Mr. Obama was elected partly because of his often-repeated promise not to raise taxes on anyone making
less than $250,000 per year. Anyone who had investigated Mr. Obama's background would have known
immediately that his promise wouldn't last long after his inauguration. We are now experiencing
Obama's third term. Nothing has improved; indeed since Obama is hiding behind Biden (who in turn
does as he is told), there's no reason to worry about voters' objections. Print money!
That's the Socialist Democrat party platform now.
In
"Last Hurrah", Credit Card Debt Explodes Higher Despite Record High APRs As Savings Rate
Craters. One month ago, when multiple discount retailers were lamenting the sudden
collapse in US consumer purchasing power, we highlighted the reason this unexpected hit to US
consumption: as the US personal savings rate had collapsed, the growth in consumer credit was
slowing, and in last month, the Fed reported that credit card debt growth posted its first decline
since the covid crash. But fast forwarding just one month later, when in a striking reversal,
October consumer credit growth unexpectedly reversed the dramatic September slowdown, and soared
more than $19 billion, to a new record high of $5.084 trillion.
We
Have Been to the Grocery Store. The Democrats began their term with a trillion dollar
+ spending bill. That spending caused inflation by sending too many dollars after the same
goods and services in the U.S. economy. Prices of all consumer goods exploded to previously
unknown heights. While the rate of inflation cooled as interest rates rose, prices remain
high and consumer spending power was crippled. All this misery remains well known even though
the MSM tries to distract us with other issues. It remains well known because it is real in
the experience of the average person. We are reminded of inflation every time we visit a
grocery store or a gas station. Our experience became more memorable when pranksters —
with justification — would place stickers depicting Joe Biden saying "I did that!" next to
the prices on gas pumps. The shocking memory of gasoline reaching three, four and then five
dollars a gallon did not go away even when prices peaked and retreated somewhat. [...] With the help
of a compliant media, the Democrats have managed to blame inflation on Putin, Covid, "climate change"
and a host of other irrelevant factors. With their base distracted by these diversions, the
Democrats can continue to buy votes with government programs.
KJP
gets wrecked after boasting how much cheaper Thanksgiving meals are. Sounding like a
broken record, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was once again boasting about how
much cheaper Thanksgiving meals will be this year under the Biden-Harris administration. In
addition to noting that the average price of a Thanksgiving Day meal fell 5 percent, KJP
boasted about gas prices being down .25 cents [sic] per gallon. However, the administration
still does not seem to grasp that any focus on pricing invites a larger analysis that doesn't work
out in its favor. When looking at price fluctuations compared to the previous administration,
consumer costs are still up significantly. On that note, voters let their sentiments be known
on Election Day, not that the Republican Party is shy about reminding folks just how much more they
are paying now. [Tweet]
No
one should believe economists — they are apologists for bad policies. Here
are some of the actual Biden, Harris policies that led to high inflation: Doling out massive
amounts of taxpayer money to buy votes when the economy was already rapidly growing. There is
no excuse for running a $2 trillion deficit this year, in a supposedly growing economy.
They're just masking the problems. Flooding the United States with millions of illegals
because Biden and Harris reversed Trump's policies and ignored the law. Issuing massive
amounts of new regulations is clearly inflationary. Blocking pipelines and drilling on
federal lands while publicly seeking to destroy companies that use natural resources to produce
reasonably priced energy causes inflation in the U.S. and throughout the world. Forcing
people and businesses to buy expensive health insurance policies instead of fostering freedom of
choice. The media and other Democrats intentionally lie and claim that Obamacare has made
health insurance more affordable; the truth is that prices have skyrocketed for 14 years
because of the Affordable Care Act. Throwing money at colleges for 60 years has
certainly added to inflation. Then, we had a president who dictatorially paid off the loans
using other people's money and debt, which is also inflationary. Forcing car companies to
make expensive electric cars and trucks that people don't want is obviously inflationary. It
raises the prices of gas-powered cars, which covers the losses and all the capital investments.
Today's
real inflation rate is closing in at 40%. Updated, accurate reports have just been
released by distinguished economists, federal watchdogs and reputable fact checkers on the actual
economic situation — according to these, the U.S. has been in a recession since 2022,
and the real inflation rate is now hovering close to 40%. Most recently, the Brownstone
Institute indicated the actual inflation rate as close to double the "informed" rate from media and
government sources: [...] So, here's where we really find ourselves: Trapped by an on-going
recession and inflation off-the-charts, and coming for us still in 2025, without a change in
presidential leadership. Don't tell Biden and Kamala — apparently, they don't want
to know about any of this.
US
Economic Income and Output Have Fallen Overall for Four Years. Many have questioned
the accuracy of official inflation statistics, with dozens of academic papers written on the topic
and doubts voiced by sources ranging from the New York Times to former President Donald
Trump. This matters not only because of the political salience of rising prices, but also
because official inflation numbers are used to calculate real economic growth by adjusting nominal
dollars to inflation-adjusted dollars. [...] According to our adjustments, cumulative inflation
since 2019 has been understated by nearly half. This has resulted in cumulative growth being
overstated by roughly 15%. This is a large amount for just 5 years — for
perspective, peak-to-trough drop in real GDP during the 2008 crisis was 4%. Moreover, these
adjustments indicate that the American economy has actually been in recession since 2022.
These conclusions are in stark contrast to the establishment narrative that the US economy is
enjoying robust growth that for some reason the public is incapable of perceiving.
2024:
Voting by Facts, Not Feelings. When Harris and Biden stepped into office in 2021,
they inherited Trump's 1.4% inflation rate. They quickly exploded the overall inflation rate
to 19.75 by passing the American Rescue Plan Act. Then, in August 2022, the Senate
passed the Inflation Reduction Act because of Kamala's tie-breaking vote. That act authorized
$891 billion in additional spending, massively increasing inflation. Harris's philosophy
of restricting gas and oil production had a substantial detrimental effect on American
consumers. The national average cost of gasoline under Kamala rose 47%. Americans paid $2.28
per gallon under Trump, but that same gallon would cost $3.35 today. Under Kamala, filling up
a 20-gallon gas tank would cost Americans $67; under Trump, it would cost only $45.60, or $21.40
less. The increase in fuel costs put incredible hardships on truckers who ship various goods
across the country. The unnecessary increase had a catastrophic domino effect.
Groceries became more expensive by 20%, electricity went up 28%, and rent went up 21%.
Nearly everything Americans purchased became far more costly.
Many
Little Lies. The Democrats' campaign against Donald Trump has been characterized by
so many lies that it is impossible to respond to all of them. The sheer volume of lies
prevents observers from learning the truth about any of them. A large number of lies makes
any particular lie more credible. But we must do our part to document the truth —
if for no other reason than that it is the truth. Democrat ads claim that Trump has proposed
a "national sales tax" of $4,000 per household. Trump has proposed no such thing. When
called on it, Democrats point to left-wing think-tanks that claim that prices will rise by $3,900
as a result of Trump's proposed tariffs. (That number is disputed among experts.) A
"national sales tax" is very different from the consequences of tariffs. Tariffs exist
now — even under the Biden administration. Foreign countries impose crippling
tariffs upon American products while subsidizing the products they send here.
A
fraudulent Federal Reserve. When Joe Biden took office, inflation took off because
of his policies, yet the Federal Reserve pretended that inflation was transitory for a while.
It didn't admit that open borders, increasing regulations, out-of-control spending, and
destructive, radical energy policies were causing inflation. Jerome Powell, head of the
Federal Reserve, somehow doesn't understand that flooding America with illegal immigrants puts
massive pressure on prices. Any person with common sense knows if more people demand housing,
medical care, education, and everything else, then that additional demand puts great pressure on
prices — but Powell said it is neutral. Why does anyone trust him?
Kamala
Harris and the 'Fair Share'. A PAC supporting Kamala Harris runs an ad that features
Harris making the following impassioned statement, "We are helping dig families out of debt by
telling billionaires to pay their fair share!" The commercial presents this exclamation as Harris'
"reason for running" for office, but does not explain what it means. Some of the audience
tries to guess what this statement means while Harris' supporters do not care and will vote for her
regardless of what she says. Those who care to understand must speculate for an
explanation. To whom will "billionaires" pay this undefined "fair share?" We can guess that
she is talking about paying taxes. She does not explain how billionaires paying more taxes
will help dig families out of debt.
The Editor says...
"Dig[ging] families out of debt" is not the proper role of government, and was never seen as such
until very recently — and even then, only by politicians.
Realities
cannot be denied. Are Americans better off now than four years ago? The
reality: A trip to the grocery store tells us that food prices are substantially higher now
than they were when President Trump was in the White House. We are paying more at the gas
pump and this administration has practically drained our oil reserves; leaving our National
Security at great risk, we are not ready for an attack or any other emergency that might
arise. Because Secretary Petey Buttigieg does little to nothing, our infrastructure is
crumbling, and the supply chain is struggling. We have not recovered since COVID and there
are still empty shelves in the grocery stores.
Why
the Biden-Harris "Strong" Economy Claim Is a Big Lie. There is only one way to rescue
America's faltering economy and that's the wholesale abandonment of Washington's reckless spending,
borrowing and printing policies of the last quarter century. These policies did not remotely
attain their ostensible goals of more growth, more jobs and more purchasing power in worker pay
envelopes. What they did do, of course, was to freight down the main street economy with
crushing debts, dangerous financial bubbles, chronic inflation and stagnating living
standards. For want of doubt, go straight to the most basic economic metric we
have — real compensation per labor hour. The latter metric not only deletes the
inflation from the pay figures, but also measures the totality of worker compensation, including
benefits for health care, retirement, vacation, disability, sick leave and other fringes.
An obvious lie:
Doug
Emhoff: Not Fair To Criticize Kamala Harris For The Admin's Failures. Vice
President Kamala Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, claimed during an interview this week that it was
unfair for people to criticize his wife's performance over the last three and a half years because
she was not the president. Emhoff made the remarks during a softball ABC News interview
Friday morning on "Good Morning America," which came just days after the network's debate between
Harris and former President Donald Trump that was extremely biased against the Republican
nominee. Co-anchor Michael Strahan asked Emhoff if he thought it was fair that his wife was
being criticized for the numerous failings of the administration, even though she was named the
border czar, bragged about being the last person in the room on Afghanistan, and was the
tie-breaking vote on passing the American Rescue Plan — the legislation that triggered
the inflation crisis.
The
most important aspect of the Haitian scandal. [Thread reader] ... is how it
reveals the whole "they work/help the economy" stuff to be an absurd farce and a lie. The
reason Haitians "work" is because they get mountains of free stuff paid for by the taxpayers in
exchange. A company can employ Haitians at the absolute minimum wage because the Haitians get
free healthcare, free food, free housing, and even cash stipends which they refer to as "magic
money cards": because the cash never runs dry. This is all subsidized by taxpayers.
So most companies, "small" and "local" businesses included, would rather pay slave wages to
foreigners who are more than happy to show up to work because they know in exchange for doing so
they will receive mountains of rewards from NGOs, charities, and the government. Meanwhile
the American citizens are turned into wealth extraction machines. They pay all the taxes,
don't get these same benefits, and are still forced to work for cheap wages. They can barely
make ends meet. Inflation is killing them at the pump, at the grocery store and everywhere
else in their lives because they have no reprieve from its effects and no political recourse to
stop it. But the foreigner gets shielded from this. They don't care about their wage or
the cost of food, or rent prices, because it is all paid for by other people.
Kamala
Harris, Inflation, and Rip-Offs. That a political party would intentionally mislead
its voters as to the cause of inflation should be a major scandal. While we tend to excuse
such actions as mere election-year politics, these ads and the strategy behind them transcend any
one election. Inflation has raged in alternating cycles of boom and bust since before the
Great Depression. It robs us of our savings and transfers wealth without the victims'
understanding or even knowledge. This travesty can happen only because the truth about
inflation is drowned in the steady drip of misleading ads and political statements. Contrary
to the claims of politicians, inflation is not something that the government must "fight."
The government does not "bring down costs." The government need only stop inflating. There is
nothing to fight except the government's own printing press. There is no need for legislation —
especially an Inflation Reduction Act. The government need only stop creating new dollars.
Bidenflation
Still Hammering the Working Class — Minorities Hardest Hit: WaPo.
Has inflation begun to ease back to normal? The Biden-Harris administration wants voters to
believe it, arguing that consumer-goods prices appear to have stabilized. Have they?
Today's Producer Price Index shows annualized unadjusted wholesale inflation dipping down to 1.7%
in August. That would be welcome news for consumers, but inflation for wholesale consumer
foods hit 4.2%. Most of the overall decline came in wholesale energy prices (-8.4%), which
consumers will also welcome but may not be all that good of a trade-off from their weekly visit to
grocery stores. Yesterday's Consumer Price Index offered a mixed bag, too, but not for the
middle and working classes. The overall annualized rate dropped from July's 2.9% to 2.5% in
August, again mainly because of a dramatic fall in energy prices (-4.0%). The upward spike
continued in shelter costs, shooting up 5.2% in August, and included both rentals (5.2%) and owner
costs (5.4%). Insurance spiked 3.6%, and municipal utilities went up 4.2%.
It's
Not the Fed That's Causing Inflation. In their first week in January 2021, Joe
and Kamala cut off every source of oil within their jurisdiction. In the very next month,
three things happened: our domestic production of oil plunged from 13.1 million barrels per
day to 9.7, oil prices doubled from $55 to $110 per barrel, and the monthly inflation rate leaped
from 1.4 percent to 9.6 percent. The red-herring inflation chart they offer shows
inflation peaking six months later, which distracts from the fact that their action was the sole
cause of inflation. It is a "trailing average" chart. It takes the 9.6-percent monthly
rate and averages it with the previous 11 months, which averaged 1.8 percent, and so on.
Thus, the peak of inflation appears to happen six months after it actually peaked. A monthly
chart would show the truth: that the reduction of oil supply was the direct cause of inflation.
Gas
Prices Have Increased 50% Since Kamala Has Been In The White House. Americans are
largely unable to find the "joy" Democrats have touted, especially when they hit the gas pumps, as
prices have risen 50 percent since Vice President Kamala Harris has been in the White
House. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, not seasonally adjusted,
the cost of gasoline has risen 50 percent since January 2021. This is a stark reality
Americans are all too familiar with. During the second year of the Biden-Harris
administration, gas prices actually broke record highs several times.
