Tax and Spend Nightmare: How Build Back Better Will Wreck the Economy

The Democrats’ radical tax-and-spend package is over 2,000 pages long and contains billions of dollars in tax increases that will harm working families in the form of higher prices, lower wages, and fewer jobs. While President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” (BBB) program, more aptly described as “Broke Bankrupt Begging,” the House-passed measure includes a slew of reckless, socialist spending proposals that will cost taxpayers billions of dollars over the next ten years and will wreck the U.S. economy just as we are finally coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s how.

First, the President’s vow that his social spending and climate plan “costs zero” and “will add zero dollars to the national debt” is, well, a bunch of malarkey. This week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their analysis stating that “enacting this legislation would result in a net increase in the deficit totaling $367 billion over the 2022-2031 period, not counting any additional revenue that may be generated by additional funding for tax enforcement.” The BBB seeks to increase Internal Revenue Service (IRS) enforcement measures that it estimates will generate $127 billion more in net revenue, which would leave the bill’s spending roughly $250 billion short of being fully offset, at best. With a national debt approaching $30 trillion and socialist Democrats already having spent over $5 trillion this year alone, another $5 trillion spending package is bad news for America, American workers, and American families.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) took to the floor Thursday night in a marathon 8 hour and 32-minute speech, now the longest floor speech in U.S. House history, to delay and fight back against the radical spending package. He outlined several proposals on why he and the Republican Caucus oppose more reckless spending.

“This bill massively raises prices on all products made and manufactured in the United States — placing a massive burden on American workers and consumers at the very moment we are under attack by the Chinese Communist Party and the companies they support. This Made in America Tax will send our jobs overseas, send the rest of our supply chains to China, and make us dependent on foreign producers, foreign countries, and foreign dictators. And every single American will pay for it every single day in every single purchase made. That alone is reason enough to defeat the bill,” McCarthy argued in a marathon floor speech that delayed the vote.

Next, curtailing record-high inflation should be the focus of Congress, not more spending proposals. In the last twelve months, the cost of gasoline has increased 49.6%; used cars and trucks 26.4%; meats, poultry, and eggs 11.9%; beef 20.1%; bacon 20.2%; fresh fish and seafood 11.0%; furniture and bedding have increased 12.0%; bread and crackers 7.5%; and TVs 10.4%.

According to the Americans for Tax Reform, the BBB “bill also includes massive tax hikes on businesses, like the 15 percent global minimum tax, 15 percent domestic minimum tax, and a new surtax on adjusted gross income (AGI) that will hit pass-through businesses. This, similarly, will be passed on to consumers through higher prices.”

In addition to Americans being penalized for routine daily spending, under the BBB, they will also be taxed heavily for saving their hard-earned money. The BBB will make dramatic changes to American retirement accounts in several ways. According to ATR, it “prohibits contributions to a traditional or Roth IRA if the total value of an individual’s IRA plus defined contribution accounts exceed $10 million,” it creates a “new required minimum distribution (RMD) for taxpayers with more than $10 million in their account,” it prohibits taxpayers “from converting any portion of a non-Roth account to a

Roth IRA if the account has any after-tax contributions, and starting in 2032, “taxpayers earning more than $400,000 would be prohibited from converting funds from non-Roth accounts to Roth IRAs.” Those are just a few ways Biden’s policies could hurt everyday Americans.

So Democrats want to tax you if you spend money, tax you if you save money, and tax you when you die. This disastrous bill must be stopped in the Senate, otherwise millions of Americans will find themselves broke, businesses bankrupt, and our country begging for relief.

Bob Carlstrom is President of AMAC Action