Tag Archives: spending

“Take the American People for Fools”

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That’s what Congressman Jodey Arrington (R, TX) says the Biden-Harris administration and their Progressive-Democratic Party syndicate are doing to us average Americans with their claims that their $3.5 trillion reconciliation package won’t cost us anything.

It’s actually more like $5 trillion, Maria, and their gamesmanship and their sleight of hand will be to try to truncate the duration of these policies. But no matter how short the duration the policies are, they will be extended, they will be made permanent, and they will be expanded like every other mandatory spending and entitlement program that has ever showed up on the balance sheet of our government.

But it’s not only Biden-Harris and their syndicate who are taking us for fools.

They will be extended. They will be extended only because politicians—Republicans and alleged Conservatives, as well as Progressive-Democrats—will actively vote to extend them, and Presidents—Republican and alleged Conservative, as well as Progressive-Democrat—will sign those extensions into law.

Certainly, it’s hard to cancel, or to expire, such policies. Certainly, it’s hard to stop trading welfare payments—however unneeded they are in truth, however damaging to our free market economy, and so to our individual liberties and responsibilities, they might be. It only gets harder, though, the longer such unneeded programs are allowed to exist.

Those who vote for extension, permanence, expansion while proclaiming the damages such programs do are choosing their own, their personal, political fortunes over what they know to be their duty to their constituents and to our nation.

It’s often hard to do one’s duty. Hard, though, means possible. And duty is a necessity, not a nice to have.

Those who, like Arrington, claim to be against such programs yet keep extending them are the ones who take us for the biggest fools. Just like they do with every other mandatory spending and entitlement program that has ever showed up.

How Far Left

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Now Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D, AZ) is being accused in the press of having “taken a hard turn to the right” because she objects to spending trillions more dollars than Progressive-Democrats (and too many Republicans) have already spent and to running up our national debt even further.

ABC News raised eyebrows for claiming that Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D, AZ) has “taken a hard turn to the right” as she continues to resist the $3.5 trillion spending spree being pushed by her Democratic colleagues.

This is a Senator that pushes for increased minimum wage and reduced health care costs by government fiat rather than via economic competition.

This is a Senator that voted for “climate change mitigation” and “equity” and subsidies for electric vehicles and “green” energy sources as major components of the “infrastructure” bill.

This is a Senator that voted for the $350 billion in increased national debt her “infrastructure” bill would create.

That the press can seriously argue that a staunch liberal like Sinema is moving to the right is an illustration of how far toward the extreme Left the Progressive-Democratic Party and its communications organ, the press, have gone.

More Biden, et al., Disingenuousity

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On the matter of raising our nation’s debt ceiling, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) and the Republican caucus in the Senate have been crystalline for months: Progressive-Democrats in both the House and the Senate have the votes to raise the debt ceiling by themselves, and they have the responsibility to do that, given their decision to pass spending bills with no Republican input, without even talking to Republicans in any serious fashion to seek their input on spending.

Now comes President Joe Biden (D).

He called on Republicans to “get out of the way” and let Democrats quickly raise the debt limit. Asked whether he could guarantee that the US would be able to raise the debt ceiling before the deadline, he put the onus on Republicans: “No, I can’t. That’s up to Mitch McConnell.”

Of course, it’s impossible for the Republicans, being the minority party in both houses of Congress, to be in the way in any shape or form. They can’t stop the Progressive-Democrats from raising the debt ceiling; they don’t have the votes.

All that’s required is for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) and his Progressive-Democrat caucus, along with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) with her Progressive-Democrat majority, to move the raise along through reconciliation—either as a stand-alone bill or by each house passing the extant reconciliation bill, then adding the debt ceiling raise during Conference Committee discussions. Bills coming out of Conference are passable via simple majority votes—no Senate filibusters on Conference-agreed bills.

The latter move, in particular, would let Schumer put Senators Joe Manchin (D, WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D, AZ) on the spot, forcing them to choose between reneging on their pious promises to not vote for a $3.5 trillion bill they say is too much to spend all at once and whose breadth of content they say is too broad in order to vote for a debt ceiling raise, or sticking to their promises and thereby vote down the debt ceiling raise.

Nor would that jeopardize a subsequent clean debt ceiling raise bill, should Manchin and Sinema prove themselves good for their promises: the Senate’s Parliamentarian has already said that the Senate’s two reconciliation bills per session limit would not be applicable. A third bill, dedicated to passing a debt ceiling raise, could be done functionally as reconciliation by “modifying” the second reconciliation bill.

Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi know all of this full well. They’re just trying to duck their personal and Party responsibilities.

Siding with the Extremists

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President Joe Biden (D) not only advised his Progressive-Democrats in the House to hold off on trying to pass the “infrastructure” bill. This is the bill, remember, that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) had so solemnly promised the more moderate members of Party she would bring to the floor for a vote on 27 Sept. Then after breaking that promise, she promised to have the vote on 29 Sept, then promised 30 Sept, then 1 Oct, then canceled the vote altogether, for a total of four solemn cynical promises broken.

No, that wasn’t all for Biden. He then made his own promise late Friday to the House Progressive-Democratic Party caucus in a closed door meeting in one of their House conference rooms. The “infrastructure” bill

ain’t going to happen until we reach an agreement on the next piece of legislation[.]

That next piece of legislation is the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill he and his fellows are so anxious to get enacted.

With that commitment, Biden repeated and renewed the promise he made last June to not sign the “infrastructure” bill until he also had his reconciliation bill on his desk. With that renewed commitment, Biden broke earlier, campaign and inauguration speech promises to unite our nation and to govern in a bipartisan manner.

Biden has, instead, openly and irretrievably united with the most progressive of the Progressive-Democrats—the extreme Left of a Party that already has gone far Left.

Wrong Answer

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants Congress’ authority over the debt ceiling abolished.

She argued Congress makes the decisions on taxes and spending, so it should also provide the ability to pay those obligations.
“If to finance those spending and tax decisions, it’s necessary to issue additional debt, I believe it’s very disruptive to put the president and myself, the Treasury secretary, in a situation where we might be unable to pay the bills that result from those past decisions[.]”

This would, of course, mean that the concept of a debt ceiling itself would be removed.

Wrong answer.

The right answer, which would make a debt ceiling unnecessary (although not abolish it), is to limit spending to within revenues.

Of course, to prevent Congress from running away with tax rates, as the current Progressive-Democrat-run Congress is attempting to do, it would be necessary to limit Congress’ ability to raise tax and fee rates or to create new taxes or fees. One way to achieve that would be to define a priori the specific purpose of each individual tax or fee increase and each individual new tax or fee and then put each one, individually and separately, to a national plebiscite. If the plebiscite rejects the proposition, then the associated spending cannot occur and existing spending must remain within existing revenues.

A fillip: financial planners recommend individual families each maintain a rainy day/emergency fund of some months’ worth of expenses. Texas, and some other States, also do this at the State level. It would be useful if Federal spending were required to be limited to 90% of Federal revenues until a national level emergency fund were accumulated—say an amount equal to a year’s worth of established Federal spending. A year, rather than the several months that planners recommend for individuals, because of the Federal government’s empirically demonstrated profligacy.

Another fillip: index the size of the Federal Emergency Fund to positive inflation as measured by the Producer Price Index or its successor. Positive inflation: the required level of the FEF could never decrease, even in a deflationary environment.

Of course, this would require a Constitutional Amendment in order to be permanent.

Oh, and never mind the horror of Yellen being inconvenienced by the tasks of her job.