AMAC Exclusive – By Claire Brighn
Over the past several months, House Democrats, likely recognizing that their grip on power is growing ever more tenuous, have worked at a furious pace drawing up and voting on an avalanche of legislation, each bill seemingly more extreme than the last. As Members return home for Thanksgiving recess, they’re likely to hear from their constituents who, if polls are any indication, are none too happy with the new radical direction of the Democratic Party.
In response, many Democrats will likely make overtures to “bipartisanship” and “moderation,” fearful of losing their seats. However, the actual voting record of House Democrats thus far this Congress suggests the exact opposite – something that voters will undoubtedly keep in mind when they head to the polls next November. Here are ten bills the House passed in the past year that will ensure Democrats are running for reelection with the most far-left voting record in history:
1. The American Rescue Plan (aka the Crippling Inflation Plan)
Ironically, the Democrat bill that was supposed to “rescue” the American economy did the exact opposite. It’s largely thanks to this legislation, which was passed on a party-line vote, that the country is now facing record-high inflation even as people still struggle to recover from the pandemic.
In fact, this bill was so ill-advised that not even all Democrats supported it. Larry Summers, a veteran economist with service in the Clinton and Obama administrations, warned back in February that “macroeconomic stimulus on a scale closer to World War II levels than normal recession levels [which the American Rescue Plan represented] will set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation, with consequences for the value of the dollar and financial stability.”
Summers’s prediction proved to be spot on, as today Americans are facing skyrocketing prices for everything from a carton of eggs to used cars.
The nearly $2 trillion bill also essentially paid Americans not to work and stonewalled businesses trying to reopen, further exacerbating the crisis. As if that weren’t bad enough, the influx of cash into the economy combined with pent-up demand after the pandemic, coupled with closed stores and clogged ports as a result of continuing lockdowns, fueled a supply chain crisis that now only buttresses rising inflation.
In short, the economic woes plaguing the nation today can be traced directly back to this bill, one of the first of Biden’s presidency and an ominous sign of things to come.
2. The Build Back Better Act (aka the Build Back Broke Act)
This far-reaching social spending package, often referred to as “the reconciliation bill” or simply “Biden’s spending plan,” just passed the House. With a price tag of roughly $2 trillion, it’s full of far-left policies and wasteful spending, including $2.5 billion for “tree equity,” billions for “climate justice” block grants, and woke terminology like “birthing individuals” replacing “mother,” not to mention mass amnesty for illegal aliens in the middle of the worst border crisis in history.
The bill also doubles the size of the Internal Revenue Service, and raises the top tax rate on personal income higher than in European welfare states. But it won’t just be the wealthy feeling the pinch – an incredible 80 percent of taxpayers would see their incomes reduced under this bill. Businesses are punished for investing in their own stock; families are pushed apart with subsidy structures akin to “marriage penalties;” and with inflation already at a record 30-year-high, even Obama’s former Economic Advisor Steve Rattner said “the administration should come clean with voters about the impact of its spending plans on inflation.”
3. Infrastructure – H.R.3684 (aka the Everything But Roads and Bridges Act)
This bill, which earned the dubious label of “bipartisan,” is not so much about infrastructure as it is about Democrats cynically dividing Biden’s gargantuan progressive wish list in half to pass it piecemeal through Congress. In fact, had it not been for only a few Republicans signing on after some (although certainly not all) radical provisions were stripped from this bill (and loaded into BBB), the Biden agenda could have collapsed altogether due to the tug of war between “moderate” and progressive Democrats. The infrastructure bill was a shell-game to pave the way for socialism.
4. 7-Bill Package – H.R. 4502 (aka the Everything-But-the-Kitchen-Sink Progressive Wish List)
Leading up to the Build Back Better reconciliation fight, a series of Democrat spending bills warmed up the jets to transform and trojan-horse in “transformative and historic” investments. This extreme and highly partisan seven-bill minibus, among other things, took the “historic step of eliminating a ban on federal funding for abortions” and increased the Education Department’s budget by 41 percent. The same Department of Education, let’s not forget, that has been pushing the work of the 1619 Project and far-left radical Ibram X. Kendi in prioritizing grant money for teaching critical race theory.
