The Patriot Post® · Manchin Hides the Truth About Raising Your Taxes
The Inflation Reduction Expansion Act introduced last week after a blockbuster compromise between Senate Majority Spendthrift Chuck Schumer and Faux Fiscal Hawk Joe Manchin won’t save Joe Biden from the recession we have officially entered. It didn’t save Biden from a “rebound” case of COVID, either.
Taking deserved heat for a massive tax-and-spend bill that will hit every American hard, Manchin was forced to play defense all weekend. He said, “I don’t think that during a time of recession you mess with any of the taxes or increase any taxes.” Oops — that was years ago. Now that the nation is actually in Biden’s recession, Manchin seems to think it’s a great time to raise taxes on millions of Americans while denying he’s doing just that.
Among the things he said during his visit to all five major Sunday political talk shows, Manchin proclaimed that the bill isn’t Democrat or Republican. “It’s definitely not a green bill,” he insisted. “This is a red, white, and blue bill, and it’s great for America.” Elsewhere, he deflected, “We’re not spending money, we’re investing.”
“This is a bill that basically does everything,” he boasted.
“We’ve taken a $3.5 trillion aspirational bill that I never could come to an agreement on in any way, shape or form — but I tried, couldn’t get there,” he said. “And we’ve taken $3.5 trillion of spending down to $400 billion of investing without raising any taxes whatsoever.”
“We did not raise taxes,” Manchin said on another show. “We’ve closed loopholes. That’s all we did.”
Yeah, about that…
Sure, the Leftmedia Praetorian Guard known as the “fact-checkers” will rate Manchin’s statement true. Outside of setting a minimum corporate tax rate, the bill does not raise tax rates. But it will generate more tax revenue for the federal government, which means someone will be paying more in taxes.
That someone will be nearly everyone.
The Wall Street Journal reports, “According to Senate Democrats, the package would raise roughly $739 billion, with much of the revenue coming from the 15% corporate minimum tax and enhanced tax-enforcement efforts at the Internal Revenue Service.”
Any reputable economist understands that raising taxes on corporations raises prices for (middle class) consumers, reduces wages for (middle class) workers, and reduces dividends for (middle class) shareholders. Democrats love to pretend they’re just going to take some extra coins from Uncle Scrooge’s money bin after it was filled by exorbitant profits from higher prices. There’s certainly some price gouging, but the truth is that we’ll all be gouged for that $739 billion during a recession and while the headline inflation rate is already 9.1%.
The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation issued a devastating report explaining how: “In 2023, taxes will increase by $16.7 billion on American taxpayers earning less than $200,000 — a nearly $17 billion tax targeted solidly at low- and middle-income earners next year, amidst stagflation. … The proposal would raise another $14.1 billion from taxpayers earning between $200,000 and $500,000.”
Moreover, the JCT says: “Throughout the ten-year window, the average [effective] tax rate for nearly every single income category would increase. By 2031, when the new green energy credits and subsidies provide an even greater benefit to those at higher incomes, those earning below $400,000 are projected to bear as much as two-thirds of the burden of the additional tax revenue collected that year.”
Remember when Joe Biden (and every other Democrat) kept promising not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000? Biden promises that about this very bill: “We will pay for all of this by requiring big corporations to pay their fair share of taxes, with no tax increases at all for families making under $400,000 a year.”
We rate his claim technically true but, back here in reality, egregiously and offensively false.
Meanwhile, as we already noted, we’re all already being squeezed before this bill even becomes law. “As a result of inflation,” noted Mark Alexander on Friday, “real hourly wages have fallen 4.8% since Biden took office, the worst since the 1970s. That is a monetary loss of $3,400 in annual wages per worker, or $6,800 per family in which both parents work. That’s a stiff price to avoid mean tweets from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Biden called the Schumer-Manchin bill a “historic agreement to fight inflation and lower costs for American families.” For the guy who largely created historic inflation with his last spending boondoggle, that’s an awfully rich claim.