Democrats are already preparing for the possibility of Donald Trump winning.
They want to create as many obstacles as possible for a Trump Presidency.
And Joe Biden set one boobytrap for Donald Trump to undermine his second term.
Clawing back wasteful spending by the Biden-Harris administration
Democrats in Congress spent the first two years of Joe Biden’s Presidency trying to ram through as many socialist spending bills as possible.
The $1.2 trillion Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 was a slush fund for Green New Deal projects.
Former President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans are looking for ways to cut spending if they retake power in Washington, D.C., next year.
They have set their sights on trying to claw back some of the unspent money in the bill.
“To further defeat inflation, my plan will terminate the Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam,” Trump told the Economic Club of New York. “It actually sets us back, as opposed to moves us forward. And [I will] rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.”
With the clock ticking on Biden’s time in the White House, his administration is racing to spend as much as possible from the Inflation Reduction.
Biden’s National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi told Politico that he didn’t think there would be much spending that Republicans could claw back next year.
“The Biden-Harris administration is focused on sprinting through the next few months, [with a] relentless focus on execution,” Zaidi said. “Just the math of it, there’s not a ton to work with because we have been very effective at rigorous, robust, and accelerated implementation.”
One of the last legacies of the bill is numerous tax credits and federal incentives to boost green energy.
That should be low-hanging fruit for Trump and Republicans to eliminate.
But the Biden-Harris administration sent much of the spending to red states where RINOs are already talking about trying to save it.
RINOs prepare to defend Biden’s Green New Deal policies
Spending money in Republican states created an army of defenders in the GOP who want to keep the programs going in their district from the Inflation Reduction Act.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) already has cold feet on going after the bill.
“You’ve got to use a scalpel and not a sledgehammer,” Johnson said about clawing back the Inflation Reduction Act. “Because there’s a few provisions in there that have helped overall.”
There are nearly $500 billion worth of tax credits and breaks in the bill that could be eliminated.
RINO U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) – the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee – waffled on the idea of taking a sledgehammer to the bill.
“I am with him on pulling back on unspent money,” Capito told Politico. “That’s why they [the Biden-Harris administration] are trying to spend it so quickly.”
But she added, “Several investments are being driven by the tax credits in the IRA” in West Virginia and she wanted to “maintain those because they are job creators.”
U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) said Trump probably knows about the “Republican blowback” he’d face for going after tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Donald Trump will have to battle the “Swamp” to end Joe Biden’s Green New Deal bill.
