WASHINGTON — Area lawmakers largely blasted the House passage Friday of President Joe Biden’s controversial $1.85 trillion social spending and climate change bill, warning the measure will cause harm to families across southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia.
U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., who voted against the spending bill Friday, said the measure will harm West Virginia families making energy more expensive, taxing small family businesses, and worsening inflation.
“Since President Biden has been in office, he’s tried to increase taxes on everyone,” Miller said. “His “Build Back Better Act or “Build Back Broke” as I like to call it, is the latest example of his radical tax-and-spend agenda. This bill includes $4.5 trillion in new spending, $1.5 trillion in new taxes, and will cause $3 trillion in new debt.”
U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., also voted against the measure in the House.
“The Democrat reconciliation bill is a mess,” Griffith said. “It promises to ‘Build Back Better’ but is littered with policies that will make life more expensive and less free for the average American. That such a reckless bill is the treasured priority of Washington’s current one-party rulers says all we need to know about their unfitness to govern.”
Griffith warned the measure also would fund migrants entering the country illegally.
“Illegal immigrants also benefit from the surge in spending and debt for which this bill provides,” Griffith said. “By eliminating the requirement for Social Security numbers to verify eligibility for the Child Tax Credit, people who broke our country’s laws and cut in line ahead of legal immigrants would receive payouts of $3,600 per child under age six and $3,000 per child over age six. Rewarding illegal immigrants with taxpayer dollars will no doubt attract more to the southern border to break our laws.”
U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., called the House bill a “reckless tax-and-spending spree.”
“With inflation at its highest point in 31 years, a reckless tax-and-spending spree is the last thing we need right now,” Capito said. “Inflation is very real, and it’s impacting the day-to-day lives of Americans across the country. West Virginians are concerned because thanks to inflation, they are paying higher prices for many things they can’t do without. This is especially concerning as we head into the holiday season. Yet, even with these red flags, the Biden administration and my Democrat colleagues want to spend even more on liberal policy wish list items that are unaffordable.”
However, one Democrat representing the Southwest Virginia region in Washington praised the passage of the House measure Friday.
“I’m thrilled the House has passed the Build Back Better bill, getting this historic legislation one step closer to becoming law,” said U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, D-Va, said. “This legislation will make pre-K universal, expand affordable child care, and boost job training programs to help workers get the jobs that will be created by the bipartisan infrastructure bill. This legislation will position working families and children for success for years to come.”
The Build Back Better bill passed the House along near party-lines at 220-213, according to the Associated Press. It now moves to the evenly-divided U.S. Senate where passage will be more difficult with moderate U.S. Senator Joe Manchin likely to demand changes to the bill.