In legacy mode, outgoing President Joe Biden’s White House is warning Republicans who are about to take power not to repeal his most significant achievements.
“Repealing President Biden’s signature laws would be a historic redistribution of wealth from working Americans to Big Pharma and China,” Andrew Bates, a senior White House spokesperson, writes in the subject line of a new memo circulated to interested parties and allies, which NBC News obtained first.
The memo makes an economic and political case against repealing Biden-era laws that President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans have targeted in major party-line legislation slated for next year, most notably the clean energy and health-care provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act.
The memo stated that depriving the American people of these benefits would be a significant blow to our economic growth. This “would provoke a tidal wave of opposition from the American people.”
It combines messaging advice for Democrats with a preview of the fight that will take place next year as Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress attempt to use the budget “reconciliation” process to advance key parts of Trump’s agenda along party lines.
During his campaign, Trump stated, “We will rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.”
The Republicans won a 53-seat Senate majority and a slim 220-215 House majority in the elections.
Democrats lack the votes to prevent them from advancing a major bill to change spending and tax laws; all they can do is make it politically difficult for the GOP to cut the programs Biden and Democrats passed along party lines during his tenure.
To that end, the White House memo stated that clean energy funding under the Inflation Reduction Act—the GOP’s primary target for repeal—includes benefits for many House Republicans’ districts and has helped fuel “America’s long-sought manufacturing resurgence.”
“This includes the creation of more than 330,000 clean energy jobs, disproportionately in Republican-controlled House districts.
The Inflation Reduction Act has already saved more than 3.4 million Americans $8.4 million on clean energy upgrades to their homes, and more than 300,000 Americans have saved over $2 billion upfront on [electric vehicle] purchases,” Bates wrote. “We have also capped the price of insulin at $35, Medicare has already negotiated lower costs for 10 major drugs, and more Americans have health insurance than ever before.”
The memo stated that significant grants for projects under the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the CHIPS and Science Act, “have been locked in” and that more will become available over the next ten years.
“Republican members of Congress who voted to prevent these landmark achievements are now trying to take credit for their benefits and even writing formal letters advocating against their repeal,” Bates claimed.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., a Finance Committee member, stated that all unspent funds under the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as other Democratic-led programs, are open to cuts in order to pay for an extension of Trump’s tax cuts and other provisions of the GOP’s planned party-line legislation.
Other Republicans argue that there are numerous other areas where the GOP can cut to fund their multitrillion-dollar effort.
“The good thing is there’s been so much waste and reckless spending over the last four years, it’s going to be a target-rich environment,” said Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, which will play an important role in crafting the GOP bills next year.
Murphy also supports reducing Affordable Care Act subsidies under the Inflation Reduction Act, which the Biden administration has used to keep insurance premiums low for many middle-class families. The funds will expire at the end of 2025 unless Congress renews them.
“ACA subsidies to insurance companies do nothing for health care,” he told reporters. “I believe a significant portion of it should be eliminated.”
When asked if the slim margins would make it difficult for House Republicans to pass major party-line legislation, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said it was a familiar dynamic for them.
“What else is new?” he asked.