McClain: Americans are Worse Off One Year After the Inflation Reduction Act
WASHINGTON—Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services Chair Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) opened today’s subcommittee hearing titled “The Inflation Reduction Act: A Year in Review” by noting how one year removed from Democrats’ so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Americans are worse off. Chairwoman McClain outlined how instead of lowering prices, the IRA hiked taxes on businesses, mandated price controls on drugs, devoted $80 billion IRS agents to target the middle class, and sacrificed our economic security to purse Democrats’ radical Green New Deal.
Below are Subcommittee Chairwoman McClain’s remarks as prepared for delivery.
We are here today to examine the Inflation Reduction Act a year since its passage.
Not surprisingly, the Inflation Reduction Act has not delivered on its promises the Democrats claimed it would.
Americans are still struggling under the weight of inflation.
Americans are paying more for just about everything—groceries, rent, gas, energy.
The most recent Consumer Price Index for August 2023 increased to 3.7 percent.
When President Biden was sworn into office in January 2021, he inherited a 1.4 percent inflation rate.
Inflation today is more than two and a half times the rate he inherited. And remember – inflation is cumulative.
Over the last two years, total inflation has increased by over 17 percent.
Prices are likely only going to tick up.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates in an attempt to curb inflation—the inflation brought about by excessive Democrat spending.
Frankly, this frustrates me.
When Americans were experiencing the highest inflation in 40 years last summer, Democrats claimed their “Inflation Reduction Act” would do what the bill’s name indicated—help curb inflation.
Republicans saw it for what it really was. A radical spending spree to implement a leftist wish list from the Green New Deal.
A year later, President Biden says that he “regrets” the title of the bill.
Instead, he has labeled the $369 billion dollar spending package as “the single greatest investment in climate change ever.”
Not a word about inflation. Because it was never intended to reduce it.
When Americans needed inflation relief the most, the IRA was the lie Democrats told to push their Green New Deal.
Not only does the IRA do little to reduce inflation, but it will continue to add to the deficit with rampant spending.
It is estimated that the federal deficit will hit 2 trillion dollars as the fiscal year ends later this month.
The IRA’s green energy slush fund is expected to cost us more than 633 billion dollars over the next 10 years.
Goldman Sachs estimates that the IRA’s green energy credits will cost taxpayers as much as 1.2 trillion dollars by 2032.
Further, the IRA’s Medicare price control provisions are harming the market.
The IRA allows the federal government to dictate arbitrary prices on drugs, disrupting normal market mechanisms of supply and demand and putting drugs already in short supply at further risk.
Drug price controls risk the future of investment in research and development of the innovative treatments Americans need the most.
I, as well as others on this Committee, understand that health care is getting more expensive.
But this isn’t the way to fix it, and in fact, it is making the problem worse.
Just like hiring 87,000 more IRS agents and wishy-washy, unenforceable promises to not target regular Americans is not going to help reduce the deficit.
Government micromanagement of the economy is NOT the solution.
We’ve seen it fail before.
In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter tried to ease inflation by imposing energy price controls.
It failed then and Americans suffered. It will fail this time as well.
The solutions are free-market, pro-competition policies like…
- shrinking the deficit
- promoting economic growth
- cutting regulatory red tape
- simplifying the tax code
- eliminating government waste, fraud and abuse
- AND investing in American energy independence.
The IRA didn’t do any of these things and that’s why Americans are worse off today than the day it passed.
I am looking forward to hearing from experts on the impacts and what should be done to help Americans.