Economic
Lies and Presidential Politics. Inflation, as the name implies, is an increase in the
money supply. That's it, nothing more. There is only one entity that can increase the
supply of money: the federal government. States can't do it, cities can't do it, Warren
Buffett can't do it, Kim Kardashian can't do it. Only the federal government can inject that
money into the economy, either from taxation/fee receipts or from borrowing (that is, the issuance
of government bonds). When the money injection results from borrowing, we call it printing
money, and when done to pay off deficit or debt, it is called monetizing that debt. Adam
Smith called this a "pretend payment" way back in 1776!
14
Lies Kamala Harris Told During Her DNC Speech. [#6] Kamala Harris falsely insinuated
that the 2017 tax cuts approved by the Trump administration disproportionately benefited America's
wealthiest citizens. "[Trump] fights for himself and his billionaire friends," Harris claimed.
"And he will give them another round of tax breaks that will add up to $5 trillion to the
national debt." That is not true. Data produced by the IRS has shown that "on average all
income brackets benefited substantially from the Republicans' tax reform law, with the biggest beneficiaries
being working and middle-income filers, not the top 1 percent," according to The Hill.
10
Lies Leftists Tell You. Lie #10: The U.S. economy's great; you just don't know
it. Perhaps this seems true to all the millionaire actors, athletes, newscasters,
entertainers, and academics so fond of smooching Democrat derrières. But for those of
you like me, who have to pay bills and balance checkbooks, this is not the best of times, but the
worst. I mean, Burger Kings are going out of business. Dollar Stores have had to come
up with a new name since almost everything costs more than a dollar these days. Personal
credit debt is at a record high, not to mention our astronomic national debt. How can anyone
tell this particular lie without covering the smirk on his face?
Who
is Gaslighting Whom? When a politician tells you they can ban grocery store price
gouging, isn't that gaslighting, straight up? Because, as far-Right misinformation terrorists
have reminded us, politicians have been promising to freeze prices for 2,000 years, and it
never worked. [...] So when Kamunist Harris mournfully regrets that "A loaf of bread costs 50% more
today than it did before the pandemic. Ground beef is up almost 50%" is that gaslighting or
what? Those price rises happened on her watch. But does she apologize for the failed
policy of the Biden-Harris administration? Hey no. It's all the fault of "price
gouging" corporations. I remember the heroic efforts of the price-gouging grocery chains to
keep food on the shelves during COVID.
The
Remarkable Transformation of Kamala Harris. Inflation is eating away at the
purchasing power of Americans' take-home pay, with prices of everyday goods up nearly
20 percent since Biden took office. The major contributor to inflation is federal
deficit spending. Harris's record in the Senate is unimpressive except when it comes to
spending money we don't have. By casting her tie-breaking Senate vote, Harris approved the
passage of Biden's American Rescue Plan of 2021 and the falsely titled Inflation Reduction Act of
2022. With these two bills, Harris added $1.9 trillion and $1.2 trillion (respectively)
to the national debt, exacerbating Americans' pain at the grocery store or gas pump.
U.S.
Families Spend $11.4K More Yearly Under Biden. Thank to Joe Biden-flation and his
catastrophic economic policies, American families are spending over $11,000 more annually just for
necessities. The obscene cost of inflation is hitting hardworking Americans, as overall
prices have gone up almost 20% since the Meanderer-in-Chief came into office in 2021. Americans can
thank the Biden administration for that $11,400 extra for necessities, about 20% of the average
U.S. annual salary. And if you hear the lie that inflation is down, don't believe it.
All that means is that the inflation rate is allegedly slowing, and the Biden administration loves
to engage in monkey business to manipulate such statistics.
Americans
Feel The Heat As Bidenflation Climbs Toward 20%. The dark reality of Bidenomics is
the alarming 19.5% inflation under the President's watch, which is 5.7% annually. When he
took office, inflation was at just 1.4%. Since March 2021, inflation has consistently remained
above the Federal Reserve's 2% target for 40 consecutive months. Under Biden, the federal
debt has increased by $6.9 trillion. To finance his spending spree, the Federal Reserve
printed money from nothing. The increased money supply, without a corresponding increase in
goods and services, reduced the value of each dollar, causing prices to rise quickly and leading to
high inflation, effectively acting as a hidden tax on everyone.
Contrary
To Media Claims, Inflation Index Shows Americans Still Face Sky-High Prices. Contrary
to the corporate media cabal's desperate attempt to paint the Consumer Price Index report for
June 2024 as a sign that inflation "cooled" and will continue "cooling" and "slowing" the
closer the nation gets to November's presidential election, Americans are still paying higher
prices on basic day-to-day goods and services than they did in the last four years. When the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its latest inflation index showing a 0.1 percent
decrease in prices from May 2024 to June 2024, press outlets and the Democrat regime
rushed to bill the data as a sign that inflation is "at its lowest level in more than three years."
The New York Times' Paul Krugman, whose partisan commentary on American families' financial straits is
notoriously out of touch, claimed the CPI's report means the record high prices that have plagued the
nation are "plummeting." CNN also framed the latest month-over-month data as "Good news for US
consumers" because it indicated inflation "fell for the first time since the early part of the pandemic."
The Editor says...
Even if inflation goes to zero and stays there, the dollar has still lost a great deal of value in the last
three years. Zero inflation this month does not fix what happened to the dollar last year.
The
left's $7 trillion lie: Biden far outpaces Trump in racking up the national
debt. Projection is blaming someone else for your own bad behavior. We saw a
classic case of projection in Thursday's presidential debate, when President Biden — who
is overseeing annual budget deficits of $2 trillion — asserted that his
predecessor, Donald Trump, added more to the federal debt than anyone else. It's part of the
latest leftist argument: that if Trump wins the election, he will run deficits twice as large as
Biden would. Debate moderator Jake Tapper joined the chorus of federal finance falsehoods
when he claimed Trump had "approved $8.4 trillion in new debt," while Biden's actions will
increase the debt by (merely) $4.3 trillion over a decade. Tapper was referencing a
recent report by the left-leaning Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which twisted and
turned the debt statistics in every contortionary way it could to reach its incredible
conclusion. CRFB, by the way, is a group that opposed the successful Trump tax reform in
2017 — yet supported several of Biden's multitrillion-dollar spending bills.
Gullibility
101. The loony leftist assumes that the poor are poor because of the rich. The
wealthy have more than their fair share (as if wealth is limited — it isn't: it's
produced, but that's another discussion). So — if we raise taxes on the rich, we'll
have enough money to give a lot to the poor and we'll all be equal. Right? That just
beats all. How do they think the rich got that way? Not by being stupid. No law
has ever been written that didn't have a loophole in it. The rich can afford to lobby
Congress to get those loopholes created. And the rich can afford to hire people smart enough
to find and appropriate those loopholes. What makes matters worse is that not only do the
rich get richer, but those whose job it is to redistribute the wealth gain power and use that power
to get even richer themselves. So, the poor will always be with us.
Biden
Spokesman Jean-Pierre: Gas [and] Food Prices [are] Down. Data: No, They
Aren't. In the real world where Americans live, gas, food, and other consumer prices
have risen dramatically since President Joe Biden took office. Prices at the grocery store
are out of sight. Filling the gas tank practically requires a second mortgage. And
forget buying a home at today's prices and mortgage interest rates. Apartment rents are
zooming. But in Biden World, all is well. Or so says spokesman Karine Jean-Pierre:
In Biden World, gas and food prices are "down," all thanks to Biden, of course.
Inflation
May Have Been Much Higher Than We Thought. Former Secretary of the Treasury Larry
Summers put together a Twitter thread back in February which was widely ignored. In his
comments, Summers makes an argument that increasing interest rates drastically accelerated the true
inflation rate experienced by an average citizen. He specifically calls out this increased
inflation was missed by the current CPI measurement. [...] The former Secretary of the Treasury was
not looking to simply complain though. He and his colleagues created a new methodology to
calculate CPI in an attempt to get closer to the truth about what has been going on.
Retail
sales rise by paltry 0.1% as shoppers feel pinch of high inflation. Retail sales
barely rose last month as Americans burdened by persistently sticky rates of inflation increasingly
pull back on spending. Data released on Tuesday by the Commerce Department showed that the
value of retail purchases rose 0.1% in May — below analyst estimates of 0.2%.
Retail sales for the previous month were revised downward to 0.2%.
The Editor says...
Lots of information about inflation and unemployment is quietly revised a few weeks after it is
first published, but the revised (worse) numbers don't make headlines.
A
Slate writer gaslights about the allegedly great Biden economy. Zachary Carter,
writing for hard-left Slate, has issued his verdict on the economy: It's great. Wholly
contrary to popular belief, he assures us, "Inflation Is Not Destroying Joe Biden." So why
can't the rest of America see it? 'Tis a mystery to be solved, and he buries us under "data"
to make his point. Ultimately, his piece is a primal scream of horror that Americans insist
on believing the realities of their wallets over the cherry-picked data in his analysis.
First, Carter first declares that inflation is a thing of the past. "According to the Federal
Reserve's preferred measure, prices rose just 2.7 percent between April of 2023 and April of
2024." The problem with the Fed is that its "core" inflation number excludes the cost of
food, housing, and energy — the things that average Americans spend the vast majority of
their income purchasing.
Prices
Are Never Going Down. Biden tells us he's fighting inflation, and it seems as if we
hear every day in the news about the Fed leaving interest rates unchanged to fight inflation.
But prices are still high and rising. The latest numbers just released show that prices year
to date are still rising faster than expected. It's true that two years ago, inflation peaked
at around 9%, and today, it's hovering in the mid-3s. So why haven't prices come down?
It's a common misconception, often fueled by the crowd on the left alleging corporate greed, but
inflation isn't the price level — it's the rate of increase in prices. A reduction
from 9% to 3% doesn't mean that prices should come down 6%; it means that now they will go up at
3%. Corporations may be greedy, but that has nothing to do with the inflation rate. The
government, on the other hand, plays a significant role in managing inflation and deflation through
its monetary and fiscal policies.
The Editor says...
The price of groceries may never go down, but the price of gasoline will go down quite a bit as soon as Donald Trump
or some other future President opens up petroleum production on all areas of the U.S., and removes senseless
restrictions on the refining and transportation of oil.
Private
Enterprise Is the Victim, Not the Perpetrator, of Inflation. There was a nice deli
down the street I had never visited so I made a casual visit. They have been around for many
decades, a local favorite. Looking for a menu, there were printed ones but the prices were
all scratched out. The owner pointed up to a chalkboard on which they write prices of the
day. The printed menus from 18 months ago had sandwiches at $9. The chalkboard that day
had them at $15 and higher. I noted the difference to the owner. There was deep pain in
his face. He could not afford to reprint menus so the chalkboard is the only way to keep up
with rising prices. He clearly felt awful about this but margins are very tight.
Raising prices was necessary in order to keep the business in the black. This is because the
prices of absolutely everything have gone through the roof, from ingredients to transportation to
utilities and rent to labor (he has to retain employees and compete in a market of limited supply)
to insurance and repairs.
In
the best economy ever, 78% of Americans see fast food as a "luxury". In research
conducted by Lending Tree, Americans were asked about their food choices, and if you've been living
outside the rose-colored windows of the White House and Wall Street, the results are not at all
surprising. [...] Nearly half (46%) say fast-food restaurants cost similarly to their local
sit-down restaurants, while 22% say fast food is more expensive.
Quantitative
Brainwashing. We're all familiar with the term, "quantitative easing." [...] When QE
was implemented, the purchasing power was weak and both government and personal debt had become so
great that further borrowing would not solve the problem; it would only postpone it and, in the
end, exacerbate it. Effectively, QE is not a solution to an economic problem, it's a bonus of
epic proportions, given to banks by governments, at the expense of the taxpayer. But, of
course, we shouldn't be surprised that governments have passed off a massive redistribution of
wealth from the taxpayer to their pals in the banking sector with such clever terms.
Governments of today have become extremely adept at creating euphemisms for their misdeeds in order
to pull the wool over the eyes of the populace. At this point, we cannot turn on the daily
news without being fed a full meal of carefully-worded mumbo jumbo, designed to further overwhelm
whatever small voices of truth may be out there.
If
the Dems ditch Biden, what then? [Scroll down] More myths are likely to
spring from the debates, since actual transcripts will fail to invoke the true meaning of what was
said and implied. For starters, I expect Biden to strenuously deny the seriousness of
inflation. He will, again, blame greedy corporate price-gougers — as if there were
really no such thing as competition among businesses for customers. He will also point to the
Dow going above 40,000 for the first time. However, using the online inflation calculator, a
Dow at 40,000 today would drop down to 32,900 if it were expressed in January 2020
dollars. That really wasn't all that long ago.
Has
America Finally Had It With Joe Biden? Joe Biden's personal approval rating is at
historic lows; almost all his policies do not poll fifty percent. He is behind Trump in
almost all the swing states. And now he lies serially even to sympathetic interviewers.
In short, finally Biden has been exposed for what he always was and represented. [...] Biden just
told his greatest whopper that inflation was at 9 percent (actually 1.4 percent) when he
took office and yet soon spiked to 9 percent due to his reckless deficit spending and money
printing spree.
GenZ
Is Furious About the Economy and They Are Blaming Previous Generations for Wrecking
It. No matter how hard they work, millions of Gen Z Americans are just barely
scraping by month after month, and many of them are seriously [angry] about it. In fact,
videos of Gen Z Americans ranting about the economy on TikTok have been racking up millions of
views. Many of those that are ranting about the economy absolutely hate the fact that no
matter how much they try they can never seem to get ahead. Others just keep getting deeper
and deeper in debt because they can never seem to make enough money to pay all the bills. And
do you know who they are blaming for the pain that they are experiencing? They are blaming
those that belong to previous generations for wrecking the economy, and they are right.
The Editor says...
You wrecked the economy, boo hoo, but please forgive my student loans, and don't
stop sending money to Ukraine, and finish that high-speed rail line, and shut down all the
coal-fired power plants, and don't lock up shoplifters because they're just trying to feed their
families, and build a new stadium for our football team, and keep bringing in more deadbeats from
Mexico and giving them free stuff. But how dare you wreck the economy!
