Congress Must Abandon Its Haphazard Status Quo Of Budgeting By Crisis
A narrowly divided Congress is an opportunity to fix the system so legislators can once again provide the best value to the American people.A narrowly divided Congress is an opportunity to fix the system so legislators can once again provide the best value to the American people.Horowitz: McConnell helps Dems pass $280 billion Big Tech corporate welfare bill. Schumer betrays him in return.
Few people in America were following the passage of the $280 billion handout for huge chip manufactures and the 5G industry, but the politics surrounding the bill, as well as the bill itself, perfectly exemplify the “uniparty” dynamic. To begin with, GOP leadership had no problem with this corporate welfare bill and worked together to craft it. However, McConnell promised to hold up the bill unless the Democrats committed to forgoing budget reconciliation, a process through which they can pass liberal priorities without the need for 60 votes. Well, McConnell and 17 other Republican senators eagerly provided the votes for the “chips-plus bill,” and Schumer responded by announcing his plans to pass budget reconciliation to remake our economy!
Leftists love over-taxing and over-regulating certain businesses while granting endless corporate welfare to other industries in order to create transnational monopolies. The semiconductor and 5G industries embody everything conservatives are worried about with the corporate masters – ties to China, privacy concerns, health concerns, outsourcing American jobs, creating monopolies, and funding woke global corporations that hate our values and use the funding as well as the technology against our best interests.
In comes the “chips and science” bill (HR 4346), a $280 billion package for the science and tech cartels that includes $54 billion in five-year grants for manufacturing and design of semiconductors and 5G wireless deployment, plus $24 billion in tax credits for new semiconductor manufacturing facilities through 2026 and funding authorizations to bolster U.S. scientific research. These are some of the wokest and wealthiest companies. Intel, which aggressively lobbied for the bill, already earned $79 billion in revenue last year. Yet 17 Republicans, including Leader McConnell, joined every Democrat sans Bernie Sanders and voted for this earth-shattering and expensive bill with lightning speed.
Even if one agrees there is a need to somehow pick winners and losers, we should have at least secured provisions ensuring that China can’t steal our technology, that the jobs and supply chain remain here in the United States, and that these companies can’t promote wokeness, and we should have addressed oversight issues of privacy and health concerns with 5G. Rather than addressing the insane regulatory burden that has broken our domestic supply chains, this bill will further incentivize and invest in the current globalist system that sells out America to China. Absent large-scale policy reforms, more funding of supposed “American” tech giants is tantamount to funding China. The GOP’s answer to everything we don’t like is to add more spending to it.
To make matters worse, in the final days, the bill added hundreds of pages and hundreds of billions of dollars to fund the broken “science” agencies that should be shuttered. This includes a five-year $102 billion authorization for the National Science Foundation, Commerce Department, and National Institute of Standards and Technology to increase investments, which represents a $52 billion increase in baseline spending of these bloated and unnecessary agencies. It also includes billions of extra funding for “basic energy sciences” and “environmental sciences.” It appears that McConnell and company still “trust the science.”
In other words, even in the minority under a very radical and unpopular Democrat regime, Republicans think that the base spending bills weren’t enough and desire to increase funding for everything that is wrong with government. Republicans will wax poetic today about inflation, yet when it came to the issues that mattered – COVID, Ukraine, and now a massive Big Tech bill – they not only fail to filibuster big budget bills, but they will even vote for new massive spending bills while in the minority. At least in the past they used to be righteous in the minority and screwed conservatives only after winning elections.
Although there are some House Democrats who are at least consistent in their hate for big business and will oppose this corporate welfare, Republicans plan to supply the votes.
\u201cA source on Capitol Hill tells me 10 Democrats are opposed to CHIPS\u2026\n\nBut 38 House GOP plan to vote yes & put this bill over the top. \n\nEven before the reconciliation announcement, @club4growth @Heritage_Action @FreedomWorks @AFPAction @taxreformer @NTU & others were opposed.\u201d— Scott T. Parkinson (@Scott T. Parkinson) 1658964349
This is part of a broader betrayal of passing red-flag laws, flirting with gay marriage, and passing an NDAA funding the woke and broke military that is mandating the shots on soldiers.
