During an unusual Senate session on Saturday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) argues the merits of his amendment to the Inflation Reduction Act that proposed a 10 percent increase in supplemental Payments in Lieu of Taxes for Utah cities and counties. The amendment was ultimately rejected by Senate Democrats during the marathon “vote-a-rama” session (Image courtesy of CSPAN).

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the U.S. Senate slowly churns toward the seemingly inevitable passage of the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act this weekend, hundreds of proposed amendments by Republicans are falling by the wayside.

Among them was a measure proposed by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) that would have instituted supplemental Payments in Lieu of Taxes for Utah cities and counties over the next 10 years.

“For far too long,” Lee said, “the federal government has short-changed local governments who have to forgo property taxes due to massive swaths of federal lands within their boundaries.

“Locals have experienced profound losses in revenue under a system that is not equitable or fair. My amendment … to the so-called Inflation Reduction Act … would have helped to alleviate this imbalance.”

In the evenly divided Senate, that $740 billion proposal was seemingly dead, until Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) suddenly reverse their positions this week.

Their approval of the proposal set up marathon sessions of the Senate this weekend, with the bill likely slated for final passage in a reconciliation vote by all 50 Democratic senators with Vice President Kamela Harris breaking the expected tie.

Going into the amendment “vote-a-rama” on Saturday, the text of the Inflation Reduction Act proposed to make a down payment on deficit reduction to fight inflation; allow medicare to negotiate lower price for prescription drugs; extend the Obamacare through 2025; and make investments in domestic energy production to curb climate change.

But Republicans say that the backroom deal negotiated by Sen. Chuck Schumer and Manchin will actually raise taxes on nearly every American.

According to The Wall Street Journal, taxes will rise by $16.7 billion on Americans earning less than $200,000 a year in 2023, while Americans earning less than $500,000 will pay $14.1 billion more.

“No wonder (President Joe Biden) wants to rush it through,” the Journal writes. “The more Americans learn what’s in this tax-and-spend behemoth, the more they’ll dislike it.”

Here in Utah, the federal government owns 66.48 percent of the total land. Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) are federal allocations to local governments to offset losses in property taxes due to non-taxable federal lands within their boundaries.

Lee says that PILT payments are, however, far lower than what the local government could expect to collection in property taxes.

“To regard PILT payments as tax equivalents for Utah cities,” the incumbent senator says, “they would need to be 262 times larger.”

Lee’s amendment would have increased PILT payments by nearly 10 percent.

Due to the unprecedented inflation caused by the Biden administration, he argues, local government need this forgone revenue now more than ever.

“It’s a shame that Democrats, particularly those with constituencies who stand to benefit from this amendment, have voted to continue to short-change Americans,” Lee says.

Once the Inflation Reduction Act is passed by the Senate, its text will have to be approved by members of the U.S. of Representatives prior to being to be sent to the president for signing.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is expected to recall members from their August recess to vote on the Inflation Reduction Act as early as mid-August.



Source link