Lankford: Democrats’ Resurrection of Build Back Broke Is a Tax on Oklahomans While Still Facing Record-high Inflation

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks on YouTube.

CLICK HERE to watch Lankford’s remarks on Rumble.

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today once again stood in opposition to Biden’s obsession with raising taxes on businesses, even during the worst inflation we’ve seen in 40 years, to pay for his radical climate-change agenda from the failed Green New Deal, which Oklahomans have made clear they do not want. Lankford says Democrats’ “Inflation Reduction Act,” which Lankford continues to refer to as “Build Back Broke” would add to inflation, increase the cost of natural gas by up to 17 percent, and raise taxes on manufacturers in our nation.

After standing against the previous versions of this terrible bill, Lankford pointed out in his remarks several flaws and budget gimmicks in Biden’s supposedly scaled back “Build Back Broke” proposal of almost three-quarters of a trillion dollars in spending, citing that at least in one instance, it moves some health care subsidies from 76-year olds to 26-year olds, as one example.

Transcript

Well, this is a bill called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, and it’s being laid out there that it’s going to reduce inflation and it’s going to reduce the deficit—except, when it was actually studied and scored, it doesn’t reduce inflation, it doesn’t reduce the deficit, but they’re pressing on with it anyway and just continuing to be able to say it over and over again.

What does it do? Well, it does decrease manufacturing in the United States. At the exact moment when we have a supply chain issue, when we’re having more and more challenges with our manufacturing, and when we’re trying to incentivize more manufacturing to the United States, they’re raising taxes on manufacturing in the United States.

So it doesn’t lower inflation, it doesn’t lower the deficit, is does punish manufacturing—unless, by the way, you’re doing green energy. If you’re doing green energy, you’re protected. But if you’re producing nails, if you’re producing bolts, if you’re producing baby formula, if you’re producing car parts, if you’re producing lumber—your taxes are all going to go up. If anyone believes that all the prices of all those things because their taxes go up is not going to actually impact the consumer, you’re not looking at basic economics. Basic economics says when you tax something more, the price of it’s going to go up.

They’re taxing manufacturing, especially American manufacturing more—the prices will go up which will increase inflation. That’s basic. So what are they doing to be able to ‘reduce’ inflation in this bill? As I already mentioned—they’re raising taxes on manufacturing, they’re reducing inflation by hiring thousands of new IRS agents, so they can do audits, and by the way, there are no limits to the audits.

They continue to talk about how they’re going to go after wealthy taxpayers, but if you actually read the bill, there are no limits for the audits. They can do any audit, of any individual, of any small business, of any farmer that they want to be able to do.

They spend ten times as much doing audits as they do on trying to do taxpayer services. So people in my state are calling me and saying ‘I’m waiting on hold with the IRS, for hours to days.’ I have individuals that have called me and said ‘I’ve been working through a case with the IRS for years now and can’t get an answer.’ But they spend ten times as much money doing new audits as they do actually helping with taxpayer services.

What else do they do to try and ‘lower’ inflation? Well, they have a new tax fee and new royalties that are on oil and gas production in the United States. So while gasoline prices are high, they actually add another fee on that to be able to raise the price of gasoline again. They’ve studied the area just on natural gas, which people in my state use to heat their homes, heat the water, to be able to do electricity generation. The natural gas folks have looked at the features of that and said the price of natural gas will go up 17 percent—17 percent just on the actions of this bill. So while they say, ‘This is about taking out inflation,’ it’s actually going to raise the price of everything.

And oh, by the way—they have a prescription drug piece in it as well that’s not getting much attention right now. But literally in the prescription drug piece, they’re going after savings and Medicare. Which, the savings from Medicare that they’re going after, they’re then taking that money from the savings of Medicare and applying it over into the Affordable Care Act to do a new set of subsidies. They are literally taking a program that is set to go into default in 2028, taking money from that program that will go insolvent in 2028 and moving it over to another age bracket. If I can say it bluntly—this bill takes money from 76-year-olds and moves it to 26-year-olds to be able to subsidize their healthcare instead.

People need to ask real questions about this Inflation Reduction Act. When it doesn’t reduce inflation and it does increase prices, and it doesn’t lower the deficit, we should ask why this is even moving forward at all. 

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