U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) corrected the record on U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s remarks about the “Democrats’ socialist, big government agenda” during a Senate Banking committee hearing today. Senator Cramer specifically discussed the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) score on Democrats’ Build Back Better agenda, the lack of work requirements for tax credits and new entitlement programs in the bill, and the current state of inflation with Secretary Yellen and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell.
“I want to read directly from the Congressional Budget Office’s score. ‘CBO estimates that enhancing this legislation would result in a new increase in the deficit totaling $367 billion over the 2022 through 2031 period,’” said Senator Cramer. “It’s $155 billion next year alone, and it continues for five years.”
In response, Secretary Yellen acknowledged that the Democrats’ tax and spending spree would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit over the ten year period in CBO’s score.
“It does say $360 billion over ten year effect on the deficit,” said Secretary Yellen.
Yellen also pointed to “enhanced resources for tax enforcement” to which Senator Cramer responded, “and fairy dust creates energy.” The senator then pivoted to discussing the tax credits in the proposal noting the lack of work requirements to receive the credits.
“If all of those credits and giveaways and incentives are going to help increase workforce participation, is there a work requirement tied to all of those?” asked Senator Cramer.
“There are places where there are not workforce requirements, like the child tax credit,” replied Secretary Yellen.
“We’re talking about a workforce participation rate that needs to be increased, do any of these incentives require people to work to get them or is this just going to be added on to whatever they’re already getting regardless of their employment situation?” asked Senator Cramer.
When Secretary Yellen did not answer the question, Senator Cramer answered it for her: “They aren’t, just so you know,” said the senator.
Senator Cramer wrapped up his questioning by discussing inflation with Chairman Powell, specifically noting the benefits of investing in the capacity of the economy rather than paying people not to work.
“In North Dakota, inflation is over 7%… By the time we got to early this year, the winds of inflation were already blowing and the economy was already expanding, but the Democrats added $2 trillion more dollars to the debt and deficit as well as stimulating the economy without any requirement on the other side. Now we’re doing another whatever its going to be – $2, $4, $5 trillion – Democrats are going to push through,” said Senator Cramer. “[Stimulation] may help people pay for some things, but the cost does not come down.”
“Do you know of an economic model where costs come down when people have more money to spend on it?” asked Senator Cramer.
Chairman Powell couldn’t name an example, but he stated there are benefits to investments which create more capacity in the economy.
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