[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 17 (Thursday, January 26, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S107]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATION

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, the Senate is witnessing an unusual 
sight. Our colleague from West Virginia, Senator Manchin, is trying to 
roll back legislation that he himself wrote and passed less than a year 
ago. Reports say the Senator now wants Congress to delay the new 
electric vehicle tax credit that he himself hand-designed just last 
summer until he can resolve a fight with his fellow Democrats and the 
administration over what their own law actually says or actually does.
  It would be comical if this Democrat-on-Democrat chaos weren't 
impacting our country. Republicans pointed out over and over that 
Democrats' reckless taxing-and-spending spree was unfair as well as 
unworkable. We said from the start this is a hugely expensive, 
hopelessly tangled mess of subsidies, regulations, and redtape. They 
raised taxes on American jobs, American families, and American energy 
in order to inefficiently send little chunks of the people's money back 
to them if they plan their lives according to unclear and changing Big 
Government standards.
  This is the classic tax-and-spend liberal logic: The IRS takes more 
of your money so bureaucrats can take over more of your life. Well, it 
is proving just as tangled and messy for the country, as we all 
predicted last summer.
  Our Democratic colleague from West Virginia is locked in some battle 
with the Democrats' own Treasury Department over the sweeping new 
regulations that need to be written. He seems to be suggesting that 
some Americans who have already received the EV tax credit--that he 
wrote--should have to actually pay it back. In the meantime, while 
Democrats keep fighting it out, the Senator apparently wants Congress 
to act again to halt or change the implementation of his own policy.
  So good luck to American families trying to understand what on Earth 
does and does not qualify for the Big Government subsidies. Good luck 
to American businesses trying to figure out how to direct their 
investments. Now, this is what happens when Democrats make it up as 
they go along and clumsily try to rewire huge parts of our economy on 
the fly.
  Now, remember, the senior Senator from West Virginia has already 
acknowledged that other Biden policies completely cancel out the 
supposed deficit savings from the massive climate bill. He has admitted 
that President Biden's student loan socialism wipes out all of their 
claimed deficit savings from the Green New Deal, and then some. And 
now, on top of all that, the redtape and expensive subsidies are so 
tangled that the very Senator who wrote the law now wants to delay or 
change it.
  This has been a terrible deal for the country right from the 
beginning. Nonpartisan experts said the Democrats' boondoggle would 
increase inflation in the short term and do nothing for inflation in 
the long term. Nonpartisan experts said it would shatter President 
Biden's promise not to impact middle-class families with tax hikes. 
Nonpartisan experts said that none of it would have any--any--
measurable impact on the global temperature.
  And now, apparently, even the author of the bill wants Congress to 
rescue the country from his own handiwork. This is no way to run a 
country. People need to plan their lives. Businesses need to plan their 
futures and their investments. How can American workers and 
entrepreneurs do what they do best if Washington Democrats are 
micromanaging the economy and changing their mind every 5 minutes?
  So, to summarize, we have a Senator asking Congress to delay and 
modify the signature bill that he himself wrote less than a year ago. 
We have American families being treated as pawns in a fight between 
Democrats and other Democrats. This bill was already an incredibly bad 
deal for the country, and the giant mess gets worse and worse every 
day.

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