Tag Archives: spending

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.

A Window on Biden-Harris Priorities

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Not so much from President Joe Biden’s (D) words or his Vice President and co-President Kamala Harris’ (D) careful silence, as much as what’s left in and left out of the current iteration of his reconciliation bill.

What’s still in after its seeming paring from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion (don’t believe those numbers or that any numbers are anywhere near close to finality or even accuracy, but take them at value for now): climate change initiatives.

What’s out (so far):

  • paid family leave and Medicare expansion
  • drug pricing, paid leave, Medicare expansion on dental and vision
  • pathway to citizenship for millions

As Varshini Prakash, Executive Director of Sunrise Movement argued,

Progressives are the ones who have fought like hell for Biden’s full agenda, and their votes cannot be taken for granted[.]

Yet those concrete and potentially directly actionable programs are the ones that were dropped in favor of the Biden-Harris (and of so many others) fantasy of global warming as an existential threat to our species.

Yet, if those dropped programs actually were any good, they’d be fully supportable and easily voted up in their separate and individual bills. Prakash even (cynically I say) argued that the pathway to citizenship for millions was left to an unelected parliamentarian—never mind that here too, maybe especially so, the pathway to citizenship question, if it’s actually something We the People want, would be easily voted up in a separate Pathway Bill.

But no. Progressive-Democrats know these are not particularly desirable; that’s why they tried, from the height of their control of both houses of Congress and the White House, to ram these things through unilaterally with not a syllable of input from the minority party.

“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.