Exclusive: Sen. Marsha Blackburn Attempts to Ensure ‘Inflation Reduction’ Bill Does Not Target Middle Class

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) will propose two amendments to the Inflation Reduction Act that would prevent Democrats from increasing taxes on working-class Americans and small businesses, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.

“Despite the Democrats’ desperate attempts to frame their latest tax-and-spending spree as a plan to provide relief to families, the current version of this bill does not ensure that middle-class Americans or Main Street will be safe from the Biden tax hikes,” Blackburn told Breitbart News in a statement.

President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats have repeatedly claimed that their legislation would not raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 per year. To hold Democrats to their collective word, Blackburn proposed two amendments to the Inflation Reduction Act, which will be voted on during the “vote-a-rama” portion of the reconciliation voting process. The proposed amendments would:

• Ensure that any changes to the tax code under the bill would not raise taxes on small businesses
• Ensure that any additional IRS enforcement funding would not raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,00 and prohibit enforcement activities against American taxpayers making less than $400,000 per year.

Based on their claims, Congressional Democrats should welcome Blackburn’s proposals to the Inflation Reduction Act, as the bill in its current form would raise taxes on small businesses and Americans making less than $400,000 per year.

The Inflation Reduction Act boosts the IRS’s enforcement funding by $45.6 billion for increased enforcement. The main victim of the increased IRS funding would be the middle class, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) found. The Wall Street Journal explained:

The bill earmarks $45.6 billion for “enforcement,” including “litigation,” “criminal investigations,” “investigative technology,” “digital asset monitoring” and a new fleet of tax-collector cars. The result will be far more audits, civil suits and criminal referrals.

The main targets will by necessity be the middle- and upper-middle class because that’s where the money is. The Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official tax scorekeeper, says that from 78% to 90% of the money raised from under-reported income would likely come from those making less than $200,000 a year. Only 4% to 9% would come from those making more than $500,000. [Emphasis added]

The IRS knows the super-wealthy employ lawyers and accountants who make litigation time-consuming and risky. It also knows that Democrats would howl if the agency pursues fraud in the earned-income tax credit program, despite what the IRS has estimated are $18 billion in improper payments each year.

Additionally, the legislation contains tax provisions that would benefit billionaires and multinational corporations, Breitbart News’s John Binder noted.

The JCT also found that the Democrat’s bill would hit America’s manufacturing sector hardest with the legislation’s 15 percent corporate minimum tax.

The nonpartisan tax analysis committee found that the manufacturing sector would take 49.7 percent of the share of the Democrats’ proposed tax if the legislation were to pass, including chemical manufacturing, transportation equipment manufacturing, and other parts of the manufacturing industry.

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