ALEC on Fox & Friends: Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act is ‘economic malpractice’

During an interview on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Chief Economist Jonathan Williams explained how the recently-passed Inflation Reduction Act, would actually make inflation worse, raise taxes and increase spending. Williams called it “economic malpractice.” 

Fox News Host: We can talk about the ridiculousness of the name, The Inflation Reduction Act, but I would really love to explore with you the actual impact on middle class families.

Jonathan Williams: We’re talking about this idea of supposedly reducing inflation with proposals that got us into this problem in the first place, such as raising taxes and spending. This will would raise business taxes and raise taxes on energy producers.  Let’s not forget, businesses don’t pay taxes, people pay taxes, including the middle class. And when we’ve all had those painful trips to the gas pump lately. Guess what? This proposal would only raise those prices.

This is a crisis of overspending and over taxing, we’re not just facing the inflation problem, the highest in 40 years. Some of the ideas in the proposal would raise taxes on American employers putting us at more of a disadvantage, for instance, with our competitors overseas, that will do nothing but raise prices further for everyone.

Fox News Host: 230 economists, including yourself, have  written this letter the Congressional Budget Office agrees with saying the Senate Bill would actually increase inflation in 2023, extend the Obama care subsidies for the wealthy, thus reducing incentives and then impose a 15% corporate minimum tax, essentially make that a floor. Make sure there’s not a lot of loopholes and, and ways around it for businesses.  Washington DC has a history of really running a deficit. We spend money we don’t cover with taxes, we might have tax increases not enough to cover the the amount of spending which means we print money. And if we print money, doesn’t that increase the supply of money? And doesn’t that in turn, increase inflation doing the opposite of the name of the act?

Jonathan Williams: Bingo! This bill goes in the opposive direction of cutting spending. It’s clear we don’t have a problem with the lack of tax revenue here. We’ve had record tax revenue numbers, time and time again in recent years, but we just spend faster than the taxes are coming in. And this is a huge problem. You know, let’s look to common sense what’s happening in the 50 states. In fact, 49 out of the 50 states, a lot of people don’t know this, have balanced budget amendments in their state constitution or state laws. Washington needs to take a page from the successful stories of what’s happening at the state level. People look at Washington now as this Land of Make Believe and say they want to double down on everything that’s caused us problems. And by the way, as the economy is contracting, and people Sen. Chuck Schumer have said in the past, ‘Let’s not mess with taxes, and let’s not raise taxes, the economy is shrinking.’ This is absolutely economic malpractice was being discussed right now.

Fox News Host: As I mentioned last night here on the Fox News Channel, you can usually tell what a bill is going to do by its name and assume that it will do the opposite of the name of the bill. Inflation Reduction Act, expect the opposite. Jonathan, thank you for being with us this morning.