“I like the fact that they have decided to call this tax-and-spending bill the ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ - because they finally admitted there is inflation,” Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) President Grover Norquist says.
After first pretending inflation didn’t exist, or was someone else’s fault, the Biden Administration is “now facing the fact they have a massive inflation problem that they created,” Norquist said Wednesday in an interview with “America Reports”:
“We went through a year and a half, where Biden was saying it did not happen, it's transitory, it's Putin, it’s greedy people, it's going to be over in December - that was last December it was, not next - last December, it was going to be over by. They are now facing the fact they have a massive inflation problem that they created. It did not exist before the $2 trillion was thrown up in the air and the increase in spending and the increase in the money supply.”
“So, now they’re going to have a recession-inducing spending-and-tax bill and anti-energy bill to fix the inflation bill and, then, later we’ll have something to fix the recession,” Norquist said. “This is more government piled on top of more government. This is how we got in the mess: spend too much, tax too much.
“So, the solution to that is tax more, spend more? How?”
“The president lied his way into office when he said he would not raise taxes on people who made less than 400,000,” Norquist said, noting the harm to Americans of increasing taxes on energy-producers:
“This bill raises taxes on coal, crude oil, what they make gasoline out of, and natural gas. That's energy. That's everybody in the country: the poorest person and the rich. Everybody is being whacked by that.”
And, since the IRS plans to conduct 1.2 million new audits – and has less than a thousand billionaires and 500 companies in the Fortune 500 to audit – average Americans will make up the rest of the audits, Norquist said:
“And, the new audits? They’re going to have 1.2 million new audits. There are less than less than a thousand billionaires and only 500 companies in the Fortune 500. The rest of them are us.
“That's who they are auditing, and they know that.”
The bill’s new taxes will reduce the value of the life savings of everybody, not just the rich, Norquist warned:
“It's going to increase the cost of energy for people. And, when you look at all the various taxes that they are putting on this, it's going to reduce the value of stocks, which has already dropped as a result of Biden's policies.
“This one percent tax on [stock] buy-backs, and so on, will make your shares of stock in your 401(k), your IRA, your union pension all worth less. It will reduce the value of your life savings and half the country is in the 401(k) and IRA business. That’s not just the rich people.”