Conservatives rip bipartisan tax bill that passed GOP-led House: 'Exacerbating our inflation crisis'

The bill is projected to cost about $80 billion through 2025

Published: February 1, 2024 12:27pm

House conservatives are ripping the bipartisan tax bill that passed the GOP-led House on Wednesday evening.

There were 47 Republicans who voted against the bill. It passed after 88 Democrats and 169 Republicans voted in favor of the measure.

The bill is projected to cost about $80 billion through 2025, but the Tax Foundation projected that it could cost $1.5 trillion over a 10-year period. The bill includes a way to cover the costs of the bill through 2025 only.

Virginia GOP Rep. Bob Good, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, argued that bill "incentivizes the invasion" at the southern border by allowing illegal immigrants to collect the expanded Child Tax Credit.

Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., said that the "low-income individual welfare benefit expansions (eligible to illegal aliens) that were added to obtain President Biden’s and Senate Democrats’ support made this a bad deal."

Brecheen also said the bill hides the true 10-year cost of the tax changes, noting that there's no guarantee Congress would find savings to cover its price tag after 2025.

"This bill also weakens work requirements and according to the Joint Committee on Taxation will generate $155 billion in new deficits over the next 20 months, exacerbating our inflation crisis," he said. "Typical of Washington, the promised ‘pay-fors’ calculated over ten years will likely disappear."

Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., for former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said the bill allows a "huge expansion of welfare to illegals - while hollowing out the working class in favor of tax breaks for corporations that are selling out America."

The bill's fate in the Senate is unclear after some Republican senators expressed criticism of passing it in an election year.

“Passing a tax bill that makes the president look good — mailing out checks before the election — means he could be re-elected, and then we won’t extend the 2017 tax cuts,” Sen Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said on Wednesday.