Ernst: “President Biden’s budget can be summed up like this: higher taxes, higher spending, and higher debt.”

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) today spoke on the Senate floor to highlight the burden President Biden’s budget proposal would create for taxpayers in Iowa and across the country. Ernst noted that Biden’s proposal would force Iowans to subsidize abortions, electric vehicles for wealthy coastal elites, and a bureaucratic buildup at the IRS—all while slashing funding for our Armed Forces and emboldening our adversaries, like Communist China.

 

Senator Ernst’s full remarks are below:

 

“You might have missed it, but without much fanfare, the White House quietly released the President’s budget on the Friday before a holiday weekend.

 

“Maybe we weren’t supposed to notice the plan at all, but the contents make it impossible to ignore.

 

“President Biden is proposing higher taxes on working Americans and cuts to our national defense to pay for a massive expansion of the federal government and enactment of radical progressive demands, like parts of the Green New Deal.

 

“What can’t be paid for is simply put on the nation’s “credit card,” adding trillions of dollars of red ink.

 

“President Biden’s budget can be summed up like this: higher taxes, higher spending, and higher debt.

 

“Don’t take my word for it. 

 

“The New York Times wrote that Biden’s $6 trillion budget would ‘push federal spending to its highest sustained levels since World War II.’

 

“Under the Biden budget, by 2028, Washington will collect more tax revenue as a portion of our economy than at nearly any point over the last 100 years.

 

“This tax collecting scheme even includes a retroactive tax increase.

 

“That’s right folks—you may owe higher taxes on past earnings.

 

“Plus, the President would allow the tax cuts for lower-income and middle-class Americans to expire in 2025, and the result will be higher taxes for most Americans.

 

“Higher tax bills will add additional burdens to Iowa families and small businesses already struggling with rising prices and inflation being caused by Bidenomics.

 

“So what do you get in exchange for all of these new taxes?

 

“For the first time in nearly half-a-century, taxpayers would be forced to pay for abortions.

 

“The Biden budget contains $600 million for electric vehicles.

 

“That’s a lot of money to subsidize a product very few Americans, other than upper income individuals on the Coasts, seem interested in purchasing.

 

“President Biden would also spend your taxes to double the size of the IRS over the next decade, adding almost 87,000 new employees at a cost of nearly $80 billion.

 

“You heard that right—87,000 new IRS agents.

 

“But while the Biden budget promises a bureaucratic buildup at the IRS, his proposal is far less generous to our Armed Forces.

 

“The Air Force would suffer a substantial cut in its number of aircraft.

 

“The small number of new ships added to the Navy will not keep pace with the growth of Communist China’s shipbuilding.

 

“This is especially concerning since the CCP now boasts the world’s largest navy and is attempting to expand its naval presence in the Atlantic.

 

“The Army budget would be slashed by more than $3 billion.

 

“The resulting troop reductions would leave us with the same sized Army as we had on 9/11.

 

“While essentially freezing defense spending overall, $617 million of the military’s budget would be diverted to fighting … climate change.

 

“Folks, who does the President think he will be able to call on should we need to fight off foreign threats – his new army of IRS agents?

 

“We face new threats around the globe and lowering our defenses, as President Biden is proposing, will only embolden our adversaries.

 

“Americans may fear an IRS audit, but Red China won’t.

 

“When America last spent as much as President Biden is proposing, we built—essentially from scratch—the world’s greatest military force.

 

“And all Americans were called on to play their part in the most noble of causes.

 

“The entire free world will forever owe a debt of gratitude to the Greatest Generation.

 

“There is no denying that the sacrifices made by these Americans and the resources committed to their mission forever altered human history for the better.

 

“The same cannot be said about what is now being proposed, which will leave America weaker in the world.

 

“And the debt will be paid by future generations.

 

“The Biden budget is a bust for taxpayers and a boon for D.C. bureaucrats and tax collectors.”