Never Mind the Raid, Trump Should Focus on Killing the Inflation Reduction Act

If the former president wants to demonstrate the political power of his MAGA movement, he'll activate it to pressure Congress to kill Biden's budget-busting tax hike.

Washington, D.C. – It's going to take time for the dust to settle after the FBI's unprecedented raid on Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago. What's important is how the former president responds to it in the short term, which may be a clue to whether he has a future in American politics or not.

It would be easy, even natural, for him to spend the next few days ranting and raving against the machinations of “the swamp” and “the deep state.” Fundraising emails calling the raid proof that Washington's institutional interests, the ones to which he and his MAGA movement are an existential threat are out to destroy him using whatever means necessary are already hitting his supporters' inboxes.

That might work. For him. It will rally his base, energize it for the upcoming election and keep him in the headlines. It will also harden the opposition, increasing its determination to make sure he never sets foot in the Oval Office again. But there's something else Trump could focus on that would deny his opponents the thing they want most right now and might even arrest the national decline that began as soon as President Joe Biden took his seat behind the Resolute desk.

The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act has the president, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., already doing a victory dance even though the job's not complete. That bill, which is just a pared-down version of the already rejected Build Back Better plan, which made it through the Senate after West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin defected to the dark side, still has to be approved by the House, where party leaders expect it to pass easily.

It might not. Pelosi's majority is uncomfortably slim, with 220 Democrats versus 210 Republicans and as many as five seats vacant – which could be cut to four if the GOP can get newly-elected Minnesota Rep. Brad Finstad sworn in before the voting starts.

Trump continually exclaims he has an army of MAGA supporters ready to rally to his side if he gives the word. He's proven this to some extent during the primary season, where many of his endorsed candidates have defeated challengers endorsed by the GOP establishment. Now, he has the opportunity to prove it decisively if, rather than go to his base with complaints about the raid, he can use them to generate enough pressure on vulnerable Democrats who are in swing seats or are retiring to buck their party's leadership and vote with the GOP to kill the Inflation Reduction Act.

This is a risky strategy. If it fails, it will leave the impression the MAGA movement is a paper tiger but it will be tremendously advantageous if it succeeds. Conceptually, it has more going for it than might be evident. There are seven Democrats currently sitting in seats the former president carried in 2020. One of them, Maine Democrat Josh Golden — is already signaling he won't be voting for the bill, possibly because Trump carried his district by six points last time out.

“I was the only Democrat to vote against trillions of dollars of President Biden's agenda because I knew it would make inflation worse,” Golden says. “In Congress, I'm an independent voice for you, taking on my own party to stand up for Maine families.” The others, even those who are not running for reelection, might want to follow his example if the folks back home make enough noise.

When those seven, some of who are not seeking reelection are added to the handful of redrawn seats now in Democratic hands that, post-redistricting, are composed of precincts more favorable to Trump than they were before the remap, you've got a list that's too big for Nancy Pelosi to quash just by threatening possible political retaliation. Remember, most members of Congress prioritize their reelection over everything else — and the predictions the Democrats are headed for a whipping in 2022 weakens Pelosi's leverage considerably.

Trump and his team can use social media and their massive email list to get the facts out. The Inflation Reduction Act, which isn't anything of the sort, raises taxes on hardworking Americans in every tax bracket, provides subsidies to the ultra-rich to buy luxury electric cars, kills jobs and more than doubles the size of the IRS workforce.

That's the kind of information that moves voters to move members of Congress through phone calls, emails and letters. If he prevails, if the bill goes down, then he's the hero all over again and, as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger supposedly said, “It has the added benefit of being true.”

“Due to a shrinking economy under President Biden and slower demand for fuel, wholesale price inflation dipped below double digits last month, but Main Street businesses are still being crushed,” Congressman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee said Thursday. “This will get worse with Manchin-Biden tax hikes heading into a recession, which will translate into higher prices for consumers.”

“Worse,” Brady added, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's “recent guidance makes clear these small businesses are absolutely first in line for new IRS audits — just as they're trying to stay afloat.”

Trump has proven he has the message discipline to say this over and over — “Higher taxes. More audits on people like you. Subsidies for liberals to replace their limousines with overlong electric vehicles. Budget busting spending. A sea of red ink that's going to drown our children and grandchildren.”

The people who had foreknowledge of the raid, which almost assuredly include President Biden have a lot to answer for. It's fine that Team Trump wants to remind the American people the FBI didn't raid Bill and Hillary Clinton's home in Washington after they admitted they took official U.S. government property with them when they left the White House. And that they didn't raid their Chappaqua, N.Y., compound after word of her secret, private email server through which official messages passed while she was secretary of state leaked out. It makes a salient point about the swamp's bias and what Trump calls the “deep state,” but it doesn't do it any damage. He has to think more broadly. If he wants to hit them where they live, he needs to spend political capital to kill the Inflation Reduction Act while there's time to do it. The window is open, but it's closing fast. Voting in the House is scheduled to start on Friday.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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