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Sen. John Barrasso likened President Biden to “the Mad Hatter” for trying to push his $2 trillion Build Back Better social spending plan through the Senate amid the worst inflation in more than 30 years.
Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said he sees the legislation that passed the House 220-213 earlier this month as a “back-breaking bill for the country.”
“We have record inflation right now. I view this as a back-breaking bill for the country with the kind of expenses, the spending, the adding to the debt, the inflation, the taxes that are going to hit the American people,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”
He said Biden’s proposal to “spend even more money on top of inflation, I mean, to me, this is ‘Alice in Wonderland’ logic. He’s the Mad Hatter out here. He continues to try to mislead the American people, first saying the cost will be zero, zero, zero, when the budget analysts have said it’s going to be hundreds of billions of dollars added to the debt.”
“People’s taxes are going to go up. He said, ‘oh, no, only if you make over $400,000 a year.’ That’s not what the tax experts are telling us. They say one out of three middle-class Americans will pay more in taxes,” Barrasso said, pointing out that “we cannot ignore inflation.”
“That is the thing that’s going to hurt our economy the most,” he said.
Host Trace Gallagher acknowledged that Republican senators oppose the spending plan and raising the debt ceiling and pointed out that the Wall Street Journal said increasing the debt limit doesn’t authorize new spending but allows the Treasury to raise money to pay for government spending that has already been authorized.
Gallagher questioned why Barrasso is against the bill even though his home state benefits from the federal government paying for 30,000 people to receive the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
“In my state, I was a member of the state Senate. Our Constitution demands that we balance our budget every year, that we live within our means, just like families all across America need to do. And I think the federal government ought to do the same thing,” Barrasso replied.
The senator predicted that no Republicans would join with Democrats to vote for the Build Back Better plan.
“This is all about Democrat spending. This is 100 percent on them. If you get rid of all of the gimmicks of accounting, this bill that the Democrats are proposing is $4 trillion in additional spending. There’s not a single Republican who’s going to vote for the bill or to raise the debt ceiling. This is on the Democrats,” he said.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said she believes Biden’s spending plan will be passed by Christmas and the legislation will help alleviate inflation by creating jobs.
”We’ve got workforce issues, and that’s why this Build Back Better Act is so important,” Klobuchar said on ABC News‘ “This Week.”
“We need people, we need kids to go into jobs that we have shortages. We don’t have a shortage of marketing degrees, we have a shortage of health-care workers. We have a shortage of plumbers, electricians, construction workers, and this puts us on the right path.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) appeared on “This Week” after Klobuchar and called it a “bad, bad, bad bill.”
He claimed it will hurt American families by increasing the inflationary pressures on goods and services, and said the measure’s price tag will increase down the road because some provisions that are expected to be phased out in several years will be extended.
He noted an analysis of the plan by the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Their analysis is that it’s about $1.53 billion in new revenue. But as it’s probably going to be implemented, those things that don’t sunset are – that are supposed to sunset don’t, it’s going to cost $4.65 trillion. $4.65 trillion on top of what the federal government is going to pay,” Cassidy said.
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