Tag Archives: spending

Big Progressive-Democrat Government

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A Rasmussen poll suggests that a majority of Americans oppose the socialism in the policies of the Biden-Harris administration.

That’s encouraging, but I have some concerns about the policies anyway, given that they’re being jammed through without regard for the views of the government’s employers.

The socialism aspect of the Biden-Harris and Progressive-Democratic Party policies is less a matter of the raw spending and usurious taxes in them much more a matter of the strings attached to the spending and of who gets (punitively) taxed.

The strings attached would give the Federal government more control over the States and over what businesses are allowed to produce and the prices they charge. The proposed tax structure would give the Federal government more indirect control by “encouraging” businesses to comport themselves IAW Government wishes.

That control is the essence of socialism, whether the control is through outright ownership or through controlling production permissions.

The spendthriftiness should be enough by itself to keep the bill from being passed.

The tax distortions should be enough by itself to keep the bill from being passed.

The increased Government control should be enough by itself to keep the bill from being passed.

Unfortunately, dangerously, each of the three individually (as well as together) are tightly aligned with Progressive-Democratic Party goals of spending to buy votes, taxing the Evil Rich to virtue-signal for votes, and to outright accrete power to Party.

Politicizing Things

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Congressman and Vice Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Jake Auchincloss (D, CT) had an op-ed in Tuesday’s Fox News Online in which he complained about the lack of bipartisanship regarding and the politicization of the current inflation period—and blamed it all on Republicans.

Never mind the irony of decrying partisanship and politicization while blaming partisanly.

But the irony—no, the dishonesty—didn’t stop there. Here are just a couple of examples; he led off with them.

…game of chicken with the debt-ceiling….

Here is Auchincloss’ first move of partisanly politicizing the dire strait of our economy. There’s no game of chicken here; the Progressive-Democrats have the votes to raise the debt ceiling. All they need to do is to set their number for the raise, and then vote it into law. Auchincloss knows that full well.

Then there’s this:

First and foremost, that means working together to shift consumer spending towards services and away from goods.

Because the Progressive-Democrats, with their Big Government ideology, insist they know better than us ignorant average Americans what we want—what we should want—than we do. They’re looking to dictate to us what we will buy, with the money they choose to leave us after they’ve taken most of it via their taxes.

Auchincloss’ nonsense went on in that partisan, wholly political, vein.

This self-absorption, if not outright duplicity, is all too typical of the Progressive-Democratic Party.

Partisanship

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Gerald Seib had a piece on this in the context of gerrymandering. Along the way, he had these as examples of partisanship:

Yet when the bill [the $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill] came to a final vote, six of the state’s [Michigan’s] seven Republicans voted against it. Nor was the phenomenon limited to Republicans. Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib also voted against it, in part because Congress wasn’t also passing a giant social-spending and climate-change package that she and other progressive Democrats have been demanding.

Seib expressed surprise/dismay at those votes, along with the fact that 13 Republicans who did vote for it came in for some opprobrium. Seib apparently missed the part where bill has little to do with actual infrastructure and much to do with “social justice” questions, “green-ness” (just not enough to suit Tlaib). It was a bill worthy of voting against.

Seib also missed here: lawmakers try to perform their most basic tasks: prevent a government shutdown by passing a spending bill, and prevent a national debt crisis by raising the debt ceiling.

Were Congressmen truly concerned about their districts and then our nation ahead of other considerations, they’d produce a Spending Reduction bill, not a spending bill; they’d lower tax rates, which actually increases revenues to Government; and they’d pass a debt ceiling raise large enough only to cover already committed spending, and then only on condition the prior two items also are passed.

Government Subsidies for Local Newspapers

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Dean Ridings, CEO of an organization self-absorbedly called America’s Newspapers, thinks it’s a terrific idea that the Federal government (presumably, government at any level) should…subsidize…local newspapers.

The Local Journalism Sustainability Act will provide the local news industry time to continue its transition to a more digital future and to work out a better arrangement, either through legislation or other means, to be paid when Google and Facebook use its content. It is not a permanent handout.

It is not a permanent handout. That’s just risible; Ridings knows better. It would be both a handout and permanent.

And this: time to work out a better arrangement, either through legislation….

Just what we need—a Government Press for the locals: Local Izvestia, Local Russia Today, Local China Daily, Local People’s Daily in the US. Even if the legislative aspect didn’t come to fruition, the strings will be attached to the subsidies from the start.

No.

If the locals want a local press, they’ll have one through a free market. No government funding—which is to say no taxpayers’ money from outside the community, from entirely different States, from clear across the nation—is necessary or even useful.

“It’s Paid For”

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That’s the Biden-Harris reconciliation bill that the House passed a version of Friday morning that’s “paid for.” And, no, that’s not Joe Biden’s quote—he said the bill would cost zero, which of course contradicts the headline quote, there being nothing for which to pay.

It’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen who said that when the CBO report on the bill was published before the House vote. Here’s her claim as cited by yahoo!news:

[T]he Built Back Better (BBB) Act is “fully paid for, and in fact will reduce our nation’s debt over time….”

What the CBO said, in summary:

The CBO determined the spending bill would add $367 billion to the federal deficit over 10 years, not including the IRS plan’s impact. Separately, the nonpartisan agency determined increased IRS tax enforcement would generate about $127 billion in new revenue, far below the $400 billion estimate touted by the Treasury Department and the White House.

Not only is the Biden-Harris administration disregarding out of touch with what us average Americans need or want, critical segments of this administration are out of touch with reality.