Opinion: Democrats' big government law will hurt Iowa’s families and small businesses
As Iowans struggle with prices of everyday essentials rising faster than they have in the past 40 years, Democrats in Washington have advanced another gigantic spending bill paired with crippling tax hikes. Despite its misleading name, the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” will put the United States in a considerably worse position and impose economic pain across the board. Backers of this spending proposal falsely claim this bill will cut inflation and argue the middle class will be unaffected. This is not true. The reality is that this legislation will waste billions in taxpayer dollars on special interest projects and will double the workforce of the Internal Revenue Service to audit everyday Americans.
Now, American families and small businesses will be forced to pay even higher prices for necessities while watching their paychecks erode to finance a massive government expansion.
As President Joe Biden signed his prize bill into law this week, Americans have a right to know what it’s going to cost them. For starters, this proposal would provide the federal government with an additional $235 billion in new federal spending over the next five years. Inflation is skyrocketing, and the average hard-working American has already lost more than $1,800 in purchasing power because of reckless federal spending. With the economy in recession territory, the Democrats’ solution is to flood the economy with even more inflationary spending in a misguided attempt to promote “green energy” — all while buying many of the materials necessary for these energy projects from China, the largest polluter in the world.
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At a time when Iowa’s economy is still recovering from the pandemic, the greatest threats to the economy are labor shortages and supply chain disruptions brought about by endless government spending, more regulation, and higher taxes.
Families and small businesses will be forced to fork over more of their hard-earned incomes from increased inflation, and they will also face the threat of invasive and expensive audits brought about by adding an astonishing 87,000 new auditors and bureaucrats to the IRS workforce. To put this into perspective, over the last 12 months, employers in Iowa added 42,100 payroll jobs to the workforce. Democrats falsely claim these IRS auditors will focus on America’s upper-class and big businesses, but just last year, 307,000 of the nearly 660,000 audits conducted by the IRS in 2021 were against Americans making under $25,000 annually.
The evidence is quite clear: This bill will hurt low- and middle-income families, Iowa’s small businesses, and family-owned farms. The only reduction that will come about from this alleged “inflation reduction” bill will be a reduction in Americans’ ability to put affordable food on the table and provide for their families.
Americans need relief from endless wasteful spending, and we must return to the values and economic policies that are rooted in an America First approach. Policies that focus on cutting wasteful spending, lowering inflation, increasing employment, and growing our economy is the answer to Iowa’s (and America’s) inflation crisis, not the Democrats’ Big Government socialism.
Linda McMahon, is chair of the Center for the American Worker for America First Policy Institute. Mariannette Miller-Meeks represents southeastern Iowa in Congress.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Opinion: Big government law will hurt Iowa families and businesses
