Randolph Record

President Ronald Reagan wisely said, “We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.”

Today, our national debt is an unfathomable $29 trillion, and President Reagan’s warning has never been truer.

It’s no secret that President Joe Biden and Washington Democrats are addicted to spending your hard-earned money. Their so-called “Reconciliation Plan” is a prime example. This massive entitlement and climate change bill, a radical proposal written by Bernie Sanders, will transform our society into something we don’t recognize and will cripple our economy.

Washington Democrats have been working to finalize their bill behind closed doors — hiding details of the massive plan from you, the American people. Yet this is not the first time they have tried this trick. In 2010, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi infamously said Democrats had to pass Obamacare into law for you to find out what was in it. Fast forward to 2021, and here we go again.

While their plan has changed throughout the last month, one thing is clear: it is a massive expansion of government control over your life from the cradle to the grave.

To pay for it, their proposals have included $2.1 trillion in new tax hikes. The plan would punish families by raising taxes on 75% of the middle class. It raises the business-tax rate to among the highest in the developed world, well above communist China’s. We all know these businesses will be forced to pass those costs along to you and it means less job opportunities. In fact, this tax increase will force lower and middle-income taxpayers to shoulder 66.3% of the huge corporate tax increases. It also raises taxes on 1.4 million small businesses which employ 12.5 million American workers. While they have discussed numerous tax gimmicks to target billionaires, in reality their plan would give tax breaks to the wealthy, providing families earning $800,000 with $118,000 in tax credits.

While their elite friends get tax breaks, Democrats plan to further punish you by raising the costs to fill your car or heat your home. Home energy bills are already expected to increase by 54% this winter! A new natural gas tax included in their bill would increase your heating bills by an additional $242 per year. Another new tax on energy producers could cost up to 90,000 Americans their jobs.

As if all of this wasn’t enough, President Biden’s proposal will use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. It would grant amnesty to more than 8 million illegal immigrants. $80 billion is spent to hire 85,000 new IRS agents to monitor your bank account if you spend just $28 a day.

What’s worse — President Biden has tied this massive entitlement bill to infrastructure legislation. There is massive bipartisan support for investing in our roads, bridges, ports and broadband. Yet just 10% of their $1.5 trillion ‘infrastructure’ bill is devoted to infrastructure, while the rest is devoted to propping up radical Green New Deal climate provisions.

Rest assured, I oppose both bills because they are the wrong solutions and the wrong time. Just last week we learned that economic growth in the last quarter slowed to a dismal 2% — the worst since our economy began to reopen after the pandemic. Gas prices in North Carolina jumped 14 cents per gallon, tied for the largest spike in the nation.

Supply chain issues and inflation are clearly taking a toll on families and our economy. I cannot support trillions in new spending and taxes that will only make Biden’s economic, energy and inflation crises worse.

We need to get government out of the way, get Americans back to work, encourage energy production here in the U.S., and cut government spending and taxes. While many in Washington argue how much to tax you and how large to grow government, I will always stand up for you and your family.