Behind
The Inexplicable "Strength" Of US Consumers Is $700 Billion In "Phantom Debt".
Yesterday we discussed the latest consumer credit data, which revealed that the amount of credit
card debt across the US has hit a new record high of $1.337 trillion (even though it appears
to have finally hit a brick wall, barely rising in March by the smallest amount since the covid
crash), even as the savings rate has tumbled to an all time low. [Chart] To be sure, credit
card debt is just a small portion (~6%) of the total household debt stack: as the next chart from
the latest NY Fed consumer credit report shows, the bulk, or 70%, of US household debt is in the
form of mortgages, followed by student loans, auto loans, credit card debt, home equity credit and
various other forms. Altogether, the total is a massive $17.5 trillion in total
household debt. [Video clip]
This
Economy Does Not Look Good. Core inflation rose at a 3.8 percent annual rate in
the first quarter and 2.9 percent in March, the Commerce Department reports. Fearful of
renewed inflation, the Federal Reserve will not ease up on the money supply and will keep interest
rates at their highest level in more than two decades, as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell announced on
Wednesday, which should slow economic growth further. Meanwhile, President Biden is doing his
very best to destroy the economy via regulatory brutality. The American Action Forum reports
that Biden "agencies published $875.3 billion in total costs" on the U.S. economy in just
one week in mid-April, including tighter emission standards for cars, tougher efficiency
requirements for light bulbs, and silica exposure limits clearly meant to end coal mining.
Biden's one-week regulatory bacchanal amounted to "[j]ust $20 billion less than what President
Obama did in two terms!" notes AAF President Douglas Holtz-Eakin. The contrast between Biden
and Trump is ten times as dramatic as that: $1.37 trillion by Biden to $30.1 billion by
Trump by April of year four of their respective administrations.
The
economic indicators' used by the media elite. David Chalian, political director for
CNN, can't understand for the life of him why the economy is still "front and center" for most
Americans, because there are other things that Joe Biden "performs worse on." (Are there
though?) On a recent CNN segment, Chalian was caught scoffing at the stupid rubes ("Americans")
who "disapprove" of Biden's handling of the economy, because these uneducated flyover saps pay more
attention to how they're feeling rather than the "economic indicators and data" that all the media
elite "report on constantly." [Tweet with video clip] [...] Those "feelings" that Chalian's
talking about aren't really feelings, but legitimate indicators of where the economy is, and ones
with which we interact constantly; here are just a few examples: [...]
Joe
Biden says things, and then there's reality. If I were advising Biden, I would also
tell him to stop pretending his policies have brought inflation down. Joe also claims that
his policies have significantly brought down inflation. Maybe statistically, but average
people's inflation is still way up. The poor, the middle class, and seniors on fixed income
are being decimated by the price of necessities that have skyrocketed due to Biden's policies,
especially on energy. For example, I received my homeowner's insurance bill this week.
It is up over 15% from last year. I have never had a claim, have an excellent credit score,
and have a $2,000 deductible along with a 10% deductible on earthquake insurance. We built
our house 36 years ago, and in Springfield, Illinois, the value has increased only one or two
percent per year, at most. It sure doesn't help to live in the state with the second highest
property tax rate in the country.
The
Real Inflation Number Under Biden Reached 18% and Is Still Hovering at a 40-Year High.
A recent research paper by four noted economists, including Larry Summers, the former Treasury
Secretary under Barack Obama and former Harvard President, discovered that the real inflation rate
during the Biden years, using pre-1983 calculations reached 18% in 2022. The number is the
highest inflation rate the country has seen in over 50 years. This research project was
published by these four authors at the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research in late
February and is just now making waves.
Bidenomics
Update: Staggering Under the Weight of It All. Being subject to the progressive
grifting regime has not been beneficial in the least for the country's psyche, soul, or security,
either safety or financial. One tidbit that dropped yesterday, which I only bumped up
against, was the explosion of credit card delinquencies. In this Biden induced time of wage
stagnation and job insecurity coupled with exploding household costs, it's not really surprising
when even formerly comfortable people are feeling the pinch.
Climate
Change Is Not Causing Inflation. A recent study in the journal Nature: Communications
Earth and Environment claims climate change is contributing to price inflation. The study's
authors say they found climate change harms economic productivity and food production, leading to
higher prices. They examined more than 27,000 monthly consumer price index data points
around the globe. I can't begin to describe all the ways this claim is not just outright
false but is misleading in a manner clearly intended to motivate restrictions on fossil fuel
production and use, policies which would in fact increase energy prices, harm food production, and
result in lost jobs, higher prices, and lower incomes. Policymakers taking this study
seriously might impose policies which themselves would result in worse inflation than the world is
currently experiencing, which is in part due to existing climate policies.
This
Is Biden's Reelection Pitch? We recently received a Biden-Harris campaign fundraising
email, and if this is the best pitch they can make, then Joe Biden deserves to lose, bigly.
It's full of lies. It's completely disconnected from reality. Biden takes no
responsibility for the nation's current troubles, and offers absolutely no solutions. The
email begins "I know this message is long." Except it's not — it's less than 430
words, which isn't much for an email that promises to remind readers "of all the things we have
been able to accomplish because of our victory in 2020." The next sentence is a flat-out lie.
"When Kamala and I were sworn in over two years ago, the economy was on its back." The truth
is that when Joe and Kamala were sworn in, the economy was roaring back. Gross domestic
product had regained the ground it lost in COVID-19 recession — a recession that lasted
only two months, making it the shortest in recorded U.S. history. Half of the people who lost
jobs were back at work. The stock market had climbed above its pre-COVID peak.
Price
Inflation Accelerates For Second Month As Biden Blames "Greed". According to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest price inflation data, CPI inflation in February accelerated for
the second month in a row, and price inflation hasn't proven nearly as transitory as the regime's
economists have long predicted. According to the BLS, Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation
rose 3.2 percent year over year during February, without seasonal adjustment. That's the
thirty-sixth month in a row of inflation well above the Fed's arbitrary 2 percent inflation target.
Larry
Summers: Inflation [is] Much Worse Than [the] Government Says. Lawrence Summers, Treasury
Secretary under Clinton and economic advisor to Obama, is likely getting himself into trouble once
again with the Left. While president of Harvard, he blurted out the obvious fact that men and
women may be different, leading to a vote of no confidence by the faculty of Harvard, and since
Biden's election he has been critical of the president's economic policies, warning that they were
harming the economy. Well, he's done it again, this time in an economic paper that provides
the explanation for what the Left calls the "vibesession" — the persistent belief by Americans that
the economy is much worse than the official statistics indicate. [Tweet]
Bidenflation
Is Even Worse Than You Think. It doesn't take a master's degree in economics to
understand that prices are up in every sector of the economy. The economy under Joe Biden is
nickel-and-diming us at every turn, and Americans can see past the smoke and mirrors that the White
House is using to try to convince us that everything is fine. The federal government's
measure of price increases, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), has consistently shown that inflation
isn't going away. The most recent CPI report indicates a 3.2% increase in prices from
Feb. 2023 to Feb. 2024. That's a significant increase, but it only shows the increase
over a rolling 12 months. To get a clearer picture of what Bidenflation looks like, we
need to compare prices between now and when Biden took office. That's what TIPPinsights did,
and the results show you that Bidenflation isn't just worse than the White House wants you to
believe — it's worse than you might have realized.
Fact-Checking
the Fabulist in Chief's State of the Union. During Thursday's State of the Union
address, Biden fully displayed his fabulist tendencies. His assessment of the administration's
accomplishments and his impact was not anchored in reality. [...] Of course, he went on a "pay your
fair share" rant, accusing Republicans of giving corporations and the wealthy tax cuts. The top
10% of taxpayers pay roughly 75% of all federal tax collected. And the U.S. Treasury begs to
differ. The wealthy pay a much larger share of their total income.
Biden took a recovering economy and intentionally wrecked it.
Biden
Falsely Says He Inherited An Economy on Brink of Collapse. Claim: Biden claimed
that the U.S. economy was on the brink of disaster when he took office. "I inherited an
economy that was on the brink. Now our economy is the envy of the world!" Biden said.
Verdict: False. President Biden inherited an economy that was strongly rebounding from
the pandemic. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the economy grew at an annual rate of
4.3 percent. In the prior quarter, it had grown at an annual rate of 33.1 percent,
as the economy whipsawed from lockdown to reopening. As Biden took office, in the first
quarter of 2021, the economy was growing at a 5.2 percent annual rate. (Until the
Department of Commerce revised its calculations last fall, this was reported as an annual rate of
6.3 percent.)
Welcome
to Nickel-and-Dime Nation. [Scroll down] The whole time Biden has been in
office, the price of everything has gone up, and all those increases pile on top of one
another. We're not just seeing it at Mexican restaurants; it's popping up everywhere.
My mom, sister, and nieces went to a restaurant on Friday that has always served honey butter
crescent rolls at the table. The waitress brought their rolls out just like always without
even asking, but when the bill arrived, there was a $1.99 charge for them. The most recent
consumer price index information shows that all items have gone up 3.1% between Jan. 2023 and
Jan. 2024. Food prices alone have gone up 2.6% over that timeframe, and that breaks down into
a 1.2% increase for "food at home" and a 5.1% increase for "food away from home" — which
we know includes those amazing honey butter crescent rolls and those addictive chips and salsa.
"Food away from home" saw one of the biggest increases of any sector over the past year. It's
not just $2.50 for chips and salsa here and $1.99 for crescent rolls there. It's also an
extra 20¢ per gallon for gas, another dollar for a pound of ground beef, another rise on your
electric bill, and everything else going up little by little. This economy is
nickel-and-dime-ing us everywhere we turn, and we can place the blame for that at the feet of Biden
and his administration.
The Editor says...
Technically, you don't have to pay for stuff that the waiter brings to your table
that you did not order. However, it is also true that you must not
get into an argument with the waiter lest he should spit in your food.
U2VlIEhUTUwgY29tbWVudHMu
Even
Biden Doesn't Want To Talk About 'Bidenomics' Anymore. After President Joe Biden
embraced the term "Bidenomics," he and his White House staff couldn't get enough of it. But
either Biden's forgotten all about it, or the administration realized that it was doing no good to
brag about something the public didn't believe. Either way, the term is vanishing from
use. It was in a speech in Chicago on June 28, 2023, that Biden decided to bear-hug the
term. "I didn't come up with the name. I really didn't," he said. "I didn't realize
the economists in the Wall Street Journal did. But I'm happy to call it 'Bidenomics.'
And guess what? Bidenomics is working." Biden thought he was catching a wave. The
economy seemed to be turning a corner, the rate of inflation was decelerating, job growth was
strong. Surely the public would come to realize that the worst was behind.
Eric
Adams Says Giving Pre-Paid Credit Cards to Illegal Migrants Is 'Smart' and a 'Real Win'.
Democrat mayor Eric Adams is defending his decision to hand out pre-paid credit cards to illegal
migrants living illegally in New York City. During a press conference on Friday, Adams
claimed that the move is a "real win" and a "smart way to bring down the cost" of the thousands of
illegal aliens who have invaded the city. Adams said that the city is saving appropriately
$600,000 a month and $7.2 million a year by giving "individuals" — notice the
Democrat didn't call them illegal migrants — pre-paid cards that will be allowed
to be used at local bodegas, grocery stores, supermarkets, and convenience stores across Manhattan.
White
House: Inflation 'Very Close to Normal' and Prices 'Moving in the Right Direction'.
During an interview with ABC News on Thursday, White House Senior Adviser Gene Sperling stated that
"people have been through a tough few years" but the PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditures) price index
reading is "very close to normal" and "prices are moving in the right direction" and "moderating."
But you can't expect them to not go up. Sperling said, "It's been a tough few years since the
pandemic," but "inflation is coming down. In fact, it was really 2.4% in this measure, 2.8% if
you don't include food and gas. And that's not good enough, but it is very close to normal.
And there are a lot of different areas where you have seen prices come down."
Obama
Treasury Sec: 'Economy Booming, Americans Just Don't Know It.' A newly released
working paper by former Obama government Treasury Secretary Larry Summers asserts that the Consumer
Price Index (CPI) may underestimate Americans' financial pains from rising interest rates. "The
economy is booming and everyone knows it — except for the American people," Summers
states.The elevated interest rates enacted by the Federal Reserve have increased expenses such as
buying a house or carrying credit card balances. Summers' paper, titled "The Cost of Money is
Part of the Cost of Living," explores the disconnect between what he claims are positive economic
indicators and the public's persisting 'sour mood' on the Biden economy.
Federal
Reserve records massive losses, makes up fictitious value called 'deferred assets' to
compensate. When inflation started rising rapidly after Biden took office, the
Federal Reserve and others falsely called it transitional. Biden campaigned on, and has
governed on, policies to intentionally destroy reasonably priced energy. As a result of these
radical policies, energy prices soared, and energy inflates the cost of everything. Crude oil
is used in over 6,000 products, and crude oil is still up over 90% from the day Biden was
inaugurated. Yet I have not seen members of the Federal Reserve call out Biden for his energy
policy as a great cause of inflation. Biden's green policies are forcing car companies to
produce electric cars, which are losing them a massive amount of money, because the public doesn't
want them. Then the car companies jack up the price of gas-powered vehicles so they can cover
the losses, and make profits to cover the cost to manufacture the more expensive E.V.s.
Consumers, especially the poor and middle classes, are hit with huge increases in car
payments. I haven't heard the Fed say how that contributes to inflation. Because
of the increased cost of cars, car repairs and insurance rates are soaring — a
"staggering 23%" increase for repair costs in just one year, and a "26%" increase for insurance
rates, which equates to a $500 per year jump.
Core
Inflation Comes in Hot Enough to Bake Shockaship Cookies. Somehow we simple-minded
Americans aren't falling for the line blaming the big, mean companies for everything.
Sometimes, it's the people in charge whose policy decisions -- or lack thereof -- facilitate the
shrinkflation thanks to administrative policy-induced inflation. And no matter how you beat
Americans over the head whining about a smaller bag of potato chips or fewer chips in your
shockaship cookie being the fault of manufacturers, we're the ones who get to experience paying for
all of it. Or less of it. We know what it's been like out here in the real world, and
all the smoke blowing you and the toadies do doesn't change the fact that y'all own this mess.
