[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 126 (Thursday, August 1, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S5723]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]





                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

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  TAX RELIEF FOR AMERICAN FAMILIES AND WORKERS ACT OF 2024--Motion to 
                            Proceed--Resumed

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume legislative session and resume consideration of the motion to 
proceed to H.R. 7024, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 349, H.R. 7024, a bill to 
     make improvements to the child tax credit, to provide tax 
     incentives to promote economic growth, to provide special 
     rules for the taxation of certain residents of Taiwan with 
     income from sources within the United States, to provide tax 
     relief with respect to certain Federal disasters, to make 
     improvements to the low-income housing tax credit, and for 
     other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican whip.


                        Inflation Reduction Act

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, in a couple of weeks, we will mark the 
second anniversary of one of President Biden's signature measures, the 
so-called Inflation Reduction Act. I am sure the White House will be 
celebrating, but Americans shouldn't be because Democrats did the 
country no favors with this legislation. In fact, the bill reads like a 
roster of bad Democrat policies.
  It is hard to know where to even begin: Perhaps with the bill's 
misleading--really--outright deceptive title. Democrats called the bill 
the Inflation Reduction Act, yet even before the bill had been signed 
into law, the nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model was noting the 
bill's impact on inflation was ``statistically indistinguishable from 
zero.'' In other words, the Inflation Reduction Act would do nothing--
nothing--to reduce inflation.
  President Biden confirmed this fact a year later when he noted--this 
is President Biden speaking:

       Well, we've put ourselves in a position where we passed the 
     most comprehensive environmental piece of--it's called the 
     Inflation Reduction Act. It has nothing to do with inflation.

  That is President Biden. Let me just repeat that, Mr. President.

       It's called the Inflation Reduction Act. It has nothing to 
     do with inflation.

  President Biden's own words.
  Why Democrats chose to name it that when it had nothing to do with 
reducing inflation is a good question. Perhaps it was to try to 
convince the American people, falsely, that Democrats were doing 
something to stem the historic inflation crisis they had created, or 
perhaps it was to disguise the substance of what Democrats thought 
might be otherwise an unpopular bill.
  But moving on.
  Another Democrat selling point for the bill was the claim that it 
would reduce the deficit. But that claim has proved to be just as 
hollow as the bill's title. The cost of the bill's Green New Deal 
provisions has grown to such an extent that the bill will not only not 
reduce the deficit, it is now on track to add to it. That is right. A 
bill Democrats touted for its deficit reduction is now predicted to 
actually add to the deficit.
  And speaking of the bill's Green New Deal provisions, as the 
President himself admitted last year, the so-called Inflation Reduction 
Act was really a chance for Democrats to impose their Green New Deal 
fantasies. So the bill contains things like $1.5 billion--billion, I 
might add--for a grant program to plant trees; $1 billion for zero-
emission, heavy-duty vehicles like garbage trucks; $3 billion for the 
U.S. Postal Service for zero-emission delivery vehicles; $1.9 billion 
for things like road equity--whatever that is--and identifying gaps in 
tree canopy coverage; and at least $30 billion in climate slush funds 
allocated for climate-related political activity. Yes, Mr. President, 
climate-related political activity because, clearly, families 
struggling with high grocery prices and high energy prices in the 
Biden-Harris economy are eager to see their tax dollars going to Green 
New Deal activism.
  Then, of course, there are the tax credits the bill provides for 
well-off Americans to purchase new electric vehicles.
  And there is much, much more. All told, the climate- and energy-
related provisions of the bill are now projected to cost American 
taxpayers in excess of $1 trillion.
  I mentioned tax credits for electric vehicles. Perhaps the Biden 
administration's signature environmental measure has been attempting to 
force the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
  The Inflation Reduction Act tax credits are one part of this crusade. 
Others include the final emissions rules the Biden administration 
released this spring that will have the practical effect of forcing car 
and truck companies to electrify a huge portion of their sales lots.
  And the big problem here is that the President is attempting to force 
the adoption of his electric vehicle fantasy at a time when our 
electric grid is barely keeping up with current demand.
  An article in the Washington Post this March entitled ``Amid 
explosive demand, America is running out of power,'' noted ``Vast 
swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as 
electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factors 
proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators 
grasping for credible plans to expand the nation's creaking power 
grid.''
  And that is our situation right now as we speak, without the 
incredible burden that would be added to our grid by a vast increase in 
the number of electric cars and trucks on the road.
  If the President is successful in imposing a rapid and widespread 
increase in the number of electric vehicles, we are likely to be facing 
a situation where there is simply not enough power available to keep up 
with demand, with higher prices, electricity rationing, blackouts, and 
brownouts as the inevitable result.
  I could go on for a while here about the strain the President is 
attempting to place on our electric grid, even as he seeks to weaken 
the already creaky grid even further with burdensome new regulations. 
And I could go on about the Inflation Reduction Act. I haven't even 
talked about the incredible amount of money Democrats funneled to the 
IRS through this legislation--the majority of it earmarked for 
increased audits and enforcements to help fund Democrats' Green New 
Deal fantasies. Nor have I talked about the tax hikes on energy, which 
are doing no favors to Americans already beset by high energy bills in 
the Biden-Harris economy.
  Then there are the bill's price controls for prescription drugs, 
which will curtail medical innovation and the development of new 
medications. When the Biden administration originally proposed this 
policy, research from the University of Chicago projected that price 
controls of prescription drugs in Medicare would result in 135 fewer 
new drugs available to patients. We have already seen those projections 
beginning to come to fruition as multiple drug companies have halted 
research into new treatments as a result of the Inflation Reduction 
Act.
  I will stop here, Mr. President. Suffice it to say that Democrats' 
so-called Inflation Reduction Act is a catalog of bad Democratic 
policies from unrealistic Green New Deal measures to costly tax hikes, 
to irresponsible spending.
  Unfortunately, if we end up with a Harris administration next year, 
this legislation is likely a grim preview of more bad bills to come.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.

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