H.R. 5376 would spend at least $512 billion on federal programs, subsidies, and tax credits. This includes $369 billion for various climate-change initiatives with the goal of lowering carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030, including $270 billion in tax credits, $27 billion in grants to state and local governments and nongovernmental organizations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and $9.7 billion to support zero-emission or carbon-capture technology in rural areas; $64 billion to extend expanded ObamaCare subsidies for three years; and $79.3 billion in expanded IRS funding (including to hire up to 87,000 new agents). Among other programs, the bill imposes a 15-percent minimum tax — based on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) global minimum tax proposal — on corporations with at least $1 million in annual income, enacts drug-pricing changes for Medicare, and raises fee rates on energy production on public lands.
The Senate passed H.R. 5376 on August 7, 2022 by a vote of 50 to 50 (Roll Call 325). We have assigned pluses to the nays because Congress is failing to address its fiscally irresponsible budgeting and appropriating process that yielded a federal deficit of $1.38 trillion in fiscal 2022. Moreover, the bill advances a radical environmentalist agenda, and virtually all of its provisions fall outside the Constitution’s specified powers.
