Washington, D.C. – Rep. Don Bacon (NE-02) today released the following statement after voting against H.R. 5376, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. This $740 billion spending package raises taxes and redirects hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare to insurance companies; gives $80 billion in new funding to the IRS; and hires an additional 87,000 IRS agents to audit Americans. The increase would more than double the size of the IRS workforce, which currently has 78,661 full-time staffers. This amount exceeds the total number of staff combined at Customs and Border Patrol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Pentagon, and the State Department.

In addition, H.R. 5376 advances Green New Deal initiatives by pushing a 15 percent corporate tax minimum on all U.S. companies; imposing $12 billion in new taxes on American energy; including a superfund tax increase on crude oil refining and imported petroleum products and a natural gas tax that will make it more expensive for Americans to heat their homes and purchase basic goods.

“At a time when Americans are already struggling with record-high prices, supply-chain issues, and a recession after two straight quarters of negative economic growth, now is not the time to raise taxes that will further burden America’s working families and businesses. Instead of hiring 87,000 IRS agents, we could be hiring 87,000 school resource officers, border patrol agents, teachers, or health care workers.

“This reckless and partisan bill is bad for Nebraska families, bad for Nebraska businesses, and bad for America’s energy sector. Democrats have been misinforming the American people on what’s really in this bill, and even President Biden’s favorite economist, Mark Zandi, says it won’t reduce inflation. We can’t keep asking the American taxpayers to shoulder the burden for the Democrats’ reckless spending.”

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