House Republicans are planning to whip the vote against the “Inflation Reduction” Act with zero GOP defections — to force the Democrats to “own” the massive spending bill.
Republicans are working to make sure all of their members are in Washington, DC to cast their vote on the bill in person, and intend to pressure Democrats to do the same — to go on record with their position in person, a senior House Republican staffer told Breitbart News.
“We’re going to make sure that we have everybody in town voting, so that if these Democrats want to vote to raise taxes, during a recession, they’ll have to go on record to do it,” the staffer told Breitbart.
The GOP is also looking to highlight the more egregious items in the massive spending bill, using it as a cudgel against Democrats.
“I think the big fight is just going to be making them own the bill. I think this bill is going to be their own worst enemy. When you look at doubling the size of the IRS, tripling the size of the EPA, giving wealthy Americans tax breaks for electric vehicles — while most Americans can’t even fill up their gas tank — I think we’re going to try to hit them on the merits of this”
The senior House staffer said that the House Rules Committee, which meets on Wednesday, will decide to make three hours of debate on the legislation and that they will rule that no amendments will be in order for the bill, meaning that Republicans and Democrats cannot alter the bill right before final passage of the bill.
The GOP staffer said that Republicans will offer “robust pushback” at the Rules Committee hearing and on the House floor. However, he cautioned that the House can “button up” and prevent amendments to the bill, unlike the Senate. The Senate, before it moves for final passage on the bill, has to hold a “vote-a-rama,” wherein Republicans and Democrats can offer virtually an unlimited number of amendments to the bill. This allows for some chaos in the Senate, as Democrats often crossover to vote for Republican amendments.
Republicans also cannot offer motions to recommit to previous questions on this bill due to the way reconciliation bills are structured. The minority party in the House can offer a motion to recommit before the vote for final passage, which would stipulate that the bill would have to go to the bill’s committee of origin and add an amendment to the bill before it comes back for a final vote.
The senior House staffer emphasized that House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) sent out a whip notice about the bill, noting that not every bill gets whipped.
“This one obviously is a huge priority. And we want to make sure we keep everyone on our side, in the no column,” the staffer said, “we want to make sure we keep everyone on our side in the ‘no’ column, which we feel like we will be able to do.”
Indeed, Scalise’s whip notice contains extensive notes about the deleterious effects of the bill, which include:
- House Republican leadership refers to the bill as the “Inflation, Recession, IRS Army Act.”
- The bill would increase taxes while America just entered a recession.
- It would boost funding for the IRS by $80 billion, which would make the agency larger than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined.
- It would extend enhanced Obamacare subsidies that would only fuel inflation.
- The bill institutes “innovation killing price controls on drugs.”
- Taxes on American energy would only lead to higher costs.
- It would create hundreds of billions in green energy slush funds for the federal government to dole out.
- The bill contains wasteful spending and budget gimmicks that mask the true cost of the bill. Scalise said that when accounting for the extended Obamacare subsidies and budget gimmicks all of the deficit reduction is “wiped out.”
“Democrats are now moving forward with this newest iteration of their economic death spiral that includes budgetary gimmicks that don’t actually reduce the deficit, raises taxes for every American including a “heat your home” tax, empowers an army of IRS agents to harass Americans and small businesses, forces socialist price controls on drugs that will cost lives, and wastes billions of dollars in Green New Deal slush funds and handouts to big business,” Scalise’s whip notice read.
The House Republican leadership effort to ensure that not a single House Republican will vote for the Inflation Reduction Act would continue the GOP trend of facing off against the Build Back Better Act.
In November 2021, not a single Republican voted for the Build Back Better Act after House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) delivered a record-setting eight-hour-long speech:
During his speech, McCarthy used the word “inflation” roughly 70 times, warning about the deleterious effects that rampant spending would have on working-class Americans. McCarthy said:
The American people understand what this out-of-control spending will do because they felt it from your very first bill you passed. You created inflation. The first thing that was said: It is just temporary. Our own President said he doesn’t know of any economist that is worried about inflation. Go to the grocery store. Stand in line at your gas station. Talk to one of your constituents. They will tell you because they feel it every single day. The American people understand what will happen. They understand because they live it in their own lives responsibly, because they set priorities, and because they live within their means.
The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and Biden’s subsequent signing of the bill could make this legislation the 46th president’s marquee legislation. Biden also has one of the more ambitious legislative agendas of any president in recent history.
Indeed, Biden, with his razor-thin majority, has passed a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, a $550 billion so-called Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a $280 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act, a gun control bill, and a bill to help veterans impacted by toxic burn pits, in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act.
However, that does not mean that Biden’s expansive legislative agenda would end up successfully addressing inflation. The Penn Wharton Budget Model and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the Inflation Reduction Act would not reduce inflation.
Ahead of the pivotal midterms, wherein Democrats could lose both their House and Senate majorities, only 24 percent of voters are aware that Congress passed the infrastructure bill.
Some swing district Democrats, such as Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR), worried that other reforms for prescription drugs, may not reach Americans’ ears ahead of the elections.
“We’re going to have the same problem on prescription drugs, mark my words. When the prescription drug bill comes out, it passes, the Democrats are gonna go well, ‘That’s great, but’ … The average person is gonna go, ‘But?’ That means it’s not that good, isn’t it?’ And that’s not true. It’s a great, great bill,” Schrader said in late July.
But that does not mean that the prescription drug reform would end up benefitting Americans. Medicare Part D prescription drug price controls may end up cutting seniors’ drug benefits; Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) called it a “war on seniors.”
That is where Republicans make their move. They want to make Democrats “own” the tax increases, the rampant inflation, decreased Medicare drug benefits, climate change provisions, fake budget gimmicks and offsets, green energy slush funds, and other leftist provisions.