The Kyle Rittenhouse verdict swamped the news cycle on Friday, with the tremors of unhinged aftershocks lasting through the weekend, but there was other major news that broke earlier that day that we cannot allow to slip by relatively unnoticed. House Democrats followed Speaker Nancy Pelosi "off a cliff," as Sen. Mitch McConnell described it, by passing their partisan, "Build Back Better" reconciliation spending bill. Zero Republicans supported the measure, which drew support from every single House Democrat with the exception of one moderate-leaning member from Maine. It was basically a perfect party-line vote. If Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are to be believed, the House-passed legislation will not survive the upper chamber; Senate Democrats may yet hammer out another deal, but it won't mirror the House bill on any number of fronts. This is important because 220 House Democrats have now formally supported a proposal that will not become law as-written, but is packed with toxic provisions that Republicans can and must exploit ahead of the 2022 midterms. It would be malpractice not to. It's a target-rich environment, but here are the top five attack lines that House Democrats have created for themselves by voting in favor of Pelosi's bill:
(1) Inflicting tax hikes on millions of middle-class households. According to the left-leaning, nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the House bill would raise taxes on up to 30 percent of middle-class households in 2022 – tens of millions of people – and would raise taxes further in subsequent years. Joe Biden has promised repeatedly, both as a candidate and as president, that he would not raise taxes by one cent on anyone earning less than $400,000 annually. Virtually every single House Democrat explicitly voted to break that pledge and raise taxes on huge numbers of middle-income Americans:
President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda would raise taxes on up to 30 percent of middle-class families, despite his campaign promises not to hike taxes on anyone making under $400,000 per year, according to a new analysis. “Taking into account all major tax provisions, roughly 20 percent to 30 percent of middle-income households would pay more in taxes in 2022,” an analysis published late Thursday by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center found...In 2023, the proposed expansions of the Child Tax Credit payments would end and the corporate minimum tax on book income, which is one of the largest proposed tax hikes in the bill. The Tax Policy Center said this will hit families indirectly by limiting companies’ return to shareholders, which include workers and those investing for retirement. A proposed increase in the nicotine tax could also increase tax burdens across all income brackets. “In general, the combined effects of these changes would result in many households paying higher taxes in 2023 than in 2022. They would shrink the average 2023 tax cuts for low-income households, raise taxes slightly for moderate-income households...
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(2) Handing huge tax breaks to blue state millionaires. I still can't quite believe this is true, but it is. House Democrats voted to hike taxes on tens of millions of middle-class Americans in order to pay for legislation that features major tax breaks for rich people living in high-tax blue states. It's the largest line-item in the bill over its first five years. Remember, they're framing this as a "human infrastructure" and "climate" plan. Tax hikes for the middle class, tax breaks for most millionaires in the country. I'm speechless:
??WOW??
— Marc Goldwein - GET VAXXED! (@MarcGoldwein) November 11, 2021
Thanks to the SALT ?? cap increase, over two-thirds of millionaires will get a TAX CUT under Build Back Better. pic.twitter.com/qEN7T4o8HW
Good catch by @DonFSchneider. The House Democrats' BBB legislation gives $1 million+ earners a BIGGER initial tax cut than even the GOP 2017 tax cuts did.
— Brian Riedl ?? (@Brian_Riedl) November 19, 2021
After all the criticism of the 2017 "tax cuts for the rich," this is pretty remarkable. https://t.co/jgHpIrI2Pu
The *most expensive provision* in the BBB over 5 years is a tax cut that gives 84% of its benefits to the top-earning 10% of households. Inequality rhetoric aside, it reveals the real Democratic party constituency today - the coastal and urban professional class.
— Brian Riedl ?? (@Brian_Riedl) November 18, 2021
(3) Ramming through trillions in new spending, much of it unpaid for, amid painful inflation. Inflation is biting, and even major Democratic economists are warning about the inflationary impacts of continuing the current, insane spending binge:
...The administration should come clean with voters about the impact of its spending plans on inflation. Build Back Better can be deemed “paid for” only if one embraces budget gimmicks, like assuming that some of the most important initiatives will be allowed to expire in just a few years. The result: a package that front-loads spending while tax revenues arrive only over a decade. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the plan would likely add $800 billion or more to the deficit over the next five years, exacerbating inflationary pressures.
Even with the blizzard of gimmicks, House Democrats still voted for legislation that would add hundreds of billions of dollars to deficits. The Congressional Budget Office ran the numbers, and House Democrats simply shrugged off the data and voted yes. Over and over, Biden, Pelosi and others insisted the legislation was "fully paid for" and would cost "zero dollars." That was always an insulting lie, but now there are CBO projections proving it's a lie. They all backed it anyway, claiming CBO doesn't know what it's doing. And with inflation as a backdrop, recall that the gimmickless reality is far worse:
They underlying programs are not paid for by incremental revenue increases. There is a lot of deficit financing; the Administration should just be honest about this. And near term deficits do risk increasing the inflationary impulse.
— Scott Ruesterholz (@Read_N_Learn) November 18, 2021
(4) Further empowering the IRS to conduct far more audits – and not just targeting "the rich":
Americans’ chances of audit more than doubles as Dems’ supercharged IRS targets lower & middle-income earners.
— J.P. Freire (@JPFreire) November 18, 2021
Nearly half of 1.2 million new audits will be on Americans making up to $75,000 a year.
313,000 of these hitting people making up to $25k.https://t.co/ApSXebSUyY
Keep in mind that Democrats want the IRS to be as aggressive as possible, in order to hit huge revenue "pay-for" targets that CBO has officially assessed to be off by hundreds of billions of dollars. Imagine being a middle-income American paying higher taxes and undergoing an IRS audit, all so millionaires who live in blue states can have a tax break. That's what House Democrats all voted for.
(5) Eliminates protections for taxpayers who don't want to fund elective abortions. Pelosi proudly said that the popular Hyde Amendment – which Joe Biden supported for his whole career before cravenly flip-flopping to win the Democratic nomination last year – is excluded from this bill. This is a red line for Sen. Manchin, but 220 House Democrats decided that American taxpayers (many of whom would see a tax increase under this bill) should be forced to fund abortions. This includes every so-called "moderate," with the lone exception mentioned above. Hispanic voters have trended away from Democrats in recent years, partially due to the party's abortion radicalism, in some cases. Democrats who hope this component of last week's vote won't be a potent criticism, especially in some key swing areas, are dreaming.
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