共和党南达科他州参议员迈克·朗斯周日称即将通过的民主党税收、气候和健康法案对国家来说是一件“无用”的事情。
Rounds是在回答美国广播公司“本周”主播乔治·斯特凡诺普洛斯(George Stephanopoulos)的问题时作出这一回应的。在特拉华州民主党人克里斯·库恩斯(Chris Coons)出现后，乔治·斯特凡诺普洛斯立即在一次独家采访中问他:“我们刚刚听到库恩斯参议员说，这项法案将是消费者的福音，是经济的福音。你的回应?”
这几轮投票推迟了通货膨胀削减法案(IRA)，民主党人表示，该提案将减少赤字，支持清洁能源和降低药品成本，部分是通过增加公司税。
Rounds告诉Stephanopoulos，“这对帮助通货膨胀没有多大作用，我们仍然有一个问题。”
他也不同意国会联合税收委员会分析表明该法案不会提高税收，不会增加长期支出，也不会给收入低于40万美元的家庭增加额外的税收负担。
他认为，美国人将受到影响，因为更广泛的成本被强加于经济，企业提高价格。
Rounds说:“我们将看到这些税收的增加，美国人将会感受到这一点。”“最重要的是，他们真正想做的是把钱拿进来，然后重新分配给他们认为应该做的地方……现在不是在那个领域做实验的时候。”
Sen. Mike Rounds speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing on the Fiscal Year 2023 Budget in Washington, April 26, 2022.
Al Drago/AP，文件
爱尔兰共和军的一个关键条款将允许医疗保险谈判降低一些处方药的价格，并提议自付费用上限为2000美元。
回合以另一种方式展示了医疗保险的潜在谈判实力。
“首先，四年后才开始。其次，一旦它真的开始，你认为当制药公司开始被命令时，他们会做什么?”他告诉斯特凡诺普洛斯。“这不健康，不好，而且会给市场带来问题。”
Stephanopoulos跟进了Rounds对经济衰退的担忧，指出劳工部的最新报告显示，随着失业率降至3.5%，美国雇主在7月份意外增加了52.8万个就业岗位。这是过去50年来的最低水平。
但是Rounds坚持说他和其他共和党人有所保留。
“我们相信，你实际看到的可能是未来的前兆。你会发现，像沃尔玛这样的大公司正在讨论开始裁员，”他说。
“所以，虽然这是好事，我们希望看到就业增长，但我认为我们不能说这不是很快就会出现一些更严重的经济问题的前兆，”他说。
距离中期选举只有几个月了，Rounds表示，他的重点是2022年，而不是2024年，因为Stephanopoulos提出了前总统唐纳德·特朗普再次竞选白宫的可能性。
尽管如此，Rounds表示，他预计在下一届共和党总统初选中会有一个“广阔的开放领域”。“让我们看看还有谁要上来，”他说。
“你希望(特朗普)等到中期选举结束后再宣布?”斯特凡诺普洛斯问道。
“当然可以。我认为这将是好的，因为我认为民主党人希望他将注意力从2022年转移开，”Rounds说。“我们必须在2022年有一个良好的强劲表现……然后我们将有一个分裂的政府，但至少我们将能够减缓他们现在推出的一些相当激进的想法。”
Stephanopoulos还询问了他对家乡州支持堕胎的修正案的看法，因为上周在共和党的另一个据点堪萨斯州，反堕胎修正案遭到了惨败。
“[堕胎权]回到了它应该在的地方，那是回到各州，然后我们会让人民和立法机构决定他们认为的长期方法。我个人，我是反堕胎的。我认为堕胎是错误的，”Rounds说。
Impending passage of Democrats' climate and tax bill is a 'boondoggle': Mike Rounds
Republican South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds on Sunday labeled theimpending passage of a Democratic tax, climate and health billas a "boondoggle" for the country.
Rounds was responding to ABC "This Week" anchor George Stephanopoulos, who asked him in an exclusive interview immediately after Delaware Democrat Chris Coons appeared: "We just heard Sen. Coons say that this bill is going to be a boon to consumers, a boon for the economy. Your response?"
Rounds pushed back on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a proposal Democrats said would reduce the deficit, support clean energy and lower drug costs, in part by increasing corporate taxes.
"It's not going to do much to help inflation, we're still gonna have a problem there," Rounds told Stephanopoulos.
He also disagreed with a congressionalJoint Committee on Taxation analysisshowing that the bill would not raise taxes, increase spending over the long term or put an additional tax burden on families making less than $400,000.
He contended that Americans would be impacted as broader costs are levied on the economy and corporations raise prices.
"We will see those tax increases coming down the line and Americans are gonna feel it," Rounds said. "The bottom line on this is that what they're really trying to do is to take dollars in and then redistribute it back out to the places that they think it should be done … This is not the time to be experimenting in that area."
One key provision of the IRA would allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices on some prescription drugs, with a proposition to cap out-of-pocket spending at $2,000.
Rounds cast Medicare's potential negotiating power another way.
"First of all, it doesn't start for four years. And second of all, once it does start, what do you think the drug companies are going to be doing when they start being dictated to?" he told Stephanopoulos. "This is not healthy, it's not good and it will cause problems in the marketplace."
Stephanopoulos followed up on Rounds' concerns of a recession, pointing to the latest report from the Labor Department that U.S. employers added an unexpectedly robust 528,000 jobs in July as the unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5%. That is the lowest in the last 50 years.
But Rounds insisted he and other Republicans had reservations.
"What you're actually seeing, we believe, might be a precursor to what's to come. You're going to find out the larger companies such as Walmart are talking about starting to reduce the number of people that they're going to be employing," he said.
"So while it's good and we want to see job growth, I don't think we can necessarily say that that is not a precursor yet to probably some more serious economic issues coming very shortly," he said.
With the midterm elections only months away, Rounds said his focus was on 2022 -- not on 2024, as Stephanopoulos raised the possibility of former President Donald Trump running again for the White House.
Nonetheless, Rounds said he expected a "wide open field" in the next Republican presidential primary. "Let's see who else is coming up," he said.
"You want [Trump] to wait until after the midterms to announce?" Stephanopoulos asked.
"Most certainly. I think that would be good, because I think Democrats would like to have him draw attention away from the 2022," Rounds said. "We have to have a good strong showing in the 2022 … and then we'll have divided government, but at least we'll be able to slow down some of these rather radical ideas that they're putting out right now."Stephanopoulos also asked Rounds for his view on a proposed pro-abortion access amendment in his home state in light of last week's resounding defeat of an anti-abortion amendment in Kansas, another Republican stronghold.
"[Abortion access] is back where it should be and that is back to the states, and then we'll let the people and the legislative body decide exactly what they think is the long-term approach. Me personally, I am pro-life. I believe that abortion is wrong," Rounds said.