The
myth of all-tax-funded government spending. To put it bluntly: Our tax dollars
are not funding America's financial largesse. Instead, we fund it in an even less
honest way, by printing currency and heaping it onto a $34 trillion pile of national debt that
has little chance of ever being paid back. Uncle Sam can pull off this sleight-of-hand
without causing domestic inflation because the greenback is needed for trade by the rest of the
world. This demand allows the U.S. to send about 60% of all currency created to our
international trading partners. We effectively export our inflation to the rest of the world,
which insulates Americans from price shocks we would otherwise experience had all that new currency
stayed home. This trick was revealed by the COVID-19 stimulus. Massive quantities of
newly created dollars remained in-house — funneled directly into the pockets of American
spenders to tide them over during the economic shutdown. As we now know, this was clearly a
recipe for significant domestic inflation — something Americans wouldn't accept.
The real question is: When will the rest of the world finally refuse to subsidize Americans'
unearned standard of living by accepting our ever-increasing glut of dollars?
We
are in a depression and do not even know it. Uncle Sam is now telling us inflation is
under control and we are headed for a soft landing. Balderdash! According to the Bureau
of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for 2023 was 3.4% year over year.
Not horrible. But do not forget that 6.5% occurred in 2022, and 7% in 2021. That
is a total of 16.9% in three years. You are paying at least 17% more than at the start of this
decade. Regardless of what the BLS would like you to believe, prior year inflation does not
go back to zero with the beginning of each new year.
Government
says, 'Trust me! The economy's fine!' Listening to federal economists and the
president, whose job evaluations are based on a growing economy, the economy is not embroiled in a
recession. They quote arcane figures and ratios like GDP, CPI, Jobless Claims, etc. And
they use these numbers to hide facts that are painfully obvious to all: our economic situation
is dire. Every citizen feels the pain of spending more dollars for every product or service
he purchases. The cost of filling your car with gas takes at least 50% more dollars than it
did three years ago. Same, or worse, with groceries to feed your family. It is obvious
and painful that citizens have to expend more dollars for the same product or service. That
is the definition of inflation. So no matter what the federal economists say about CPI, we
are feeling the pain of a dollar that buys less than it did before. Devaluation of the dollar
is the cause of price inflation.
Janet
Yellen Throws Biden Under the Bus With Astounding Comment Destroying His Claims About
Inflation. So many people have been crushed under the bootheel of "Bidenomics" and
Bidenflation for so long. It's one of the main reasons Joe Biden's numbers are in the
basement in terms of approval, particularly when it comes to the economy. First, the Biden
team denied the reality of the crushing inflation, calling it "transitory." Then they claimed
it wasn't Joe Biden's fault, despite his excessive spending. They blamed it on Russia and
greedy corporations, among others. Now Biden has been saying prices are coming down and
claiming credit, even though prices are still up more than when he came in. In his latest
remarks in South Carolina, he also blamed the greedy corporations for Bidenflation. [Tweet]
House
Republicans Agree To Help Democrats Grow The Welfare State And Shrink The Workforce.
The legislation increases the portion of the subsidy considered refundable — that is,
the amount that households can receive as a cash payment over and above any income tax liability
they have. Under current law, $1,600 of the $2,000 subsidy is refundable, but the legislation
would increase that threshold to the full $2,000 in 2025. While this provision, along with the
others discussed below, will technically expire in 2025, Democrats will likely move to extend all
of them as part of consideration of the Trump tax plan, major portions of which will also expire
next year. While Congress calls this particular program the "child tax credit," the term in
many respects constitutes a misnomer, because most of the payments go to individuals who owe no
income taxes. For instance, the Joint Committee on Taxation found that over
91 percent — or $30.6 billion of the $33.5 billion cost — of
these changes to the "child tax credit" would come via outlay (i.e., spending) effects, making it
much more of a welfare subsidy than a reduction in tax liability.
Profits
Do Not Cause Inflation: Causal Fallacies as Economic Disinformation. Economic
fallacies are a booming business in an inflationary era. Recent attempts to promote the idea
that corporations raised prices in the pursuit of higher profits, creating the last three years'
inflation, are not new. As inflation reached its apex in 2022, that claim (along with a
handful of others) became common, as it has been many times before that. It's an assertion
readily embraced by the large number of individuals who, seeing poor or declining economic
conditions, are naturally predisposed to blame producers and the productive more generally as
opposed to politicians and technocrats. Over the past few years, US citizens have been told
that gas station owners, Vladimir Putin, ocean shippers, and other entities are to blame for prices
rocketing up. Efforts have been made to confuse Americans (and anyone else following along)
between month-to-month and year-to-year inflation statistics. Americans have also been lied
to regarding prices in the United States versus other nations.
Biden
Does Some Laughable Gaslighting About the US Having the 'Best Economy' in New Interview.
[Scroll down] I think this has to be one of the things that most annoys Americans about
Biden, his disregard for the truth and a disregard for the American people. He's saying
people are just deceived by the media into having a bad opinion of the economy. It isn't
because they're having to pay more for everything. Most people know how much they are
spending for groceries and gas. Many know they can no longer afford to buy a house at this
time because of the incredibly high interest rates. Biden can't appreciate any of this, as he
headed to his umpteenth vacation this weekend to Camp David.
Biden's
Latest Remarks on Economy Show He Has No Idea What He Is Talking About. Joe Biden has
horrible approval ratings when it comes to the economy. That's put the Biden team in a
quandary as to what to do when the media asks them about this fact. They've claimed it's just
bad messaging — that Americans just don't understand what's going on. That of
course is both presumptuous and insulting, acting like Americans are stupid and don't understand
when they are paying more for everything.
Inflation
was already too high, and then it went higher. A lot of people spent this morning
trying to make Thursday's inflation numbers sound fine. [Tweets] This is part of a year-long
public messaging campaign arguing that the President Joe Biden economy is perfectly perfect and that
anyone who doesn't like it is divorced from reality. The main evidence behind this argument was
that inflation was falling, and so people should be happy — or at least less angry.
The problem with this argument is that it ignores the basic fact that inflation is still too high.
There is a normal level of inflation, and it's about 2%. Standard economists seem to think that
2% is the right level of inflation. But inflation has been significantly higher than 2%
consistently since Joe Biden came into office. December of last year saw prices 3.4% higher
than they were a year before.
Biden
Welcomes 2024 With More Lies About His Flailing Economy. Serial liar President Joe
Biden welcomed 2024 with more deceptions about the flailing economy and his role in exacerbating
it. "My hope is that everybody has a healthy, happy, and safe new year, but beyond that, I
hope they understand that we're in a better position than any country in the world to lead the
world. We're coming back, and it's about time," Biden said during his cameo on ABC's "New
Year's Rockin' Eve" on Dec. 31. [...] A plurality of voters say the economy is their top issue
going into the 2024 election, which is why the White House and corporate media repeatedly insist
Americans' perceptions of the economy, not the record-high prices that are here to stay, are the
problem. They cover up Americans' sticker shock by claiming inflation is "cooling" and that
Americans are experiencing "low unemployment" ushered in by the Democrat regime. This
couldn't be further from the truth. [Tweet] Inflation may have slightly decreased in 2023
since peaking in 2021, but it still hasn't reached pre-pandemic levels. Year over year,
especially, continues to rise. In November 2023 alone, Americans paid 3.1 percent
more for goods and services than they did in 2022.
Biden's
Campaign Message 2024. Biden saw his inflation rate rise to a 40 year high of
10% in April of 2022 and the current inflation rate is 3.1%, more than double what it was (1.4%) at
the end of the Trump administration. Biden passed the enormously expensive "Inflation
Reduction Act" but now must admit that it failed to reduce inflation, perhaps because, as John
Kerry admits, it was really about his climate obsession and had little to do with inflation.
TV
Says You're Wrong, Joe Biden's Economy Is Really Wonderful. As polls show Joe Biden's
re-election is in peril because of the public's negative opinion of how he's handled the economy,
TV viewers woke up Friday morning to a round of happy talk telling them that, despite what they
might think, the economy is really quite spectacular. "The economy is in solid shape.
Job growth is steady and inflation is cooling," ABC's Elizabeth Schulze exclaimed on Good
Morning America. Over on Today, NBC's Tom Costello cheered that travel will be
cheaper this Christmas: "Gas prices now below $3 a gallon in more than 20 states, so if you
are planning to hit the road for the holidays, you'll have company." Earlier this week, NBC's
Christine Romans declared that Americans who told pollsters that the economy is bad are just wrong.
The
Biden Administration Has Become Completely Delusional on the Economy. Things are not
going well for the Biden administration. Despite the marketing genius that is "Bidenomics,"
Americans continue to not buy what the president and his handlers are selling. Still, they
march valiantly forward, appearing on friendly news networks to tout their supposed economic
successes, hoping for some messaging traction. Instead, even mainstream press members are
growing weary. On Sunday, it was Biden budget director Shalanda Young's turn to try to
convince people that water isn't wet. What transpired was pure delusion. [Tweet with
video clip]
Bidenflation
Right Before Your Eyes. The economy is the single most concerning political issue for
Americans. If you need a source other than your eyes and ears, there are multiple polling
agencies, including Gallup and Pew, that reveal this to be the case. More specifically,
inflation is the most cited political issue by a plurality of Americans. Thanks to the
foolish economic policies of the Biden administration, the price increases that have plagued the
U.S. the past few years have hit most Americans quite hard. In other words, "Bidenomics" is
best described as "Bidenflation." Of course, Joe Biden, his Democrat colleagues, and his
media apologists are working overtime to attempt to gaslight as many Americans as possible.
Biden and his ilk have gone so far as to claim that Americans' concerns on inflation are due to
"disinformation" spread via social media.
Proof
That Inflation In The U.S. Is Wildly Out Of Control. Do you believe the politicians
in Washington or do you believe your own eyes? The politicians keep telling us that
"inflation is low", but everyone can see that everything sure does cost a lot more than it once
did. Our standard of living just keeps going down, and even JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is
admitting that "inflation is hurting people". But how can inflation be "hurting people" if it is
under control? Of course the truth is that it isn't under control. If the official rate
of inflation was still measured using the formula that was in place in 1980, it would be well into
double digit territory right now. Prices have been rising much faster than paychecks have,
and that is putting an extraordinary amount of financial stress on the more than 60 percent
of U.S. adults that currently live paycheck to paycheck.
Biden
administration is 'spooked' over price complaints. A Five Guys customer's video
complaining about the extremely high prices of the items at the fast-food chain has resurfaced on
multiple social media platforms. Michelle Newell posted the clip to TikTok explaining that
she and her husband had paid $42 for two cheeseburgers, a side of fries and two milkshakes.
The visibly upset patron told viewers that the couple had visited a Five Guys location on a
Saturday afternoon for lunch. Newell shared her anger last year — but a check by
DailyMail.com Friday evening confirmed it remains just as expensive to buy the same meal.
Newell said she ordered a regular cheeseburger for herself, another cheeseburger with mushrooms for
her husband and a side of fries. The couple also got two milkshakes. She said that
'we're absolutely done' and businesses are 'playing with their customers'. According to the
Five Guys current menu, regular-sized cheeseburgers cost $12.09 each, while regular fries are
priced at $6.89. [A]nd milkshakes cost $5.89 each.
The Editor says...
In my opinion, Whataburger makes a better hamburger for one third of the Five Guys' price.
But the word is getting around, which is why there's almost never a crowd at Five Guys.
Even so, the price of everything is going up rapidly, so the prices at Five Guys are not all that extraordinary.
They're just ahead of the curve.
Biden
Says That Prices Are Still Too High so Companies Should Just Lower Them. Joe Biden
has apparently noticed that the price of everything is much higher on his watch than a few years
ago. He is now asking sellers to just lower their prices. [...] Companies don't lower prices
just because inflation is politically inconvenient for the president and his party.
Who
You Gonna Believe: Your Wallet or Your Lying Eyes? Joe Biden and his surrogates
keep trying to convince and shame the American people into believing that the economy is doing
great and that "Bidenomics" is the reason. Nice try. The people are unhappy and not
buying it. While this is an emotional reaction, it also has a basis in real facts about the
state of the economy, which are refracted through individuals' personal circumstances. The
first and most glaring issue is that everything is more expensive than it was a few years
ago. On top of this, wages have not kept up, real wealth and income have declined, and middle
class people find themselves harried by competing and rising costs in healthcare, electricity,
food, housing, tuition, and cars. People who thought of themselves as middle class sometimes
find themselves descending into proletariat status. In the more extreme cases, people become
homeless late in life, having lost all their resources to deal with job loss or other emergencies.
Biden
Team in Disarray Over Messaging, 'Working With Social Media Platforms to Counter Misinformation'.
According to a new Washington Post story, the Biden team is at its wit's end. They don't know
what to do to convince the American people that the economy is in good shape. Of course, part
of the reason they're failing so badly is because people know how much more they've had to pay for
everything, and they see the high interest rates. Young people who would like to buy a home
can't even do so in the current economy. But they're still trying to sell this to us, such as
by claiming Thanksgiving was cheaper this year. They leave out that it was more expensive
than when Joe Biden came in and hit everything with Bidenflation. Their latest efforts were
an example of how badly they are failing with the public.
Bidenomics:
The High Price of Gaslighting. Anyone still wondering why voters trust former
President Trump more than President Biden on the economy should read what the White House posted on
X about inflation last week: "Ahead of the holiday season, costs are down for everything from
airline tickets and car rentals to toys and TVs." Biden and his underlings continue to believe
public disapproval of his disastrous economic performance can be improved with happy talk and
cherry picked statistics. It assumes Americans can't remember how much less the cost of
living was when Biden was elected. This is an insult to the intelligence of the voters and a
losing strategy. [...] The 3.2 percent inflation rate is nearly three times the 1.2 percent rate
that Biden inherited. It is down "65 percent" only because the Biden's administration let it
skyrocket to 9.1 percent before attempting to get it under control. That gas is "below $3.40"
hardly compares well to the national average of $2.11 that prevailed when Biden was elected.
The
Atlantic: You Americans are too dumb to know a good economy when you see it.
