Exclusive — Rep. Jim Banks Urges Republicans to Unify Against $3.5 Trillion Infrastructure Bill

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) called on Republicans to unify their messaging against the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill, President Joe Biden’s marquee bill, in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News.

Banks, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) chairman, spoke to Breitbart News after the RSC released a 42-point messaging platform against the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, otherwise known as the Build Back Better Act.

In his message, Banks said that Democrats are using the cover of an “infrastructure” bill to hide all of their leftist carveouts in the bill.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week finds that 57 percent of Americans support the mammoth bill, and only 40 percent oppose the legislation.

Banks, the leader of the largest GOP caucus, told Breitbart News that Republicans need to improve their messaging to tell the American people how the Build Back Better would harm average “working moms and dads” and contains untold numbers of leftist carveouts that would not solve America’s current inflation and supply chain crises.

“When you see the public polling on the popularity of the bill, it tells us Republicans aren’t doing a good enough job of telling the American people what’s in it. A lot of focus has been on the price tag, and inflation, and rightly so, but we haven’t talked about what’s actually in the bill,” Banks told Breitbart News. “And, that’s why we put out the memo to our members of 42 components of the bill that are all in and of themselves reasons to vote against it and taken collectively, it shows how radical and dangerous this bill is. It won’t just set us down a path to socialism; it’ll turn America into a socialist country overnight. And many of the provisions in this bill are going to really harm working families and constituents in my district, so we need to fight like hell to stop it.”

Banks said that once Americans start to learn how the $3.5 trillion bill will personally harm their lives, the legislation’s approval ratings will “go down the tubes.”

He explained, “Here’s an example this bill, it’ll put your daycare out of business. It requires that your daycare hire people who have college degrees. It also infringes, it also goes after daycares that are run by religious institutions so if it’s a faith-based daycare, they’re completely shut off, but so what does that mean? That means that you’re going to pay more for daycare. If this bill passes, I mean that that directly hurts working moms and dads. Something else in the bill the Republicans haven’t yet talked about, and when you talk about issues like that, I guarantee you that popularity is going to go down the tubes, but there’s a lot more …  gas prices will go up.”

The RSC’s 42-points against the Build Back Better include:

