{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=A07ADC59-3BDD-483C-9E40-B7813CAF528A", "Democrats\u2019 Reckless Taxing and Spending Spree Stuffed With Absurd Waste and Political Payoffs", "2021-12-02", "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\u201cTwo thirds of Americans are worried about inflation.\n\n\u201cAbout half of the middle class and 70 percent of low-income families just told Gallup that rising prices have been a personal hardship for their households.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s why 67% of the American people say that Washington needs to \u2018cut back on spending and printing money.\u2019\n\n\u201cBut here in Washington D.C., Democrats are bound and determined to do just the opposite. They want to try the crazy strategy of inflating their way out of inflation. Another massive, reckless taxing and spending spree.\n\n\u201cEven the most generous estimates, when the CBO has to swallow all of Democrats\u2019 accounting gimmicks at face value, still say their proposal would entail $800 billion in new deficit spending over the next five years alone.\n\n\u201cOutside experts who are allowed to reject Democrats\u2019 obvious budget gimmicks find the real cost of their bill would actually be close to $5 trillion dollars, and after a decade, it would increase deficits by $2.8 trillion dollars.\n\n\u201cBut the reckless price tag isn\u2019t the only problem. What is remarkable is that the Democrats want to spend all these trillions but not leave citizens with any impressive, enduring new national project in return.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s no Hoover Dam, Interstate Highway System, or moon landing on the other side of their mountains of borrowed money. Nothing like that.\n\n\u201cJust a giant catalog of socialist mediocrity \u2014 new entitlements here, new transfer programs there, new ways to let bureaucrats run families\u2019 lives, and shameless goodies for specific interest groups who support the political left.\n\n\u201cA giant muddled mess that would leave families with fewer childcare choices and higher costs\u2026 with fewer new prescription drugs and cures\u2026 with higher prices for less reliable energy\u2026\n\n\u201cA reckless taxing and spending spree that hurts American families and helps China.\n\n***\n\n\u201cThere are a lot of big, sweeping, radical changes in their proposal that would change families\u2019 lives dramatically and for the worse.\n\n\u201cBut in between the sweeping wish-fulfillment for people who call themselves \u2018democratic socialists,\u2019 there is also a remarkable amount of pure waste, absurd little giveaways, and interest group goodies.\n\n\u201cA billion here, a billion there, and hope the American people won\u2019t notice if it\u2019s buried in enough bureaucratic gibberish.\n\n\u201cHere are just a few examples.\n\n\u201cThis bill would supply billions of dollars to help colleges and universities indoctrinate college students with even more left-wing propaganda\u2026\n\n\u201c\u2026 And billions more to give them made-up Potemkin jobs in a make-work program they\u2019re calling a \u2018Civilian Climate Corps.\u2019 This at a time when industries already cannot find workers.\n\n\u201cTheir bill would set aside multiple billions of dollars to put federal government employees like IRS agents and postal carriers into brand-new electric vehicles.\n\n\u201cEarlier this year, the Biden Administration made sure that luxury Teslas with a sticker price of up to $97,000 were on the list for government procurement.\n\n\u201cSo working families might be having to choose between heating costs and new shoes for the kids, but don\u2019t worry, Democrats will make sure IRS auditors can cruise around in Silicon Valley\u2019s finest.\n\n\u201cTheir proposal would create a huge $29 billion slush fund that activists are applauding as the foundation for something called \u2018a national green bank.\u2019 Can you say Solyndra on steroids?\n\n\u201cAn entire government bank to finance pipe dreams that can\u2019t earn support in the real economy.\n\n\u201cSeparately, they\u2019re planning to spend multiple billions of taxpayer dollars for something the liberals are calling \u2018tree equity.\u2019 I\u2019ll let that one speak for itself.\n\n\u201cOf course, Madam President, the Green New Deal folks aren\u2019t the only constituency Democrats want to pay off.\n\n\u201cThis reckless taxing and spending spree is also designed to knock out all their Christmas shopping for trial lawyers, Big Labor bosses, Ivy League administrators, and blue-state millionaires, all in one fell swoop!\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s the state-and-local tax carveout, the SALT gimmick, that would give an extra tax cut to two thirds of the households making a million dollars or more a year.\n\n\u201cPerhaps to make sure these reckless policies get good press, Democrats have included a $1.6 billion bailout for the news media. I\u2019m not making this up. We are essentially talking about government welfare for newsrooms.\n\n\u201cIt goes on and on.\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s a new special tax break for rich universities\u2019 massive endowments\u2026\n\n\u201cHundreds of millions of dollars to overhaul kids\u2019 school lunch menus, including making sure they are, \u2018culturally appropriate.\u2019 I guess they want to make sure that children\u2019s cafeteria trays are sufficiently woke.\n\n\u201cAnd goodness knows they couldn\u2019t skip over Big Labor. So the Democrats\u2019 plan would let working Americans\u2019 above-the-line tax deduction for charitable contributions expire \u2014 that goes away \u2014 but they\u2019d replace it with a brand-new deduction that only applies to union dues.\n\n\u201cAnd then there is pure pork of the old-school kind.\n\n\u201cThe Speaker of the House tried to sneak in hundreds of millions of dollars for a special park in San Francisco.\n\n\u201cAnd the Senate Democratic Leader has spent months trying to double the bill\u2019s funding for public housing so the chronically mismanaged authority in his hometown could get $40 billion federal dollars to clean up its messes.\n\n\u201cThere is even what appears to be a $33 million kickback that is largely for one Democratic congressman whose vote Speaker Pelosi had to lock down. Out of nowhere, one mostly dormant government commission that is important to this Democrat\u2019s district gets a funding increase of 13,000%.\n\n\u201cYou heard that right: A funding increase of thirteen thousand percent. What a terrific coincidence for this one Democratic House member.\n\n\u201cSo take a step back. Our colleagues\u2019 proposal isn\u2019t some big national leap into the 21st century. It is an endless hodge-podge of this nonsense.\n\n\u201cPartisan back-scratching, interest group giveaways, and shameless waste.\n\n\u201cAnd through tax hikes and inflation, working American families will foot the bill.\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=A07ADC59-3BDD-483C-9E40-B7813CAF528A"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.6498276963829994, "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"}