Since Biden's inauguration, inflation has hit Americans hard. Of late, it's slowed slightly,
and some prices are dropping (who needs a Strategic Petroleum Reserve, anyway?), but Americans know
who's at fault: Biden. Fear not, though, Joe. The Atlantic has ridden to the
rescue to say it's not Joe's fault. Instead, Americans just don't get how good they have it.
Biden
brags that egg prices are down 22% after tripling in price since he took office.
According to the White House, history had not begun when the president was born 81 years ago.
It didn't even begin when Joe Biden became president nearly three years ago. Instead, the
executive branch would like you to believe that history and price levels began only one year
ago. [Tweet] There's a reason just 2% of voters polled by the New York Times
said that the economy under "Bidenomics" is excellent: they weren't born yesterday.
We're currently in year three of the worst inflationary crisis of the past 40, and tone-deaf posts
like this one from the White House feel like an insult to the common sense of the public.
Airline tickets may be 13% lower than they were a year ago, but they're 21% higher than they were
when Biden took office. Rental car rates are down 9.6% from a year ago, but they're up 55%
since Biden took office. Egg prices may be down 22% from a year ago, but they're up 40% since
Biden took office. Milk prices may be down 1.6% from last year, but they're up 11% since
Biden took office. Bacon prices may be down 5.1% from last year, but they're up 24% since
Biden took office.
Inflation
is down unless you buy food to eat. We keep hearing that inflation is down, lower
than a year ago or in the right direction or some other explanation like that. It's about
what you'd hear from a White House managing a bad message. And then mom goes to the grocery
store and comes home shaking her head and looking at the bill. This is when inflation goes
from being a news story to a family conversation.
Treasury
just dropped a financial bomb, but Bidenomics means the worst is yet to come. With
all the chaos and heartbreaking loss of life around the world today, few noticed the Treasury
Department drop a financial bomb: The deficit for fiscal year 2023 was $1.7 trillion, growing
23 percent in a single year as the Treasury used $879 billion just to service the federal
debt. But "Bidenomics" means the worst is yet to come, and multi-trillion-dollar deficits are
the new normal. The impetus for these massive deficits is federal government spending, which
tipped the scales at $6.1 trillion last year. Government receipts, meanwhile, were
$4.4 trillion, woefully short of the $5 trillion previously forecasted. A slowing economy
and counterproductive tax increases were key drivers behind the $457 billion drop in receipts from the
prior fiscal year.
Yellen:
Rising Cost of Debt Is Due to Strong Economy, Not Large Deficit. During an interview
with Bloomberg on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stated that the rise in Treasury yields
that increases the cost of the U.S. government borrowing money isn't largely connected to the
deficit, but is largely "a reflection of the resilience that people are seeing in the U.S. economy
that we're not having a recession, that consumer spending and demand continue to be strong, the
economy is continuing to show tremendous robustness."
How
Did Biden Manage To Lose $300 Billion? Friday afternoon, the Treasury Department
reported that, despite a growing economy and low unemployment, the federal deficit shot up by $320 billion
in fiscal year 2023. That's unusual. But what's really bizarre is why the deficit
exploded. According to the report, overall spending actually dropped by 2%
compared with 2022 as the COVID-19 spending splurge abated. What drove up the deficit this
year was a sudden and completely unexpected 9% drop in tax revenues. Not only did
revenues come up hundreds of billions lower than last year, but they were well below what everybody
expected them to be. At the start of the year, the Treasury Department and the Office of
Management and Budget projected revenues for fiscal 2023 at around $4.7 trillion. The
Congressional Budget Office figured it would be $4.8 trillion. The actual amount:
$4.4 trillion. In other words, there's between $300 billion and $400 billion
worth of missing tax revenues.
Proposition
HH Bait and Switch — Colorado Style. TABOR, or the "Taxpayer's Bill of
Rights", approved in 1992, is a check on profligate state government spending, limiting how much
Colorado can retain and spend, tied to inflation and population growth, common sense limits on
spending. Excess funds are returned to taxpayers each year. Now for the switch.
Passing Prop HH would take the TABOR refund Colorado taxpayers would receive and use a portion to
reduce property taxes. That would be like the IRS taking your refund and using it to pay for
a new tax increase. You are still paying for the tax increase using your own money, just
taking it from a different pocket.
The
Nobel Foundation Should Ask Paul Krugman For Its Award Back. 'The war on inflation
is over," wrote Paul (Nobel Prize-Winning-Economist) Krugman last week in a post on X. "We
won, at very little cost." The only thing missing was a giant "Mission Accomplished"
banner. But like the unfinished Iraq war that George W. Bush bragged about from the deck of
the USS Abraham Lincoln, the inflation battle is far from over. Krugman's reputation as an
economist, on the other hand, should be put in a body bag and shipped to Sweden, along with his
Nobel Prize money. Krugman was mocked for his claim about inflation, and for good
reason. To show how we'd allegedly won the war, he had to strip out food, energy, shelter,
and used cars. In other words — most of the stuff that people spend money on
day to day.
I
Am All for Calling Joe's Policies 'Bidenomics'. We're assured that the numbers don't
lie, even if the propagandists do. We should forget our concerns, as everything is going
swimmingly. We just don't recognize it because we don't have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's
degree in economics. Inflation is down. It's only twice what the Federal Reserve thinks
it should be for a healthy economy. More jobs have been created by Bidenomics than by any
other administration in history. In September, 336,000 jobs were created. Of course,
22 percent of those new employees are "public servants" living on our taxes. The remainer
are people who've been allowed to go back to work after the pandemic lockdowns — at
least until the next election. After a little tampering with the energy and manufacturing
sectors, wages are up, and global warming is down. Or is it that climate change has changed
back? I forget. I guess it depends on whether it's snowing or sweltering today.
Clinton's
labor secretary is the bad penny that always turns up. Robert Reich, who once held
the Secretary of Labor position under Bill Clinton, [...] conveniently fails to mention that the
basic reason the workers are asking for huge wage increases and renegotiations is because Biden's
energy and other policies have greatly increased inflation and wage growth hasn't kept up.
For examples, the UAW wants a huge raise (40% over four years which amounts to 46% compounded), pay
for 40-hour workweeks despite only putting in 32 hours of work, cost-of-living increases, and
"beefed-up" retirement benefits — that will be great for reducing productivity and
increasing inflation. If Reich and other Democrats really cared about real wages and workers,
they would have supported Trump's policies of lower taxes, fewer regulations, and energy
independence — real wages for everyone, including union workers, were rising rapidly
because inflation was low. But Democrats didn't support those policies. They
sought to disrupt and destroy Trump every day.
Our
Establishment's Alternate Realities. One common denominator that explains why
previously successful societies implode is their descent into fantasies. A collective denial
prevents even discussion of existential threats and their solutions. [...] Biden apparently has
reversed course and begun using the former pejorative "Bidenomics" as a term of pride. He now
praises this three-year effort to borrow $6-7 trillion, and spike interest rates threefold to 7% on
home mortgages — even as prices on essentials like food and fuel have spiked 25-30%
since he entered office. The more that Biden brags about what he did to the economy, the more
people poll — over 60% — dissatisfaction with his alternate reality of "Bidenomics."
Kevin
McCarthy and the Political Culture. There are at least two narratives that Republican
and Democrat elite spin in a way that inflicts massive harm upon the public: 1) national debt and
2) illegal immigration. In the pathological storytelling of our intellectual culture, the
national debt is simply a timeless unfortunate burden of being a global superpower and fulfilling
obvious moral duties such as child care, feeding the hungry, and medical care. In reality,
the United States ran a surplus as recently as 1999 and 2000. In 2007, the deficit was a mere
$160 billion compared to $2 trillion today. Moreover, taxpayers will provide roughly five
trillion dollars in annual revenue to meet the wide array of national needs. This is 25% larger than
the entire expense structure of the Chinese Communist government serving more than one billion
people. Especially important in the reality check is the massive growth in revenue the USFG
has experienced in the past 30 years. The federal government is definitely overspending and
the debt and deficit are caused by reckless spending and not by economic cycles, tax cuts, COVID,
unexpected emergencies, or a myriad of excuses.
Please
Stop Telling Us Everything Is Fine With the Economy. Two weeks ago, Nobel
Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman told CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour there is a peculiar
disconnect between how the economy is doing and how the public is feeling about it. [...] People
think the economy is bad because they are paying, at least here in western Pennsylvania, $3.99 a
gallon for gas, and in places such as Arizona, where the state now ranks seventh among the nation's
highest-paying markets at $4.69; last week alone it climbed 14 cents a gallon. In Nevada, it
jumped a whopping 33 cents a gallon, with California coming in at a 29-cents-a-gallon jump.
When gas prices rise, food prices rise.
As
Stagflation Fears Mount, Dems Urge Biden To Stop Bragging About 'Bidenomics'. In the
three months since President Joe Biden decided to campaign on the glories of "Bidenomics,"
inflation started creeping back up, the unemployment rate rose, and his approval ratings on the
economy have steadily dropped. Now, stagflation is back in the news. All of it is
leading Democrats to urge Biden to shift his messaging. Stagflation — the
combination of rising inflation, high unemployment, and a stagnant economy not seen since the
disastrous Jimmy Carter years — is suddenly in the headlines. On Friday, for
example, CNBC ran a story: "Stagflation is 'the big bogeyman out there' — and many
increasingly fear its return." The story pointed out that with oil prices climbing "the
specter of higher-for-longer inflation have reignited concern about stagflation risks."
The Editor says...
Joe Biden reads whatever comes up on the teleprompter, to the best of his limited ability. If
you want him to change his message, you have to tell somebody other than Joe Biden.
How
Government Spending Causes Inflation. The federal government, under both parties, has
printed trillions of dollars to fund its "stimulus" packages and other projects. This
spending greatly increased during the COVID era. Basic economics teaches that the government
printing press is not only the cause, but the very definition of inflation. Over the past
30+ months, prices of all consumer goods have risen dramatically. Real estate has achieved
similar highs. Prices have appeared to stabilize only after action by the Federal Reserve
system to restrict the money supply. The supply of money has been the key both to inflation
and to its temporary taming. Of course, raising interest rates is not the real solution.
Only the end of government printing would stop inflation. Government and its media operatives
have, as usual, attempted to confuse the issue.
Joe
Biden Makes a Series of Insane Claims in a Speech, and No One Is Buying Them.
[Scroll down] Biden bragging about reducing the deficit is like a gambling addict losing
their house and bragging that they don't have to pay the mortgage anymore. The United States
government is currently on pace to have an over $2 trillion deficit for the current year, and it'd
be even higher if Republicans hadn't forced some barely-there spending freezes during the last
spending battle. Have deficits technically fallen from their peak during the Biden
administration? Yes, but that's because the president ran up the deficit in 2021 to
eye-watering levels with an infrastructure bill and the American Rescue Act, both of which have
been complete boondoggles. There was a time in the not-to-distant past when a $1 trillion
deficit was a historic high. For Biden to try to take credit for "lowering" the deficit to
$2 trillion is crazy.
'Emergency'
Spending. Did you survive the budget cuts from the last debt ceiling fight?
President Joe Biden called them "draconian," while Republicans praised the deal's "historic
reductions in spending." But both parties conned us, as my new video explains. What they
call "cuts" were just a reduction in their planned spending increase. Instead of
raising spending by 7.8%, they increased it by "only" 3.9%. Only politicians get to call an
increase a cut. Biden praised the deal, saying, "We're cutting spending and bringing the
deficits down at the same time!" But they didn't. Now they're using tricks to spend
even more. "Call it an emergency — done," says Cato Institute budget specialist
Romina Boccia. "Spend the money on whatever you want." Boccia reports how the Senate is
moving to increase spending beyond the agreed-upon caps simply by calling it "emergency" spending.
"They gave $296 million to NASA for 'emergency infrastructure.'"
To Market,
to Market. Among the factors weighing heavily on public disaffection with Democratic
governance is the downturn occasioned by their policies, which hamper production, raise prices, and
allow widespread retail theft. Robert Barnes has done the math: "Under #Trump, real median
family household incomes rose 15% in just 3 years, the highest rate since after World War 2. Under
#Biden, real median family household incomes fell 5% in just 3 years, the fastest rate of decline
since the Great Depression." To be sure, the bien pensant big thinkers don't see this as a
problem. The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman offers up a defense —
essentially, voters shouldn't believe their lying eyes. "The economic data have been just
surreally good. Even optimists are just stunned," says Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.
Why is
America so broke? The public is constantly told that when Congress passes new
spending programs, they will be paid for... yet the U.S. is over $32 trillion in debt, not
counting unfunded liabilities like Social Security, Medicare, and federal employee benefits.
When Democrats passed Obamacare, they said it would substantially lower premiums and it would
reduce the deficit; instead, premiums skyrocketed, so the subsidies and other costs had to
skyrocket. One way Democrats pretended that they would be able to pay for Obamacare without
the taxpayer feeling it was that they said the government would make money if they took over
student loans. They lied.
How we stopped
inflation without a recession (hint: by not stopping inflation). The inflation crisis
is over. Or is it? This morning a reader sent along an interesting analysis of
Thursday's supposedly positive inflation report showing that prices in July rose 3.2 percent
annually - and an even more interesting chart. First a little background. That
3.2 percent number is "headline" or overall inflation. That headline annual figure peaked at
9.1 percent in June 2022 and has since fallen sharply. Thus the growing consensus that inflation
is back in check. But the "core" inflation rate tells a less optimistic story than the
headline number. Unlike overall inflation, the core inflation rate excludes changes in food
and energy prices, which can move quickly. It is less volatile than the overall inflation rate.
Bidenomics:
Food prices went up 4.9% in July. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released new data on
Thursday. It shows that the price of food went up 4.9% in July. Call it Bidenomics or
Bidenflation. Neither one is good. Team Biden is desperately trying to convince
Americans that Bidenomics is working. Joe Biden and Democrats blew up the U.S. economy by
spending us into oblivion. Inflation rose to historic levels, interest rates exploded, the
supply chain was very slow to make a comeback, energy prices rose, and the price of food packed a
wallop on family budgets. A majority of Americans think the country is going in the wrong
direction. The Consumer Price Index shows inflation ticked up over the last year and remains
more than double what it was when Biden took office. Think of that when Biden brags that
inflation is coming down. His administration's policies blew up the inflation rate and now he
wants credit for bringing it down a bit. When Biden spoke about the report on Thursday
morning, he cherry picked information and didn't mention the uptick in the annual inflation
rate. He simply said the report "shows that our economy remains strong." Thanks, Joe.
