NC lawmakers divided as tax, health care and climate bill passes Congress. How they voted

North Carolina’s congressional delegation remained split Friday when the U.S. House voted to pass the final version of a major climate, tax and health care bill.

North Carolina’s eight Republicans, including the party’s nominee for Senate, Ted Budd, opposed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. But the state’s five Democrats helped push it through the House in a 220-207 vote. The bill now heads to President Joe Biden to sign into law, which is expected to happen quickly.

The bill raises $750 billion in taxes and other revenue while spending $430 billion on energy, climate and health. It spends at least $300 billion to address climate change, caps prescription costs for people on Medicare at $2,000 and creates a new minimum tax rate of 15% for large corporations.

The bill was hotly contested between the two parties, even on Sunday when senators passed it by just one vote, the vice president’s.

Members of the House were in the middle of a 45-day recess this month and the Senate vote forced House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call representatives back to Washington. However, one-third of House members announced they would not be present and would vote by proxy.

That included North Carolina’s Reps. Budd, Dan Bishop, Madison Cawthorn, Richard Hudson, Patrick McHenry, Kathy Manning and David Price.

Climate change, health care reaction

Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat from Wake County, was present and spoke from the House floor Friday in support of the bill, calling it a “monumental achievement.” Ross touted a section of the bill she helped create that will end the 10-year moratorium on the leasing of offshore wind farms from North Carolina to Florida.

“Coming from North Carolina, a state battered, with increasing regularity, by catastrophic storms, I’m especially proud that this act represents the most significant investments to combat climate change in U.S. history,” Ross said. “I’m also pleased that this bill includes a measure that I have championed, which will end the prior moratorium on offshore wind. “

Rep. Greg Murphy, a Republican from Greenville, also spoke from the floor and called the bill “reckless.” Murphy focused on the health care portion, speaking from his perspective as a urologist. He said the bill would destroy medical innovation and cripple independent private physicians.

“We all agree the cost of medicine is way too high in this country, but instead of attacking the real causes, we’re now going to be shifting Medicare dollars away from doctors, those who actually take care of patients, and give them to insurance companies and Green New Deal policies,” Murphy said. “Some physicians will see an average of 40% reduction in reimbursement. Given the constant threats of major cuts for physicians, who the hell would want to practice medicine in this country anymore?”

Though Hudson, a Republican from Moore County, wasn’t present, he sent out a statement criticizing the bill.

“Families across our community continue to suffer from the highest inflation in 40 years, it costs twice as much to fill your tank as it did two years ago, shelves are empty at the grocery store, and your paycheck doesn’t go as far as it use to,” Hudson said in his written statement. “Yet, Democrats in Washington have chosen to double down on the massive spending that fueled these crises in the first place.”

In Ipsos/Reuters poll found that just 48% of Americans believe that the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will actually reduce inflation in the next year.

IRS agents

Both Hudson and Budd took issue with a proposal in the bill that would fund IRS positions, which is meant to raise more revenue by improving enforcement of tax laws.

An Associated Press fact check found the agency has lost 50,000 of its 80,000 employees and more than half of those in enforcement are eligible to retire. The agency wants to replace those employees over the next decade.

Republicans contend the bill will fund jobs for 87,000 Internal Revenue Service agents, and that those agents will be used to audit Americans.

“That’s more than all the troops stationed at Fort Bragg, America’s largest military base,” Hudson wrote. “You couldn’t even fit all the IRS agents in the Carolina Panthers stadium!”

“Instead of hiring 87,000 more IRS agents to treat working families like tax cheats, that funding should be directed to the crisis on the southern border,” Budd said in a written statement.

The number of audits of those earning less than $400,000 should not go up, according to the Treasury Department, the AP reported.

Budd submitted an amendment, which wasn’t taken up Friday, to redirect $69 billion in funding from the IRS to fund border security. Specifically, Budd wanted $25 billion to go to building a border wall, more than $20.1 billion to hire 10,000 additional Border Patrol agents, more than $20 billion to hire an additional 10,000 ICE Enforcement and Removal agents, more than $3.8 billion to hire 366 immigration judges and 60 staff attorneys for the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Budd’s amendment did intend to retain $15 million for the IRS to create a free e-file system.

Tillis and Burr

Earlier this week, Sens. Thom Tillis and Richard Burr faced online backlash after both voted against an amendment that would stop private insurance companies from charging more than $35 for insulin. The amendment failed, though the bill still blocks Medicare recipients from paying more.

Both the Republican senators voted against the Inflation Reduction Act Sunday.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blindsided Republicans on July 28 when he announced that he, the Biden administration and Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, had come to an agreement on an inflation bill.

Schumer needed all 50 Democrats to support the bill for it to pass, and both Republicans and Democrats had lost faith that Manchin or Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona, would support such a bill.

Once Schumer had Manchin on his side, he began working on Sinema, who also backed the bill, helping to catapult it forward.

For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at https://campsite.bio/underthedome or wherever you get your podcasts.