To add insult to injury, McConnell originally promised that if Democrats didn’t give up on plans to pass budget reconciliation, he would block passage of the chips bill. A budget reconciliation bill is the only maneuver by which Democrats could attempt to ram through a transcendent policy change without facing a filibuster, assuming they keep every Democrat senator in line. Yet McConnell then votes for the bill, and within hours of its passage yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced plans to pursue a reconciliation resolution.
After months of a stalemate with Senator Joe Manchin, Schumer announced plans to pass a $370 billion “climate and energy” bill, funding the Great Reset, three years of subsidies for the health care cartel under Obamacare, and more handouts for Big Pharma. They are calling it “the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” because it purports to pay for the spending with tax increases, and somehow that would reduce inflation.
\u201cNote that McConnell said he would blow up the chips bill if Dems tried to do budget reconciliation pkg for social spending plan. Chips passes. Manchin/Schumer immediately announce agreement on reconciliation measure\u201d— Chad Pergram (@Chad Pergram) 1658957890
Thus, when Democrats pass that bill next week and all these same McConnell Republicans vote against it, just know that McConnell gave up his leverage and is responsible for that massive tax-and-spend giveaway to woke industries because he agreed to pass another massive corporate welfare bill. Nor do they have any plans to hold up the NDAA or the fiscal year 2023 budget bill when it comes due at the end of September.
But fear not. Spend the next few months campaigning for this same party so that none other than a Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is waiting for you as the reward for your hard work.How Conservatives Can Force Votes Showing Democrats Are Behind High Gas Prices
Republicans should offer many energy exploration amendments to budget reconciliation, highlighting how Democrats are keeping gas prices high.Top Senate Dem says raising taxes, undoing Trump tax cuts is the 'only way to get rid of inflation'
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) claimed Tuesday the only solution to record-high inflation is raising taxes.
What are the details?
During a press conference, a reporter asked Schumer whether Democrats plan to use the budget reconciliation process to pass legislation (without Republican support) to address the ongoing economic crisis.
"Reconciliation is very, very important," Schumer responded. "If you want to get rid of inflation, the only way to do it is to undo a lot of the Trump tax cuts and raise rates.
"No Republican is ever going to do that. So the only way to get rid of inflation is through reconciliation," he added.
Majority Leader Schumer, Senator Stabenow, and Senator Cantwell Speak youtu.be
Earlier in the day, Schumer met with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to discuss combatting inflation, which has remained at record levels for months. After the meeting, Manchin signaled support for using reconciliation to pass legislation aimed at tamping down the economic problems.
"Reconciliation to me is about getting inflation under control, paying down this debt, getting a handle on what’s going on," Manchin said after the meeting.
In fact, Manchin supports changing the tax code to achieve those ends. According to The Hill, Manchin voiced support for increasing the corporate tax rate to 25% from 21%, increasing the capital gains tax (which is currently capped at 20%) to 28%, and removing "loopholes" from the tax code to ensure that "everyone pays their fair share."
If Democrats prepare legislation to raise taxes, Manchin stipulated that half of the revenue raised must go toward deficit reduction because that is the "only way you’re going to fight inflation."
The moderate Democrat also clarified that current negotiations are completely unrelated to President Joe Biden's Build Back Better plan, which Manchin killed last year.
"There’s nothing formal. There’s no false hopes here. There’s nothing. As far as Build Back Better, there’s no talk about any of that. Just saying, how do we get a handle on inflation?" he said.
What about the 'Trump tax cuts'?
Data from the Internal Revenue Service shows the tax reform bill passed by Republicans in late 2017 has, in fact, greatly benefited middle-class Americans.
"The available evidence is clear: Based on tax data from 2017 and 2018, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced taxes for the vast majority of filers, led to substantial improvements in upward economic mobility, and disproportionately benefited working- and middle-class households, many of which experienced tax cuts topping 18 percent to 20 percent," analysis from the Heartland Institute explained.
Ironically, the San Francisco Federal Reserve has attributed the inflation crisis, in part, to Biden's COVID relief bill, which injected trillions of dollars into the economy.
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