Op-eds

DBNJ: Democrats' wasteful, misguided 'Build Back Better' plan spells disaster for Florida
By, Rep. Mike Waltz
October 24, 2021

President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress, with zero input from Republicans, are currently negotiating how best to pass a massive $3.5 trillion “social infrastructure” package. This massive bill includes hundreds of provisions that, if passed, would do serious harm to our country and especially Florida.

Despite having nearly $1 trillion left in unspent COVID relief funds when Biden took office, and another $1.9 trillion passed soon after, Democrats and the Biden administration are yet again trying to jam through a package that will vastly expand the role of government in our lives and drive our entitlement programs into insolvency.

These provisions are far from the promise of the "Build Back Better" theme President Biden has deceptively championed. Rather, this legislation will send our country into even more economic uncertainty as Floridians grapple with high inflation, rising gas prices, backlogged shipping and more expensive groceries. 

Many of these provisions raise serious red flags:

• An amnesty plan for eight million illegal immigrants that is estimated to cost more than $100 billion over the next decade and a lifetime net cost of roughly $1 trillion to Medicare and Social Security. Included in this plan is an exemption that would allow the Biden Administration to allow illegal immigrants with serious crimes to become citizens; crimes that include human trafficking, narcotics violations and illegal voting.
• An expansion of Medicaid, which would force a new, redundant federal Medicaid program onto states like Florida that have fiscal disciple and chose not to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. 
• A hike in natural gas taxes which would further raise the cost of goods, already on track to be the highest since 1981, on nearly every industry. This tax is estimated to increase family energy bills up to $242 per year.
• A repeal of work requirements for already bloated entitlement spending programs which are already on the path to insolvency and are driving our national debt.
• A repeal of licenses for the mining industry, including one of the nation’s largest copper mines, crushing the ability for America to produce the raw materials required for a green economy – ironically in the name of environmentalism. 
• A new federal surveillance program that allows the IRS to monitor and track any transactions without a warrant. The proposal would allow the IRS “to review every account above a $600 balance, or with more than $600 of transactions in a year.” As we saw under the Obama Administration, the IRS has been used to target conservatives. 
• Handouts to wealthy universities by reducing taxes on their endowments.
• Reinstating a “SALT” tax deduction for primarily Democrat-run states with high income taxes which forces residents of states with no state income taxes like Florida to subsidize wasteful spending programs and huge debts. 
• A $10 billion program to give mortgage subsidies of up to $82,000 to households making well over $200,000 per year to purchase a home. Democrats claim this is to address racial disparity but it would only extrapolate already high housing costs.

Last but not least, there’s Biden’s socialist tax plan that will not just tax the rich, but will target working class families, small businesses, and job creators across the country. American families and businesses would see a tax hike of $2 trillion— the largest in our nation’s history— that would affect Americans at every income level.

What’s worse is once the Democrats pass their social infrastructure agenda, it will be nearly impossible to pay for it or repeal it. As Ronald Reagan famously said, “The fastest way to eternal life on earth is through a government program.” Further, as Democrat Joe Manchin pointed out, our current Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security programs as they stand today will go bankrupt in the next decade.  Dramatically expanding them risks causing the entire social safety net to implode.

And on top of the monstrous “social infrastructure” bill, there’s the $1.2 trillion so-called bipartisan infrastructure package. A bill which normally funds badly needed roads, bridges, ports and other major projects allocates less than 25% to pay for what it’s supposed to: hard infrastructure.

Mandy was emaciated and starving when she was rescued at Blue Spring State Park in March, weighing just 900 pounds. She packed on 300 pounds at SeaWorld Orlando before she was released into the St. Johns River with her calf Manilow on July 14, 2021.

Left behind is Central Florida. The Indian River Lagoon is literally dying, as are the manatees that live there, and Democrats were unable to fix the allocation of federal clean water funds that shorts Florida despite  ranking near the top of all states in infrastructure needs.

Sadly, the actual infrastructure funding in the bill is insufficient to make investments for the economy of the future – space.  Cape Canaveral recently announced that it will soon be at full capacity. When that happens, launch provides are likely to look elsewhere for their needs. Yet, the infrastructure bill that every Democrat in the Florida delegation supports does nothing to invest in Kennedy Space Center that facilitates launches for every aspect of our economy - communication, banking, navigation and so much more. Florida is in need of additional launch capacity and Democrats are missing the opportunity to invest in space infrastructure that will employ Floridians in high-paying STEM fields for the rest of this century.

The Biden Administration is taking our country down a dangerous path with one fiscal crisis after another — and the Progressive’s socialist spending agenda is just the next disastrous plan on President Biden’s agenda. America and Florida literally cannot afford another disaster.