{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=58A130D8-507D-419C-B690-0691648309AD", "Democrats\u2019 Reckless Spree: Steep Costs, and Bad Policy, Too", "2021-12-15", "2021", "2021-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered the following remarks today on the Senate floor regarding Democrats\u2019 reckless tax and spending spree:\n\n\u201cI described yesterday how inflation is hurting families across the country.\n\n\u201cSince then, yet another key economic indicator has set an unfortunate record: In the last year, wholesale prices grew at their fastest pace on record.\n\n\u201cAnyone with a shred of sense knows this is the absolute wrong time to unleash a multi-trillion-dollar taxing and spending spree. Every single day brings new evidence our Democratic colleagues should give the country a break.\n\n\u201cBut the cost of Washington Democrats\u2019 latest obsession isn\u2019t the only problem. The content of what they want to pass is just as bad.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve known since the start of the COVID pandemic that Democrats saw it as an opportunity to transform American society. They\u2019ve said so in public.\n\n\u201cAnd the reckless taxing and spending spree they\u2019re writing behind closed doors is a Trojan horse to let the radical left dictate intimate details to American families.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s a long list of policies inspired by the authors of the Green New Deal. A whole slew of new programs and mandates aimed at fitting the entire country\u2019s systems for producing and consuming energy into a California-shaped box.\n\n\u201cSpecial subsidies for expensive lifestyle choices like electric vehicles and electric bicycles.\n\n\u201cNew red tape to strangle the most reliable and affordable sources of American energy.\n\n\u201cSubsidies for supply chains that China dominates, so America borrows in order to Build Back Beijing.\n\n\u201cAnd don\u2019t forget the so-called \u2018Civilian Climate Corps.\u2019 Just what we need at a time of inflation and labor shortages \u2014 a Potemkin make-work program for liberal activists.\n\n\u201cOf course, Washington Democrats intend to grab greater control over the development of America\u2019s young people long before they\u2019re eligible for made-up green jobs.\n\n\u201cTheir spree contains a massive \u2018Toddler Takeover\u2019 that insults the diversity of American families and their aspirations. It only throws money at a subset of secular childcare centers that woke bureaucrats favor.\n\n\u201cForget faith-based options. Forget flexible, part-time arrangements. Forget being remotely fair to families with a parent at home. Democrats want to bring their inflation into childcare and make daycare more expensive, more inflexible, and more unfair.\n\n\u201cAnd then there\u2019s the latest offensive in a long campaign to restrict more of Americans\u2019 healthcare choices. Democrats\u2019 plan would mean more one-size-fits-all programs, more government control, a wet blanket over the world-leading innovation pipeline that creates new cures, and a further gamble with seniors\u2019 Medicare when the trust fund is already in danger of insolvency.\n\n***\n\n\u201cThen there are the massive tax hikes our colleagues want to use to cover the bill.\n\n\u201cAll those radical changes, all those Big Government intrusions into family life, come paired with crushing tax hikes that would hit our country like a ton of bricks.\n\n\u201cThere are new surcharges on individual taxpayers. There are tax hikes for pass-through businesses. There\u2019s a brand-new radical scheme to make American industries less competitive that Senate Democrats scribbled down with no hearings or committee process.\n\n\u201cPresident Biden promised he wouldn\u2019t raise taxes one penny on anybody making less than $400,000. But experts agree that Democrats\u2019 tax hikes would break that promise. People with far less income would be affected.\n\n\u201cFor goodness\u2019 sake, in 2022, their bill would give a bigger percentage tax cut to people making more than $1 million every year than to families that pull in between $75,000 and $100,000.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. The average person who makes upwards of a million dollars gets a bigger tax break from Democrats\u2019 bill than the average household that makes just under six figures.\n\n\u201cIn large part, that\u2019s because of an absurdly expensive tax giveaway that Democrats want to hand out to benefit high income earners in blue states. Their \u2018SALT\u2019 policy would make the federal government subsidize the property tax bills of people with mansions who choose to live in high-tax states.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s an insane proposition, and it\u2019s struggling to even earn support from Democrats\u2019 rank-and-file. But their leaders from New York and California are obsessed with it. Go figure.\n\n***\n\n\u201cBut SALT is only just the beginning of the gravy train this bill steers toward Democrats\u2019 pet projects and causes.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s also a tax-code tweak that would create a special deduction for union dues while letting one for charitable contributions expire.\n\n\u201cAnother special incentive \u2013 to the tune of $10 billion \u2013 would help liberal colleges and universities indoctrinate students in new \u2018environmental justice\u2019 programs.\n\n\u201cStill others would pour $29 billion into funding a \u2018National Green Bank\u2019\u2026 $2.5 billion into increasing \u2018tree equity\u2019\u2026 $1.67 billion to bail out news outlets\u2026and an extra billion on top for \u2018improving climate resilience\u2019 of Pacific salmon.\n\n\u201cAnd then, of course, there are the extra special ways Democrats want to use this bill to fulfill more personal, hometown priorities.\n\n\u201cSpeaker Pelosi didn\u2019t end up getting to earmark millions of federal dollars for redeveloping a park in her district.\n\n\u201cBut she did secure one Congressman\u2019s vote by upping the funding for a defunct regional commission that largely benefits his district by 13,000%.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s old-school vote buying, Mr. President. A slap in the face to taxpayers.\n\n\u201cOur own colleague, the Democratic Leader, has pledged to \u2018use all of [his] power\u2019 to personally steer tens of billions of dollars toward a hometown New York City housing authority with a long and storied reputation of corruption, mismanagement, and scandal.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s hard to wrap your head around, Mr. President. That is, unless you subscribe to Washington Democrats\u2019 apparent core principle: when the American people are footing the bill, the menu is all-you-can-spend.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:37:48Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=58A130D8-507D-419C-B690-0691648309AD"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8789009880274534, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}