- Herschel Walker on Sunday continued with his criticism of the new climate and tax law.
- Walker ripped the fiscal impact of the bill and said "a lot of money" is "going to trees."
- "Don't we have enough trees around here?" he asked a crowd at a Republican Jewish Coalition event.
Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker on Sunday blasted the new climate and tax law, and then proceeded to ask if there were "enough trees around here" as he criticized the Democratic-led initiative as wasteful spending, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
At a Republican Jewish Coalition event in suburban Atlanta, Walker — a former NFL player who is running against incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock this fall — stated his opposition to the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law last week.
"They continue to try to fool you that they are helping you out. But they're not," he told the crowd. "Because a lot of money, it's going to trees. Don't we have enough trees around here?"
The new tax, climate, and healthcare law grants a three-year extension of subsidies for individuals to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, while also providing nearly $370 billion for climate and energy programs and $300 billion to reduce the federal budget deficit.
The law provides some of the most significant investments in combating climate change in United States history, including $1.5 billion for the the Forest Service's Urban and Community Forestry Program; the funding will be used to add tree cover across the country.
But Republicans have argued that the law would not tamp down inflation and many have decried its climate measures.
Walker — who has sought to paint Warnock as fiscally irresponsible — zeroed in on this argument in criticizing the law.
The statement comes over a month after Walker spoke of "good air space" during remarks that he made regarding global efforts to tackle climate change.
"Since we don't control the air, our good air decided to float over to China's bad air so when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move," he said at a Hall County GOP picnic at the time.
"So it moves over to our good air space. Then now we got to clean that back up, while they're messing ours up," he added.
