In the News

By: Congressman Drew Ferguson
Washington Examiner

With the federal government poised to once again reach its borrowing limit next month, the public expects Congress to get our nation’s fiscal trajectory under control. It is long past time that lawmakers enforce meaningful limits on our country’s future spending, and make sensible and responsible choices that address the looming debt ceiling crisis while ensuring the United States does not perpetuate the cycle of irresponsible borrowing and spending until the next time we are asked to authorize even more debt.

That is why last week, the House Republican Conference came together to pass the Limit, Save, Grow Act. Along with saving the public $4.8 trillion over the next 10 years, this important legislation reaffirms the GOP’s commitment to rein in spending by rescinding billions of unspent COVID funds, limiting federal expenditures through discretionary spending limits, eliminating the army of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents added by the Biden administration to go after hardworking middle-class Americans, and instituting work requirements for able-bodied, childless Americans to qualify for federal assistance. Republicans recognize that now is the time to stand strong against the federal government’s mismanagement of hardworking taxpayers’ dollars and do the right thing to strengthen the future fiscal state of our nation. This was precisely our goal in passing last week’s bill.

Contrast this with the so-called Inflation Reduction (IRA) Act signed by President Joe Biden, which among other things added an estimated $271 billion in green energy subsidies. We now know that those original estimates were way off, as a more recent analysis has shown taxpayers stand to pay more than three times that initial estimate. Economists at Goldman Sachs estimate that the total cost of the IRA “Green New Deal” credits is $1.2 trillion, with the largest cost increases coming from electric vehicle (EV) credits — including a $7,500 handout to wealthy individuals to purchase a luxury EV. Goldman Sachs estimates that these EV credits alone will cost $393 billion, which is drastically higher than the original Joint Committee on Taxation estimate of $14 billion.

While I understand the positive effect of targeted tax incentives at the state and local level that are proven to stimulate economic development in a specific region, federal tax subsidies used to implement a partisan agenda that benefits only wealthy corporations and coastal elites are not the same thing.

Making matters worse, 90% of these “Green New Deal” tax write-offs are flowing to companies that earned more than $1 billion in revenue last year. This means that while Biden tells the public that big corporations need to “pay their fair share,” he’s simultaneously giving billion-dollar corporations massive reductions to their tax liabilities. The hypocrisy of this administration is remarkable. Democrats have prioritized their extremist climate agenda and accompanying market-distorting handouts for politically connected companies over the needs of hardworking Americans and small businesses.

Democrats’ “Green New Deal” subsidies also failed to include important permitting provisions to allow domestic mining of critical materials needed to manufacture electric batteries — which are essential for the production of EVs. As a result, companies are being forced to source their critical minerals from our adversaries, such as China and Russia. Thanks to these progressive policies, our nation’s green energy market is now more dependent on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), posing a major risk to our national security.

China is taking advantage of our dependence on its market by monopolizing the critical minerals needed for manufacturing EV batteries. Even worse, CCP-owned companies are able to receive massive subsidies from the Democrats’ green corporate welfare. In other words, due to the construct of these green energy subsidies, American tax dollars are being sent directly to China.

House Republicans’ Limit, Save, Grow Act is the only legislation in Congress that details a plan to fix our nation’s spending problem. The public understands that giving massive subsidies to billion-dollar corporations while giving China a competitive advantage over hardworking Americans is simply wrong — but does the president?