Welcome
To Biden's Grand Illusion Of Prosperity. "You know, if you let me write $200 billion
worth of hot checks every year, I could give you an illusion of prosperity, too." That was
then-Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen back in 1988 arguing that the Reagan boom was a myth
because it was bought and paid for with deficit spending, then running about $200 billion a
year. What would Bentsen say today about an economy that — instead of blasting
ahead at more than 4% a year at it was in 1988 — is barely eking out gains and appears
headed to a downturn[,] despite the fact that President Joe Biden is writing $200 billion in hot
checks every two months. We know what Biden and his legions of sycophants in the
"independent" media would say. The economy is doing great thanks to "Bidenomics."
10
Signs That The Mainstream Media Is Not Telling You The Truth About The Economy. [#1]
When the economy is doing well, there is a tremendous demand for trucking. But when the
economy is tanking, trucking companies often get into serious trouble. So it is a very bad
sign that "one of the country's oldest and largest trucking businesses" is literally on the brink
of collapse. [...] [#6] Electric vehicles were supposed to be the wave of the future, but Ford is
going to lose 4.5 billion dollars on electric vehicles this year alone. [...] [#10] According to
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of announced job cuts in the United States during the
first half of this year was 244 percent higher than the number of announced job cuts during the
first half of last year.
4
Images Reveal How Congress Is Committing an $11 Billion Fraud on American Public.
Perhaps the single biggest legislative fight this year has been over federal spending.
There's a good reason for that: The national debt is now an eye-popping $32.5 trillion (roughly
$250,000 per household), and out-of-control deficit spending is one of the main reasons why families
are struggling with inflation. In May, Congress passed a bipartisan deal to raise the debt
ceiling in exchange for reforms that would supposedly reduce spending levels. Some parts of
the deal were good, but as we learn more about the details of the package, it looks more and more
like a raw deal for current and future taxpayers. Rather than simply living with lower
spending levels, Congress is going to extreme lengths to hide spending within the limits.
What
Exactly Is 'Bidenomics,' and Is the President Actually Serious About Running On It?
Biden wants to take credit for an improving economy — an economy he wrecked in the first
place. He wants to claim authorship of a drop in inflation — inflation caused by
his massively irresponsible $5 trillion in federal spending. And as Fox News points out, only
the rate of inflation has fallen. Actual prices will probably never come down. Biden
did nothing to bring inflation down. It was the Federal Reserve jacking up interest rates
that has begun to cool off the overheated Biden economy. Biden also is taking credit for a
$1.7 trillion reduction in the federal deficit — a claim that the Washington Post
calls "highly misleading." The president is also proud of "creating" 13 million new
jobs — despite almost all of them being jobs lost during the totally unnecessary
shutdown of the economy.
Still
More Evidence That Bidenomics Is 'Working'. Thirteen days after President Joe Biden
told the nation that "Bidenomics is working," the Congressional Budget Office released a report
showing just how well it's working — bankrupting the country far faster than anyone
expected. The report looks at spending and revenues for the first nine months of this fiscal
year, which started in October. What it reveals is remarkable, both because it shows how
reckless the Biden administration has been with spending and how it's sapped the economy of
strength. The topline number is that the federal deficit so far this fiscal year has already
topped $1.4 trillion, which is $875 billion higher than the same months last year and bigger than
the deficit for all of fiscal year 2022. The CBO finds that overall spending this year is
running 10% higher than last year. At the same time, revenues are down 11% compared with last
year, which defies claims by the administration that the economy is strong.
Tech
Companies Have Laid Off More Than 219,000 Workers In 2023. If you want to believe
that propaganda that is coming from the Biden administration, you probably won't want to read this
article. Joe Biden insists that "Bidenomics" is working and that a wonderful new era of peace
and prosperity is just around the corner. Meanwhile, inflation is out of control,
homelessness is rising to very frightening levels, the commercial real estate market is imploding,
and large companies are conducting mass layoffs all over America. In fact, tech companies
have already laid off more workers in 2023 than they did all of last year[.]
Bidenflation
At 16.0% Highlights Bidenomics Failure. Bidenomics is a complete and utter failure
that has led to stagflation in the United States. No amount of sugarcoating can hide the
truth. Americans are struggling with high prices. You need $1,000 in earnings today to
buy what $862 could buy when Biden took office. Alternatively, if you needed $50K yearly for
household expenses before Biden took office, you now need $58K. The Consumer Price Index
(CPI) released by the government last Wednesday showed a 3.0% year-over-year increase in prices
from June 2022 to June 2023, declining from a rate of 4.0% in May, 4.9% in April, 5.0% in March,
and 6.0% in February.
Biden
is fact-checked by Twitter for wrongly boasting that real wages are higher than before the pandemic
because of 'Bidenomics'. As team Biden looks to capitalize on improving economic
figures and leans into 'Bidenomics', Elon Musk's Twitter added a fact-check note to the president's
Sunday tweet about improving real wages. It accused President Joe Biden of making a 'factual
error' with his claim that real wages were now higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic. Data
flagged by Twitter users showed that real wages — adjusted for inflation —
were higher at the end of March 2020 than now.
'Bidenomics'
in layman's terms is foreign corruption and government control. The media and other
Democrats disparage trickle-down economics, but apparently they're big believers in what they're
calling "Bidenomics." [...] Democrat policies are striving towards socialism while not calling it
socialism, because socialism has never worked, and socialist ideations like the Soviet gulags
aren't exactly popular with mature Americans. Essentially, Biden and the rest of the reigning
Democrats consider the best economic plan to be one where they confiscate as much as they can for
the government, keep a lot for themselves and a massive number of bureaucrats, maybe sell some
state secrets, and then trickle out the remainder to special interest groups, like green fanatics
and others, in order to buy votes. They pretend that all the handouts, to keep more people
dependent on the government, are free.
If
Biden's Economic Plan Is 'Working,' Why Are Tax Revenues Plunging? President Joe
Biden loves to brag about the masterful job he's doing managing the nation's economy, as he did on
Tuesday when cheering the latest inflation news — which saw food prices up almost 7%
from last year — and "our historic economic progress." The day before that, the
Treasury Department released its monthly financial statement, which shows that the federal deficit
for this fiscal year has already topped $1 trillion and that's a big factor behind this is a sharp
reduction in federal tax revenues from last year. Wait, you say. If the economy is
"strong" and "historic" as Biden claims, why are revenues cratering and deficits exploding?
White
House Brags About Chart Showing Inflation Skyrocketed After Biden Took Office. The
White House was dragged on Tuesday for tweeting a chart that showed inflation is lower than it was
last summer — even though the chart also showed that inflation had skyrocketed after
President Joe Biden was sworn in. In the post, the White House celebrated inflation reaching
4%, the lowest rate since March 2021, claiming the lower rate "is giving families real breathing
room." The chart may have not been the clear victory sign the Biden administration was going
for, though, as it showed the massive increase in inflation from January 2021 to May 2022 when it
reached 9% under the current president's watch.
Radio
Free America. [Scroll down] Progressives and Democrats refuse to connect
wasteful and extravagant government spending with inflation, but that's the driving cause.
There is no free lunch, but the left would have you believe otherwise. Devastating inflation
leaves many struggling to put away something for retirement or a rainy day. Starkly higher
interest costs hit regular Americans hard each month. Americans carry a huge debt burden,
much of which is not at fixed interest rates. These rates have increased precipitously, and
Americans borrow money to maintain their lifestyles in this economic quicksand.
'Debt
default' and 'government spending' are misdirection. When the Federal Reserve started
printing dollars (called quantitative easing or Q.E.) in 2008, they used that $8 trillion of
new money to expand federal spending and thereby put every working citizen into debt. After
all, we have to pay for federal spending through our taxes. Did they not know that this debt
would eventually have to be repaid? Or did they just not care? After all, these
politicians and bureaucrats put us into debt and, until now, don't pay the price for their
malfeasance. After the windfall, our government officials proceeded to spend all the money
they borrowed (through issuance of Treasury Bonds) on government programs like entitlements and
welfare — basically paying some people not to work, using our personal debt obligation
(Treasury Bonds) to get re-elected. Consider the moral implications in every aspect of this
theft. Every tax-paying citizen is burdened with massive debt that he did not want.
Then politicians and bureaucrats get to spend your money to pay other people not to
work. In this scheme, politicians tax and take to get re-elected.
The
True Threat of Debt Default. Our elected politicians have the country on an extended
glide path to sovereign debt default. Growing our economy at a faster rate than government
accrues debt, making our debt relatively smaller, seems problematic. Government growth,
consuming resources, is out of control. Regulatory overreach is unprecedented. Tax cuts
are anathema to the Uniparty. Costs of electricity are rising with ruinous energy policies
transitioning from affordable, reliable fossil fuels onto unreliable, destabilizing wind and
solar. The window is closing rapidly to balance the budget. At some point, the
nondiscretionary spending of the Ponzi scheme called Social Security, the military, and debt
interest payments lead to exorbitant deficits that even the Uniparty can recognize. About one
decade is left to balance the budget by eliminating discretionary programs, after which Social
Security deficits must be funded through general budgets.
Our
Fake Spending Debates. This week, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and
President Joe Biden cut a deal to raise the debt limit. The breakthrough came after three
months of Biden pledging not to even negotiate over the debt limit. Instead, Biden was forced
to concede to a 1% cap on increases for non-military spending, a cutback on IRS funding, a clawback
of some unspent COVID-19 allocations, and addition of work requirements for some federal aid.
Government
by slush fund. The U.S. General Fund, also called the Treasury General Account (TGA),
pays the expenses and expenditures of all federal entities. The payments are cash transfers
made by the New York Fed at the direction of the Bureau of the Fiscal Service in the Department of
Treasury. In 2020 (according to he U.S. Fiscal Calendar), the TGA reported paying out
twenty-one Trillion eight-hundred-billion dollars, which is greater than the Gross Domestic Product
for the year, and more than three times the total assets of the Federal Reserve at the end of this
period. Total government outlays were reported as six-trillion six-hundred-billion dollars, a
fraction of the above, and of which, shockingly, almost half was deficit spending. On its
face, the inferiority of government spending to TGA payments is not unexpected, as the major
activity of the TGA results from the borrowing and partial repayment of debt. The Fiscal
Service in the Treasury is required to publish an annual report on the financial condition of the
General Fund audited by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). This audit has failed
repeatedly. When the outcome of an audit is a disclaimer of opinion by the accountants, that
means that the account presented has failed its audit.
The
Fed Is Broke And It's Cooking The Books. Behind closed doors, the report is already
making the rounds in expert circles: if you follow the rules of sound commercial accounting, the
United States Federal Reserve (Fed) has lost its equity and is, as common language would have it,
bankrupt. What happened? [...] The Fed currently holds around $8.5 trillion in debt
securities on its balance sheet. A price drop of just, let's say, 5 percent on this debt
portfolio would result in an accounting loss (an "unrealized loss") of $425 billion, reducing the
Fed's equity capital by the same amount. (It should be noted here that if the Fed held the
securities to maturity and the borrowers repaid them in full, the accounting loss would disappear
by maturity.) Any conventional company would be in dire straits under these circumstances.
(By the way, failing to report a loss would be a punishable offense in many countries.) However,
the Fed, like any other central bank, is not a conventional company. Rather, it has the state
monopoly of money production, which makes it truly special.
Janet
Yellen says the U.S. economy is 'obviously performing exceptionally well'. Inflation
is kicking back up. The dollar is falling. People are pulling money out of even big
banks now and buying gold. The dollar is losing its reserve status. Discouraged workers
are dropping out of the workforce. Layoffs are coming. And recession is "baked in the
cake." [Tweet] But don't tell Janet Yellen, Joe Biden's Treasury secretary. Out on
Planet Biden, the nutty professor is telling us the economy is in good shape.
Biden
Tweets Out Absurd "Fair Share" Tax Claim. Joe Biden's utter lack of economic
knowledge was on full display Saturday and Twitter CEO Elon Musk thoroughly humiliated him in the
process. Biden sent out a tweet claiming that billionaires do not pay their "fair share" in
taxes. To resolve this, he demanded a minimum 25% tax rate on billionaires. [...] Musk
quickly jumped on this nonsense. He pointed out that he paid a combined 53 percent tax on
Tesla stock options at both the state and federal level. He also added that he paid more
taxes than any person on Earth in 2021 and will likely do so again in 2022. Musk back in 2021
paid a whopping $11 billion in taxes[.]
Janet
Yellen [was] Called out for Lying During Hearing Before Senate Finance Committee. Biden
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen faced the gauntlet before the Senate Finance Committee on three
very hot topics: the "not a bailout" bailout (as our sister site Townhall termed it) of a couple of
banks that collapsed, her ignorant approach to inflation, and the Biden failure to address the debt
ceiling and duck negotiation. The questioning of Yellen revealed a window into why the Biden
administration is just so clueless. The people they have in these positions have no idea what
they are doing, from the top with Joe Biden, through Janet Yellen, on down to the flunky Kamala
Harris staffer who didn't know to open the flue on the fireplace in the White House before lighting
it up. Yellen said that no taxpayer money was being used to bail out the two banks. [Tweet]
This
Is Good Inflation News? Not If You Need Food, Heat, Or A Place To Live. OK,
sure, that 6% year-over-year bump is still three times the average inflation for the past three
decades. And sure, it comes on top of the 7.9% jump in prices in February 2022. And,
yes, it means that the Consumer Price Index has now risen 15% in the short time Biden has been in
office. But fear not! Because Biden is on top of the situation, and his "inflation
reduction act" is clearly working. Right? The problem with the focus on the overall
CPI — which measures cost changes in a "basket of goods" — is that people
aren't buying this basket every month. Most are just trying to make ends meet. They're
trying to feed their families. Keep the lights on. Avoid eviction. For these
people — which is most people — inflation hasn't moderated. It is far,
far worse than the overall number suggests.
The
debt and the deficit: Where are we really? Unbelievably, President Biden stated last
month in his State of the Union address that the deficit has decreased. Here's what Biden said:
"In the last two years, my administration has cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion —
the largest deficit reduction in American history." Wow! This is excellent news, that
the federal government is in better shape. But is it? [...] Here's a more accurate restatement
of what President Biden said: "In the last two years, my administration has cut the increase
in the debt by more than $1.7 trillion — the largest reduction in the debt
increase in American history."
