Murkowski Votes Against Tax-and-Spend Reconciliation Bill
“Given the State of Our Economy, These Tax Hikes Couldn’t Come at a Worse Time”
U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) today voted against the partisan budget reconciliation bill, which includes dramatic spending and tax increases over the next decade. Senate Democrats chose to skip the traditional committee process, released a 755-page substitute text mere hours before it was taken up by the full Senate, and eventually passed the measure on a party-line basis, with the Vice President having to break a tie vote on final passage in the evenly divided Senate.
“I voted against the partisan reconciliation measure for a host of different reasons, most notably the hundreds of billions of dollars of increased taxes and new spending it contains at a time when our economy can least afford it, along with the absolute lack of transparency that went into crafting and processing it. It’s hard to describe how rushed its passage truly was, or how bad that is from the standpoint of enacting good policy,” Murkowski said. “The title of the Inflation Reduction Act is misleading, as early projections show it may actually add to inflation for the next several years. It contains hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending, and hundreds of billions more in new taxes that will burden the American people and American businesses for years to come. It does less to reduce the deficit than projected, it will harm domestic oil and gas producers, and it will dramatically grow the bureaucracy at the IRS. Even floor debate – with amendment votes starting just before midnight on Saturday, and continuing through Sunday afternoon – was designed to avoid public awareness and scrutiny. While I don’t oppose everything within the bill, there is no doubt in my mind, based on both substance and process, that the Senate should not have passed it.”