1. Perpetuates labor shortage: Continues welfare benefits without work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents at a time where there are 10.1 million job openings—more openings than there are people looking for work.
2. Commissions a climate police: Democrats stuffed $8 billion into the bill to commission a cabal of federally funded climate police called the Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) who will conduct progressive activism on taxpayers’ dime (pages 8, 21, and 926).
3. Pushes Green New Deal in our public schools: Requires funding for school construction be used largely on enrollment diversity and Green New Deal agenda items (page 55).
4. Pushes Green New Deal in our universities: Democrats include a $10 billion “environmental justice” higher education slush fund to indoctrinate college students and advance Green New Deal policies (page 1,935).
5. Forces faith-based child care providers out: The bill blocks the ability of many faith-based providers from participating in the childcare system and will lead to many of their closures (page 280).
6. Hurts small and in-home daycares: Requires pre-K staff to have a college degree. (page 303)
7. Includes new incentives for illegal immigration: Illegal immigrants will be eligible to take advantage of Democrats’ new ‘free’ college entitlement (page 92) as well be eligible for additional student aid (page 147) and the enhanced child tax credit (page 1,946).
8. Includes legislative hull for Biden’s vaccine mandate: Increases OSHA penalties on  businesses that fail to implement the mandate up to $700,000 per violation and includes $2.6 billion in funding for the Department of Labor to increase enforcement of these penalties (page 168).
9. Gives unions near-total control: The bill includes insane prohibitions that would bind employers’ hands in union disputes and dangerously tilt the balance of power, subjecting employers to penalties that exempt union bosses and officials… among other things this bill would prevent employers from permanently replacing striking workers (page 175). It coerces businesses to meet union boss demands by increasing Fair Labor Standards Act penalties by an astronomical 900% (page 168).
10. Makes unions bigger and more powerful: The bill would subsidize union dues that would only serve to strengthen the influence of union bosses and not American workers (page 2323).
11. Pushes Democrats’ wasteful and confusing school lunch agenda: $643 million for, among other things, “procuring…culturally appropriate foods” (page 333).
12. Furthers radical abortion agenda: Does not include the Hyde amendment and would mandate taxpayers pay for abortions (page 198) & (page 336).
13. Drives up costs on Americans’ utility bills: Issues a punitive methane tax (page 367) and includes a tax on natural gas up to $1,500 per ton that could cost the American economy up to $9.1 billion and cost 90,000 Americans their jobs (page 368).
14. Includes dangerous & deadly green energy mandate: Effectively forces Americans to get 40% of their energy from wind, solar and other unreliable forms of energy within 8 years (page 392). Reliance on these energy sources has proven deadly.
15. Includes kickbacks for the left’s green energy special interest network: $5 billion for “environmental and climate justice block grants” (page 377) and another $100 billion in green energy special interest subsidies, loans and other carve outs.
16. Gives wealthy Americans tax credits: $222 billion in “green energy” tax credits will be given to those who can afford expensive electric vehicles and other “green” innovative products (page 1832).
17. Furthers Democrats’ social justice agenda: Includes “equity” initiatives throughout the bill and, in one instance, Democrats inserted “equity” language into a title which should have been focusing on the maintenance of the United States’ cyber security efforts (page 897).
18. Grants amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants: House Democrats have included in their reconciliation bill a plan to grant amnesty to around 8 million illegal immigrants at a cost of around $100 billion over ten years that would largely be spent on welfare and other entitlements (page 901). Trillions more would be spent long term on their Social Security and Medicare.
19. Opens border even wider: The bill would waive many grounds for immigration inadmissibility, including infection or lack of vaccination status during a Pandemic, failure to attend removal proceedings in previous immigration cases, and the previous renouncement of American citizenship. DHS may also waive  previous convictions for human trafficking, narcotics violations, and illegal voting (page 903).
20. Increases visa limit: At least 226,000 family-preference visas would be administered each year (page 905).
21. Grants fast-tracked green cards for those seeking middle-class careers in America: Language included in the bill exempts certain aliens from the annual green card statutory limits and has been described as a  “hidden pipeline for U.S. employers to flood more cheap foreign graduates into millions of middle-class careers needed by American graduates” (page 910).
22. Includes pork for Nancy Pelosi: $200 million is earmarked for the Presidio Trust in Speaker Pelosi’s congressional district (page 933).
23. Increases energy dependence on OPEC, Russia and China: The bill prohibits several mineral and energy withdrawals (page 979). It overturns provisions included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that authorized energy production in the Arctic that will result in 130,000 Americans losing their jobs and $440 billion in lost federal revenue (page 983) and the mineral withdrawals it prohibits would, ironically, include minerals necessary for renewable energy sources (pages 934, 940, 943).
24. Exacerbates the chip shortage: The bill would mandate the conversion of the entire federal vehicle fleet from internal combustion engines to electric engines at a time when there is a global microchip shortage and crippled supply chains (page 1,043).
25. Democrats’ feckless China bill is included: Concepts from the insanely weak Endless Frontier Act included, including $11 billion in research funding that will likely result in American intellectual property going to China (page 1079 – 1081).
26. Chases green energy pipe dreams: $264 million to the EPA to conduct research with left-wing environmental justice groups on how to transition away from fossil fuels (page 1063).
27. Fixes “racist” roads and bridges: Adds a nearly $4 billion slush fund that would help left-wing grassroots organizations that, among other things, want to tear down and rebuild or otherwise alter infrastructure deemed “racist” (page 1183).
28. Punishes red states for failing to adopt Green New Deal provisions: Mandates “consequences” for conservative states that don’t meet the radical Left’s “green” climate standards while at the same time adding nearly $4 billion for “Community Climate Incentive Grants” for cooperating states (page 1179).
29. Includes new massive, bankrupting entitlement: The new paid leave entitlement would mandate workers get 12 weeks of paid leave and would cost $500 billion over ten years according to the CBO (page 1245). It would apply to those making up to half a million dollars a year (page 1254).
30. Advances a totalitarian and paternalistic view of the federal government: Includes grants for organizations to treat individuals suffering from “loneliness” and “social isolation.”
31. Further detaches individuals from employment, making them more reliant on government handouts: The bill spends $835 billion on welfare through manipulating the tax code [not including the expansions of Obamacare subsidies] (page 1943).
32. Tax benefits for the top 1%: The bill will possibly lift the SALT deduction cap meaning many of the top 1% wealthiest Americans would pay less in taxes.
33. Tax credit for wealthy donors who give to woke universities: The bill creates a new tax credit program that gives tax credits worth 40% of cash contribution that are made to university research programs (page 2094).
34. Expands worst parts of Obamacare: Obamacare’s job-killing employer mandate will become more severe by adjusting the definition of “affordable coverage” to mean coverage that costs no more than 8.5 percent of income rather than current law’s 9.5 percent of income (page 2041).
35. Increases taxes on Americans at every income level: $2 trillion in tax hikes will fall on those making under $400,000 per year, contrary to what the White House says. Individuals at all income levels will be affected (Ways and Means GOP).
36. Lowers wages for working families: The corporate tax rate will increase by 5.5%, meaning American companies will face one of the highest tax burdens in the world. According to analysis, two-thirds of this tax hike will fall on lower- and middle-income taxpayers (page 2110).
37. Penalizes marriage: The bill would permanently double the EITC’s marriage penalty on childless worker benefits (page 2036).
38. Imposes crushing taxes on small business: Guts the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act small business deductions that reduced pass-through entity taxes to keep them comparable to taxes imposed on corporations (page 2235) as well as hammer small businesses that file as individual tax earners with the 39.6% rate (page 2221) and Obamacare’s 3.8% tax on net investment income.
39. Crushes family businesses and farms: The bill would impose a 25% capital gains rate  (page 2226) and makes alterations to the Death Tax including cutting the Death Tax exemption in half (page 2240).
40. Violates Americans’ financial privacy: $80 billion slush fund to hire an 87,000-IRS-agent army to carry out the Biden administration’s plan to review every account above a $600 balance or with more than $600 of transactions in a year. (page 2283).
41. Increases out of pocket costs for those who rely on prescription drugs: The bill repeals the Trump-era Rebate Rule which passes through rebates directly to consumers at the point of sale (page 2465).
42. Imports policies from countries with socialized medicine: The bill includes healthcare policies imported from systems in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom—all countries that have government-run healthcare systems (page 2349).