Voters are smarter
than Biden thinks. Pick almost any poll over the past decade and you'll find that
voters always cite the economy as their top issue. Depending on the survey, the economy issue
is also often more broadly defined in surveys as "jobs," and, in the past couple of years, as
"inflation." But, however you look at the issue of the economy, we're seeing a subtle change in
how people process the constant flow of economic data that bombards them every day. They are
becoming more educated and more sophisticated on federal fiscal issues and how they impact their
own economic futures. More leery of politicians spouting data points that clash with the
reality of their own personal "economies." Less trusting of economic happy talk, when 60 percent
of them are living paycheck to paycheck as inflation continues to outpace wages.
Inflationary
Gaslighting — Fed Chair Says Interest Rates "likely to be higher than previously
expected". Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivers testimony today before the
Senate Banking and Finance Committee. During his statements Powell says, "The latest economic
data have come in stronger than expected, which suggests that the ultimate level of interest rates
is likely to be higher than previously anticipated." Powell continued, "If the totality of the data
were to indicate that faster tightening is warranted, we would be prepared to increase the pace of
rate hikes." ... "We will continue to make our decisions meeting by meeting." ... "Although
inflation has been moderating in recent months, the process of getting inflation back down to 2%
has a long way to go and is likely to be bumpy." Everything about the testimony to the
Senate, and almost everything within the questioning as presented, ignores the key and central
component that inflation is being driven by energy policy. The scale of the pretending around
this issue is jaw dropping.
Widespread
public distrust in media baffles mainstream pundits. For over two years, the
mainstream media has regurgitated Biden administration talking points about how great leftist
economic policies are, and find themselves "confused" as to why the public just doesn't believe
them. [...] Maybe the people are finding that their take home pay is no longer sufficient to cover
even the most basic standard of living, because of high inflation. Maybe they see that their
savings are depleted, and that their credit card debt is skyrocketing. Maybe they're
realizing that they can't afford to buy a home. While the Biden administration brags about
how well the economy is doing, these stooges also say that college graduates can't afford to pay
off their loans — even after a three-year moratorium.
Your
City Government Is Likely Cooking the Books, Watchdog Group Says. "If you live in one
of America's biggest cities, it's likely your municipal government cooks the books, overestimating
money coming in and undercounting bills. Truth in Accounting (TIA) released its latest
report, "Financial State of the Cities 2023," earlier this month. New York is the worst city,
but Boston and Philadelphia also received failing grades. Many cities mislead taxpayers, TIA
watchdogs say. "What we find is they take their books and they hide the true cost of
government by not putting all their compensation costs in their budgets," said Sheila Weinberg, a
certified public accountant and TIA founder.
The
CBO Exposes Biden's $5.45 Trillion Lie. While spending the country into ruin, President Joe Biden likes to
portray himself as a fiscal conservative who has cut the deficit in half in the past two years. But a new report
from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office shows just how big a lie this is — a 5 1/2 trillion
dollar lie, to be exact. During his State of the Union speech last week, Biden not only claimed that "my
administration has cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion — the largest deficit reduction
in American history," he also claimed that he's a miser compared to Donald Trump. "Under the previous
administration, the American deficit went up four years in a row. ... Nearly 25% of the entire national debt that took
over 200 years to accumulate was added by just one administration alone — the last one," he said.
The Editor says...
This is another indication that Barack H. Obama is conducting his third term in office, with Joe Biden serving
as Obama's puppet. When Obama was president, he routinely blamed every unfortunate circumstance on George W.
Bush for years after Bush was out of the loop. Now Biden/Obama is doing the same thing, blaming Donald Trump.
Don't
Fall For Joe Biden's Economic Fairy Tale. Presidents are often unduly blamed or given credit for economic
events beyond their control. But it is no accident inflation took off as Democrats pumped hundreds of billions
into a hot economy (in the case of the "infrastructure" bill, with the help of Senate Republicans) and aggravated
foreseeable problems with policies that disincentivize work and undercut energy production. All this led to the
biggest inflation spike since 1982. We are still at historic highs. A slew of products that consumers rely on
still remain atypically expensive, and fears of additional price hikes have started to seriously corrode consumer
confidence. Biden lied that "25 percent" of the national federal debt was incurred by the previous
administration when most of that debt was driven by entitlement programs passed, expanded, and revered by
Democrats. And he misled the nation by claiming that his administration had "cut the deficit by more than
$1.7 trillion — the largest deficit reduction in American history," when, in fact, those "cuts" were
sunsetting pandemic emergency spending that Democrats had complained wasn't enough.
Good
luck qualifying for that tax break Joe Biden is touting on that EV he wants you to buy. Just yesterday,
Joe Biden's official Twitter account posted that the great American road trip is going to be fully electrified and that
citizens can receive a tax credit of up to $7,500 for a new electric vehicle (EV). Along with the message was a
photo of Biden driving a GMC Hummer EV. [...] We dig deeper. Does Biden's Hummer EV qualify for the scheme?
The $7,500 credit scheme is applicable to new vans, sport utility vehicles, and pickup trucks that cost $80,000 or
less. The GMC Hummer EV costs between $87,000 and $110,000, hence doesn't qualify for the credits. [...] The
average cost of an EV is roughly $66,000, which means few vehicles qualify for the scheme. Some vehicles listed on
the IRS website as potentially eligible for credit actually fail to qualify because they are expensive. Another
problem is that there isn't an explicit definition regarding which vehicle is subject to that $55,000 cap and which
vehicle is subject to a $80,000 cap. The IRS states the categories are based on the criteria for fuel economy for
gas-powered vehicles standards, but these classifications seem arbitrary and confusing. There were other problems
with the information on the IRS website. The plug-in hybrid Ford Escape was listed as having an $80,000 price cap
for more than a week before the cap was changed to $55,000. The Treasury Department claims the original price cap was
a typo. You would have hoped the content on the website was reviewed before publishing.
McCarthy
blasts Biden, Schumer over omnibus: They're saying 'there's no waste in government spending'? House
Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., tore into his Democratic rivals and Republicans who helped pass the omnibus package,
saying President Biden appears to believe there is not a cent of waste in current government spending. On "Life,
Liberty & Levin," host Mark Levin asked McCarthy whether the Democrats' playbook for fending off conservative
Republicans' calls for budget cuts is to add hundreds of billions of dollars in new debt, then accuse the GOP of trying
to shut down the government when they advocate for clawing back some of the new spending. "That's exactly the
trick," McCarthy said. "But you've got to think about too, who are the senators who wrote it? Two senators
who are no longer here."
Jean-Pierre
Makes It Clear She'll Blame Republicans For Economic Downturn Even Though Biden Is President. When Trump
was President, the Democrats credited *Obama* for economic success and blamed *Trump* for any economic turbulence.
Now that Biden is "President", his White House is doing something very similar. During a press briefing on
Wednesday, Karine Jean-Pierre made it clear that she is going to blame *Republicans* for any future economic downturns,
such as high gas prices and tumbling 401k's, even though Joe Biden is the one in the White House. Yes,
really. "They're [Republicans] threatening to kill millions of jobs and 401k plans by trying to hold the debt
limit hostage," Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday.
"This
Changes Everything". The unveiling of the new Northrup Grumman B-21 "Raider" long-range bomber, with its
stealthy design, app-style updates, and $2 Billion price tag, was pure Hollywood. If you want to watch it, the CEO
begins her spiel at minute 39. B-21 technology is capped at 2010 standards; it flies with F-35 engines. The
planes (two have been built) will fly for the first time this spring — 18 months behind schedule. These
real secrets were not unveiled yesterday, nor was how much the US taxpayer has paid and will pay for these bombers.
No doubt, this would have spoiled the fun. The mantra "This Changes Everything" was repeated several times by
several speakers, indicating the opposite must be true — it changes nothing.
Janet
Yellen Says the Real Reason Inflation is Out of Control is Because Americans Are 'Splurging' on Goods.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday evening blamed Americans for record-high inflation. It isn't Joe
Biden's fault for spending trillions of dollars in the last year-and-a-half. It isn't the Democrats' fault for
passing trillions in spending through the reconciliation (no GOP votes needed). The real reason for inflation is
because Americans 'splurging' on goods. "They were in their homes for a year or more, they wanted to buy grills
and office furniture, they were working from home, they suddenly started splurging on goods, buying technology," Yellen
said on Stephen Colbert's late night show.
Don't
Be Fooled by October's Decrease in the Rate of Inflation. October's Consumer Price Index, the measure of
the national rate of inflation, was at 7.7 percent in October, compared to a reading of 8.2 percent in September.
The report propelled "U.S. stocks forward [at the open] and sent Treasury yields tumbling as Wall Street weighed the
implication of softer prints on Federal Reserve policy." The decline in the rate of inflation was driven by declining
annual prices of "necessities" such as smartphones (-22.9 percent), admission to sporting events (-17.7 percent),
televisions (-16.5 percent), and women's outerwear (-1.4 percent), all items that are discretionary purchases.
Unless you can eat your smartphone, this didn't help you very much as a consumer, as the components of the CPI that
showed the most inflation were "needs," those items that we need to purchase in order to live.
The Editor says...
Any favorable news about the economy that comes out a few weeks before a mid-term election should be received with great
skepticism; for indeed, it is very likely to be negated by a "revision" a few weeks later.
Wait,
This Is The Inflation News Everyone Is Celebrating? The moment the government's inflation number came out
last Thursday, the stock market rocketed upward. President Joe Biden took a victory lap. It was less than
expected! Inflation is cooling off! Sounds wonderful. Except that prices rose in October by almost 8%
year-over-year. That's four times faster than the Federal Reserve Bank's 2% target rate. And it marks
the 20th consecutive month since inflation has been above the Fed's target. It also comes on top of previous
record-level price hikes.
Why
suburban women are flocking to the GOP: As simple as A,B,C. When people complain about taxes, the usual
response is something along the lines of "what, you don't want police and schools?" Of course, as my father-in-law
once said, when they raise taxes they tell you it's for teachers and police, but when they get the money it goes to buy
a fancy leather chair for some guy you never heard of in an office downtown. But if you're going to justify the
whole of government by invoking police and schools, maybe it would be a good idea to ... actually provide police and
schools. And Democrats across the nation went out of their way not to deliver either.
White
House deletes 'flagged' tweet crediting Biden for Social Security pay increase. On Wednesday, the White
House was humiliated once again when it was forced to delete a tweet that had credited "President Biden's leadership"
for the bump in Social Security payments after being flagged by Twitter as being inaccurate. The increase in
Social Security checks is actually due to a 40-year high in inflation, which ironically, Biden is responsible for.
"Seniors are getting the biggest increase in their Social Security checks in 10 years through President Biden's
leadership," the White House fibbed on Twitter Tuesday. The original tweet was flagged on Twitter noting that many readers
were adding "context" to it. The White House did not say why the tweet was deleted but it was definitely noticed.
Biden's
Energy 'Windfall' Tax Is Election Theater For Economic Illiterates. President Joe Biden has accused oil
companies of "war profiteering" and is threatening to impose a windfall tax if they fail to boost domestic
production — and improve the Democrats' fortunes in the 2022 midterms. It is ugly political
theater. Demanding private entities act on behalf of the party or face punishment from the state, as the president
might say, is semi-fascisty behavior. Other than appealing to the anger and frustrations of economic illiterates,
windfall taxes (a tax on allegedly excessive, or unfairly obtained, profits) make zero sense. They neither bring
down the price of energy nor increase supply. All windfall taxes do is disincentivize oil producers —
their business already facing an existential threat from Democrats — from investing in long-term
production. And, as with all corporate taxes and regulations, the cost will be passed to the consumer.
Yellen
claims she sees no signs of recession despite two periods of negative growth and soaring inflation.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made the unbelievable claim on CNN that she sees absolutely no signs of a recession
despite raging inflation, two consecutive periods of negative growth, and a flailing stock market. Spewing
propaganda obviously directed by the Biden administration, Yellen had the nerve to tell Americans on Thursday to not
believe their eyes or their bank accounts and to instead believe what leftists are telling them no matter how outrageous
or ridiculous. Two plus two equals five after all.
Obama
Propaganda. Netflix is paying Barack and Michelle Obama millions of dollars to produce shows for them.
The latest Obama documentary series is "The G Word." "G" for government. As Netflix documentaries go,
this one is remarkably stupid. It's big-government propaganda. Obama begins by claiming that he does his own
income taxes, saying, "It's actually easy." I think he's joking, but it's not clear. "I'm amazing at them,"
Obama continues hours later. "You can be, too, if you use the helpful tools found at IRS.gov." But that's just
silly. It's so complex that millions of us pay to get help. [...] For three hours, Obama and his sidekick say
government should do more. Whatever the problem, their answer is always more government and more money.
Biden
claims inflation 'averaged 2%' — after data shows 8.2% annual jump. President Biden tried to
fudge the numbers Thursday after newly released data revealed that consumer prices jumped by 8.2% year-over-year last
month — with Biden insisting he's made "progress" and that inflation really is on a 2% trajectory.
"Today's report shows some progress in the fight against higher prices, even as we have more work to do," Biden said in
a written statement. "Inflation over the last three months has averaged 2%, at an annualized rate." "A lot
of people are hurting these days. But today's report shows, though, some progress," Biden added during a speech in
Los Angeles. "Overall inflation was 2% over the last three months, that's down from 11% over the prior three
months. That's progress," he insisted.
The recession is well underway, and it's more than "slight."
Biden
says he doesn't think there will be a recession, if so it will be 'very slight'. President Joe Biden said
he doesn't believe there will be a recession in the near future and if there is, he expects it to be a "slight" economic
dip. "Every six months they say this. Every six months, they look down the next six months and say what's going
to happen," Biden said in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN that was aired Tuesday, referring to recent economic
projections by major U.S. banks. "It hadn't happened yet. It hadn't... I don't think there will be a
recession. If it is, it'll be a very slight recession. That is, we'll move down slightly."
