Manchin Questions Treasury Secretary on Inflation Reduction Act Tax Credits, Addressing the National Debt

Washington, DC – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, questioned Janet Yellen, Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, on implementing the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits to secure domestic supply chains and on promoting fiscal responsibility and addressing the national debt.

 

“I know that the White House is currently working with the E.U. on a limited trade agreement that will allow them to become eligible for the first half of the EV credit. I don't have a problem with finding a solution to help our allies. What I have a problem with is going to countries where we don't have a secure supply chain. When we wrote the bill, we knew that for us to have a free trade agreement, there had to be confidence that we're going to have a good supply chain and not be held hostage. Some of these other countries where an awful lot of the minerals come from are not in the E.U. If the White House tries to expand beyond that, we're back in that critical situation where we have unreliable supply chains with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea,” Senator Manchin said in part. “I can assure you, that was not the intent when we wrote the bill.”

“Knowing how critical our financial situation is…what would you recommend that we evaluate in how we operate the finances of our government?” Senator Manchin continued. “There’s not one person out of 100 Senators that I believe would hold us hostage about paying our debts or going into default. With that being said, I do not believe it’s unreasonable for my friends and colleagues on the Republican side to say, let’s sit down and agree that we should be looking at how we’ve accumulated so much debt so fast...If you all would be receptive to considering it, we're going to put a bipartisan, bicameral group together to look at trust funds and look at the different things that are very vulnerable, the same as you do with banks.”