Banks and the RSC helped lead the fight against the other part of Democrats’ two-pronged infrastructure strategy, the $1.2 trillion so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill, or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The RSC’s early and constant messaging against the bipartisan infrastructure bill helped unify Republicans against supporting the bill, which prevented Democrats from picking off enough GOP lawmakers to pass the bill through the House in September.

The RSC noted that the bipartisan infrastructure bill contained little infrastructure funding, would enable the $3.5 trillion bill to pass, and contains numerous leftist carveouts despite being labeled a “bipartisan” bill.

Banks’ messaging could help Republicans get the ammo to message Americans against support for the Build Back Better Act. He said that Americans will only see prices go up.

He said, “I promise you, gas prices will go up higher than you’ve ever seen it before. If this bill passes, because of all of the Green New Deal mandates that are cooked up in the bill requiring a green – 40 percent of energy be green energy — that means you’re going to pay more than you’ve ever paid before at the gas pump if this bill passes. It means free college tuition to illegals and child tax credits to those who come here illegally on top of amnesty. It will spend billions of dollars to fix ‘racist,’ roads and bridges, whatever the hell that means. The price tag is enormous and it will send our national debt, which is already $30 trillion, through the roof. Even more, it will cause inflation to spin out of control even more than it already is. It will put your daycare out of business or maybe they’re gonna pay more than ever before at the gas pump. Those are all reasons why the American people should be really afraid of this bill, this bill going through.”

Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.