5. The American Dream and Promise Act (aka the Open Borders Act)
As more than 1.4 million illegal aliens have been caught trying to cross the U.S. border since Biden came into office – and as Biden now wants to dole out $450,000 payments to many of them – House Democrats passed open borders immigration bills to further surrender American sovereignty and destroy the integrity of the immigration system.
Essentially, this bill is an attempt to sneak through a subset of the most radical provisions contained in Biden’s proposed U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021. Among other things, the bill would grant mass amnesty to millions of illegal migrants, give illegal immigrants a pass for committing crimes, and would open the immigration system up to rampant fraud and abuse.
6. H.R.4350 – National Defense Authorization Act (aka the Building a Woke Military Act)
While this bill increased pay and kept strong funding levels for the military, it packaged those good provisions with radical measures that are incompatible with long-term military health and defense priorities. It includes things like an “expansion and codification of matters covered by diversity training” throughout the DoD – code for Critical Race Theory and other anti-American ideologies that the left has been pushing on the military – along with a “plan for development and management of the gender advisor workforce,” and a requirement for women to register for the draft.
7. Iron Dome Funding Stripped From Spending Bill (aka the Abandon Israel Act)
House Democrats stripped Iron Dome defense funding from a broader spending bill, allowing anti-Semitic, anti-Israel radicals to have their way. This was a break with precedent, showing that the Democratic Party is unwilling to stand up to progressives within the party and defend America’s chief ally in the Middle East. Such signaling undoubtedly emboldens Israel’s enemies and contributes to destabilizing the region even further.
8. George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (aka the Defund the Police Act)
This extraordinarily radical attempt at police “reform” effectively defunds the police by levying exorbitant costs on police departments. The National Fraternal Order of Police has criticized the bill, pointing out that certain provisions, like ending qualified immunity, would make it exceedingly difficult for police departments to do their job and protect their communities. If Democrats succeed in passing this bill into law, they will add even more fuel to the exploding crime rate nationwide. While Sen. Tim Scott had offered a bipartisan police reform bill just last year with many similar productive provisions, Democrats filibustered it (yes, the same filibuster they now want to eliminate).
9. R.51 – Washington, D.C. Admission Act (aka the Pack the Senate Act)
The title of this bill says it all. The House vote on it was not only a power grab, but indicative of the radical ethos of the Democratic Party as they try to effectively “pack” the Senate through adding new states like D.C. and Puerto Rico that would vote heavily Democratic. 55% of Americans are opposed to D.C. statehood, not to mention a host of Constitutional problems that arise with trying to make the city which houses the federal government its own state.
10. H.R. 1 – For the People Act (aka the Corrupt Politicians Act)
Almost every House Democrat has voted for the unconstitutional federal takeover of elections known as H.R. 1. The bill bans voter ID nationwide, mandates that ballot harvesting be legal in every state, and represents an unprecedented assault on election integrity. Senate Republicans shot down the bill in August by the slimmest of margins. But the fact that such a radical decimation of the entire American elections system came within a few votes of becoming law makes it perhaps the most shocking vote on this list.
While only some of these bills ultimately became law, all of them showcase the radical direction of today’s Democratic Party and provide a glimpse at what Democrats would do with expanded majorities. Largely as a result of this far-left agenda – as well as the litany of crises currently plaguing the country – Republicans look to be in a good spot to flip both chambers of Congress next year. However, conservatives are rightly anxious about what Democrats could do before then. If the last few election cycles have taught us anything, it’s that nothing is guaranteed, and conservatives should remain vigilant in the months ahead.
Claire Brighn is the pen name of a conservative researcher and writer with previous domestic and foreign policy experience in the Executive Branch.