction enacted in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment and help ensure our Nation's small- and medium-size businesses aren't hit with a misguided and entirely inappropriate $35 billion tax hike.

Mr. President, I would urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. The amendment we just voted on and passed has an offset in there, and it is a provision that works very, very well and covers getting rid of this tax on private equity on small businesses and larger businesses in this country.

And what the Senator from Virginia is proposing is an offset loss limitation. And he is right, we have voted for it. We voted for it because we put it in the tax bill in 2017 as an offset, and what it offset and paid for was the 199A deduction that benefits all our passthrough businesses, small businesses, across this country, which expires in 2026.

That very offset is how we are going to pay for extending the 199A deduction for passthrough businesses in this country. So if you want to rob it and use it here, it is not going to be available when it comes time to help out those small businesses, all of whom you represent, passthrough businesses across this country. The offset, the pay-for in my amendment is the right way to do this.

I urge you to oppose the amendment.