Enewsletters

Dear Friend,

While you have likely seen a number of different viewpoints about the bipartisan Senate infrastructure bill that passed the House late Friday night, the truth is it’s a mixed bag of good and bad.  There is a lot of money in the bill that will help North Carolina’s Department of Transportation advance important road and bridge repairs as well as new construction, and there is a good bit of funding made available for broadband deployment in our rural areas.  But, there are also Green New Deal mandates and excessive amounts of funding spent on high speed rail and transit for the urban blue states as well as electric charging stations throughout the country for electric vehicles.  How many consecutive years must we send billions to bail out Amtrak, for example? 

That said, the primary problem with the infrastructure bill vote Friday night is it ensures passage of President Biden’s cradle to grave entitlement spending and massive tax hike legislation in the House.  The moderate House Democrats cut a deal with the ultra-left wing of the House Democrat conference that they will vote for it pending a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score that shows it to be in the ballpark of $1.7 trillion.  Regardless of the budget score, the substance is not only awful, it will be addicting and almost impossible to repeal.  We can’t afford the entitlements we have in law today.  If you are one of the many employers who can’t find workers now, just wait until this becomes law.

Passage of this monstrosity in the House does not ensure passage in the Senate, but it sure puts a lot of pressure on Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to vote for some version of it.  Assuming some changes are made to it at their request, it will have to come back to the House for adoption.  It remains to be seen if the ultra liberal wing of the House Democrat conference will go along with any further modifications to their bill.  But at the end of the day, you have to assume they vote for it and come back at a later time to add more addictive entitlements.

Click here to watch my remarks on the tax and spend legislation.  Here are just a handful of the policies my colleagues and I have been able to identify in this 2,145-page bill:

• Made in America Tax: The Made in America tax in this bill will increase the corporate tax rate to 26.5%.  This will send American companies overseas and punish job creators – passing on the consequences to working families in the form of higher prices, fewer jobs, and lower wages.
  
  
• Snooping Around: $80 billion for the IRS to hire 87,000 agents to snoop around your bank account if you have $10,000 or more in total expenditures in a year. (Now you know why they need 87,000 more agents!)  The Democrats assume this will collect an additional $400 billion in revenue.  
  
  
• $2.8 Billion to Grant Amnesty to Illegal Immigrants: Instead of hiring additional Border Patrol and ICE officers to handle the crisis at our southern border, this bill allocates $2.8 billion to increase “the capacity of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to adjudicate efficiently” amnesty applications and “reduce case processing backlogs.”  This will just incentivize even more illegal border crossings.
  
  
• Nationalized Education: Gives the Biden Administration the ability to approve/disapprove early education standards.  Parents know what’s best for their children and deserve to have a voice in their education.  Any attempt by Congressional Democrats to push parents out of the education conversation must be rejected.
  
  
• Socialized Medicine: The government price control system in this bill will prevent life-saving drugs from coming to the market.  It will destroy innovation in treatments for rare diseases.  Seniors, patients, and those with rare diseases will bear the burden of these decisions.

COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

The decision to receive a COVID vaccine should be an individual choice — not a strong-armed federal mandate.

Not only is President Biden’s unprecedented mandate another example of severe government overreach, it further divides our nation and makes the nationwide labor shortage even worse.  Lack of labor is a major contributory factor in the supply chain crisis; this only adds to that problem.  More workers will choose to leave their jobs making the supply chain disruptions worse, which is going to contribute to an even greater increase in inflation. 

Additionally, our communities will be much less safe due to the number of law enforcement and first responders exiting the profession.  I was talking with the leadership of the NC Police Benevolent Association this past week; they are seeing this firsthand.  They’ve already seen a number of officers retire in the state because of the Defund the Police effort and lack of community support at the local level.  The vaccine mandate makes it that much worse for them.    

An Update on PFAS

This past week, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) announced two actions requiring Chemours to address GenX and PFAS contamination in New Hanover County and potentially Pender, Columbus, and Brunswick counties.  You can read more about these actions here.

Our communities rightfully have questions about the effects of these chemicals and how they affect the drinking water, personal health, and our environment.  I’ll continue working to ensure our communities and utility authorities have access to the resources they need to better address these and other unregulated contaminants. 

For this week’s good news story, I would like to highlight the 20 individuals who received a promotion within the Wilmington Police Department this past week.  “20 people were promoted — one captain, others promoted to lieutenants, sergeants, and corporals, along with two civilian promotions.”  Congratulations to these law enforcement heroes who put their lives on the line to protect our citizens each and every day.  While there are nutballs out there that spew hatred and nonsense your way, the rest of us love you!  Your service does not go unnoticed!