The
US Economy Is Still Being Artificially Supported By Trillions In COVID Stimulus. Last week Joe Biden
announced that $1 billion in federal grants would be generated for manufacturing, clean energy, farming, biotech and
other industries in 21 regional partnerships across the US. The money is part of a $1.9 trillion covid relief
package that was instituted way back in March of 2021. That's right, if you thought the covid funds were gone for
good, you were mistaken. While certain elements of the original covid stimulus packages have dried up, there are
still vast sums of fiat dollars being held in the coffers of various federal and state programs. The issue of
covid stimulus remains a key problem for the US economy for multiple reasons[.] First and foremost, it was the covid
stimulus packages that sent our stagflationary crisis into overdrive.
Surprise!
The Economy Is Even Worse Than You Thought. On Thursday, the Commerce Department released revisions to its
estimates of GDP and GDI. The GDP estimates were unchanged but the GDI estimates for the first half of this year were
marked down sharply. First quarter GDI grew at a 0.8 percent annual rate and second quarter GDI growth was a mere
0.1 percent. Many economists look to the average of GDI and GDP as a signal for the health of the economy.
Prior to the revisions, that average appeared to imply that the U.S. economy was growing in the first half of the year,
supporting the claim that the U.S. economy was not in a recession. After the revisions, the average of GDI
indicates the economy shrank 0.3 percent in the second quarter and 0.4 percent in the first.
Inflation,
Shutdowns, and Trending Authoritarianism — Yes, They Are Connected. Inflation has been summed
up as "too much money chasing too few goods." Some contend that the recent uptick in price inflation is the result
of an expansion of the money supply, and they date the start of that expansion back to the Spring of 2020. That's
when the Federal Reserve began pumping trillions of newly-minted Fed dollars into the economy. The Fed's money
printing continued into 2022. Our current inflation, it would then seem, might just be due to "too much money."
If you recall, the reason for the Fed's massive money-printing was the government's response to the coronavirus
pandemic. The trillions in new money were for the government shutdowns of the economy. Keep in mind that it
was the states that shut down the economy, not the federal government. No government can deny people their
ability to make a living without giving them the means to survive. Unlike the federal government, the states don't
have a central bank that can create money. But with the $2.2 trillion Cares Act, Congress rode to the rescue and
accommodated the states with the money to pay for their shutdowns. So, the states shut down their economies,
Congress backstopped the states, and the Fed provided the money.
NBC's
Chuck Todd Laughably Insists More Illegal Aliens Will Solve Inflation. [Scroll down] Abbott and
DeSantis have two primary goals, both of which have worked, masterfully. First, to demonstrate to Democrat city
leaders the serious problem created as the influx of illegals continues to decimate border towns. Second, and most
brilliantly, to illustrate the left's complete hypocrisy when illegals show up on their doorstep. Such was
the case when residents of the upscale liberal enclave of Martha's Vineyard became apoplectic when just 50 illegals
showed up on their island, prompting them to ship out the illegals within less than 48 hours. Sorry,
Chuck — try harder, next time.
Grocery
Shop With Me To Fact-Check Biden's Inflation Up 'Hardly At All' Claim. By now you've no doubt heard about
President Joe Biden's interview with "60 Minutes" in which he declared the pandemic "over" and said unequivocally that,
"yes," the United States will come to Taiwan's defense whenever China attacks. He also made some dubious claims
about inflation. When CBS interviewer Scott Pelley highlighted the abysmal state of the economy and noted that
"people are shocked by their grocery bills," Biden sputtered that the "inflation rate month to month was up just an
inch, hardly at all." [...] It's worth clarifying what Biden is trying to claim here. The inflation rate clocked
in at 8.3 percent in August, after registering at 8.5 percent in July and 9.1 percent in June. When the president
says inflation "hasn't spiked" and has "been basically even," he's talking about these fractional changes —
and he's hoping you don't know what they mean and that his lapdogs in the corporate media won't explain them to
you. But when we're talking about inflation and how it affects prices, the baseline isn't some-odd 8 percent or
whatever the rate happened to be last month. In other words, we don't measure August's inflation as down 0.2
percentage points from July and 0.8 points from June. These monthly figures represent year-over-year changes,
meaning each report describes how prices that month compare to prices at the same time last year — and
they're all up, by a lot.
CBS
Economic Gaslighting Example, Face the Nation Pretends Not to Know Joe Biden Energy Policy Driving Higher
Prices. "Gaslighting" is essentially a term used to describe an abuser continually lying to victim in
order to make the victim misbelieve reality. Economic "gaslighting" is a process of lying about the nature of true
cause in order to continue advancing the abusive policy. Combine the economic gaslighting with the historic
leftist approach of pretending not to know things, and you get this dynamic on CBS Face the Nation today. In this
brief segment describing inflation, we see all the classic strategies deployed by ideological media. First, notice
they blame: (1) the pandemic recovery, (2) consumer demand, (3) Ukraine, and (4) a supply
chain 'muddle'. Not only are these issues ridiculous, but none of them are the cause of supply side inflation.
Blaming "consumer demand," which has transparently collapsed for the last year, is beyond nonsense. Watch, and also
pay attention to the graphics they use to manipulate the audience: [Video clip]
Biden
Enters 'Baghdad Bob' Territory on Inflation and Immigration. We all remember Saddam Hussein's feckless
pitchman, "Baghdad Bob." The country's information minister (real name: Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf) made frequent
television appearances, repeating the mantra that everything was going according to plan. His most memorable
appearance came amidst the rubble of his capital city, where he continued to spew delusional nonsense. We expect
such dissembling from dictatorships, which control the media and extinguish discordant voices. That's what
Vladimir Putin is doing right now, hoping to prevent the Russian public from learning his army was demolished by
Ukrainian's counteroffensives in Kharkiv (in the northeast) and Kherson (in the south). Controlling information
is essential to regime security. In democracies, such deceit is much harder to pull off.
The Bidenomics
Sham Is Collapsing. With red lights flashing nearly everywhere, the economy's prospects look grim.
Soaring inflation, crashing home sales, plunging GDP, falling real incomes. No question, the economy is a
mess. So why is the Biden administration saying things are going better? It's not just this week's
"unexpected" 8.3% inflation jump. Or the scary plunge in stock prices, destroying trillions of dollars in
household wealth in just days. It's that the ruling party, the Democratic Party, seems utterly oblivious to the
damage it's done. This week, President Joe Biden touted the "progress" made by his administration against
inflation, just a day after the report that prices had risen 8.3% overall, and food prices by 11.4%, the fastest since 1979.
Networks
Isolate Biden From Blame for 'Disappointing' Inflation Report. While each took a different approach, the
major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC worked Wednesday [7/14/2022] to isolate President Biden from blame for the
pitiful August inflation report showing it came out to 8.3 percent (when the predicted number was 8.1 percent) with
energy, food, and rent still soaring. Instead, some of them trumpeted Biden's "positive spin" and that he's "not
worried about" it while one ignored Biden completely. ABC's Good Morning America co-host and former Clinton
official George Stephanopoulos opened with a tease warning of "[t]he sharpest one-day stock market loss in two years and
the inflation fallout" following "[t]he disappointing new economic report showing prices still climbing more than expected."
FNC's
John Roberts: Biden's Celebration Of Inflation Reduction Act Was Like An "Economic Potemkin Village".
[Scroll down] "So what you were talking about at the White House yesterday, with this big celebration for the
Inflation Reduction Act, it didn't even escape the view of 'The New York Times,' which wrote in a headline, 'Sobering
Inflation Report Dampens Biden's Claims of Economic Progress. The president is once again trying to accentuate the
positives in the recovery from recession, but stubbornly high prices are complicating the message. The party they
threw yesterday on the South Lawn of the White House, it was almost like an economic Potemkin village," Roberts said.
Inflation
Rises After Joe Biden Signs 'Inflation Reduction Act' and Prepares White House Celebration. The White
House is planning a celebration of President Joe Biden's "Inflation Reduction Act" on Tuesday, even as consumer prices
rose again in August, according to the latest numbers from the federal government. The Bureau of Labor Statistics'
Consumer Price Index released Tuesday morning shows that inflation in August rose one-tenth of a percentage point from
July and up 8.3 percent from the previous year. Grocery prices continue rising fast, as prices rose 0.7 percent
from July and 13.5 percent from the previous year. Restaurant prices are up 0.9 percent from July[.]
White
House claims prices 'essentially flat,' throws 'inflation reduction' party as annual rate hovers at 8.3%.
President Biden threw an "inflation reduction" party Tuesday — even as inflation hit a worse-than-expected
8.3%, the stock market tumbled and stubbornly high prices for food and housing continue to slam American
households. Biden, 79, had classic folk rocker James Taylor kick off the White House South Lawn bash with his 1970
hit "Fire and Rain" — a song reportedly about suicide and heroin addiction — to belatedly
celebrate passage of his Inflation Reduction Act spending bill. But Biden, who hailed the 74-year-old Taylor as "a
voice that heals our soul and unites a nation," failed to mention the market rout sparked by the dismal Labor
Department's Consumer Price Index released earlier Thursday.
We
Have Been Thinking about This All Wrong. For many of us, the path our governmental
leaders have recently taken has been perplexing. Many of the policy decisions that perhaps
sounded good (at least to some) have turned out to be not only clearly deleterious, but often
catastrophic for our country. Without hyperbole, I mean catastrophic for our economy, our
national defense capability, our national sovereignty, the safety and security of citizens, and our
standing among other nations of the world. We hear that inflation is "temporary," that "we
are not in a recession," that the administration "feels our pain" at the gas pump and is making a
historic effort to bring down prices (though we should really focus on the fact that we are in an
exciting "Great Transition"). Even though our money doesn't go nearly as far as it used to,
our economy is in the midst of a "booming recovery." We are told that a massive new spending
bill will somehow reduce inflation — (the "Inflation Reduction Bill"). Even the
government's own CBO stated that it will do almost nothing to reduce inflation. Most
economists say it will make inflation much worse. These statements don't seem to align with
empirical evidence — our everyday experience!
Biden Is
Winning And Lizzo Is Healthy. Contrary to what your bank and credit card statements
might be telling you, did you know that your personal situation is actually in phenomenal shape,
thanks to President Joe Biden's outstanding performance? I know you're paying almost $1.00
per gallon more for gas than you did last year (for most of the summer it's closer to $2.00 more)
and that a loved one may have died from Covid, and also that you're paying more for groceries than
you can ever remember. But you're looking at it all wrong. Your life has gotten
better. And it's because of Biden. This, for all the angry Twitter people, is
called sarcasm. Other than Ukrainian government officials, no one is doing well because of
Biden. We're suffering, especially the middle class.
The
"Lie of the Year" frontrunner. It's a bit early for the "Lie of the Year" awards to come out, particularly
since we're in a midterm election year and there will be many politicians flapping their gums between now and November.
But at least over at The Hill, they've decided that we need to start narrowing the field a bit. [...] With so many choices to
pick from, you might think that they'd have had trouble narrowing this down, but in the end, the choice came down to one
claim. Or more correctly, perhaps we should say one series of claims in a short period of time. And they stemmed
from Biden's recent comments about inflation being at "zero" in July.
Is
Anything Manchin Says About His 'Inflation Reduction Act' True? In a major reversal, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin,
D-W.V., struck a deal with Senator Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to enact a major climate, entitlement, and tax bill. This
legislation has been praised by President Biden, Al Gore, and other proponents of highly progressive policies. Dubbed
the "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022," Senate Democrats voted to pass this bill only 11 days after releasing its 725 pages
of text. House Democrats followed suit five days later. Democrats pushed this bill so rapidly through Congress that
the Congressional Budget Office estimates it won't be able to "provide a complete cost estimate for the legislation" until
more than a week after Congress passed it.
'We
had Zero percent inflation': Biden dazed and confused after July 8.5% inflation rate announced. The Labor
Department released the inflation report Wednesday and while any fair-minded person can tell the economy is far from looking
up, President Joe Biden has well and truly embraced Orwellian dystopian doublethink and, instead of saying "2+2=5," declared
8.5 equals zero. While holding a ceremony Wednesday to sign the PACT Act that, in part, addresses the healthcare needs
of veterans who suffered illness or injury from exposure to burn pits, Biden attempted to draw a win on the consumer price
index (CPI) coming in at 8.5 percent for the month of July. That number was indeed a drop from the year-to-year metric
that marked a 40-year high in June at 9.1 percent, but it was also a far cry from what the president claimed.
Here's
the Truth About What 'Inflation Reduction Act' Would Do. As Senate Democrats achieve their goal of jamming
through the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, reality is becoming clear: The bill will likely increase near-term
inflation, depress household incomes, and produce the long-term deficits that fuel long-term inflation. Using the
Congressional Budget Office's latest scoring, estimates of the most recent changes, and accounting for very expensive
gimmicks, it's likely that the bill will produce deficits. The cumulative deficit would be around $52.5 billion over
the next four years, at least $110 billion through fiscal year 2031, and more beyond. That would mean adding to
near-term and long-term inflationary pressures, in contrast to what proponents such as Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.,
claim. In short, the bill is about as far away from a genuine Inflation Reduction Act as possible. Though it
would be harmful under any circumstances, signing it into law during a period of stagflation would be the worst possible timing.
Dems
Tell the American People "The Inflation Reduction Act" Won't Raise Taxes. Democrats love taxes. The
never-ending promise that they won't raise taxes almost always leads to more taxes. So why should we believe the
Inflation Reduction Act won't lead to a hideous tax burden on the American people? Well, we shouldn't. [...] The
Inflation Reduction Act is going to increase taxes on every American income tax bracket, large, or small, regardless of the
lies told to us by the Biden administration and the arguments from Democrats that regular Americans will not see their taxes
increase under this proposal, according to data from the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). The cap, we were
told, was $400,000.00, but this is not the truth. This legislation is just the Green New Deal and Build Back Better
repackaged into one colossal disaster.
Why
We Lost Trust in the Expert Class. Recently, a group of 55 distinguished pro-administration economists assured
us that President Joe Biden's massive borrowing and new entitlements agenda were not inflationary. In September 2021,
these economists with 14 Nobel prize winners among them declared that Biden's inflationary policies would actually "ease"
inflation. Last month, inflation spiked to an annualized rate of 9.1%. None of these "blue-chip" economists have
offered any apologies for lending their prestige to convince Americans of the absurd: that inflating the money supply,
spiking new government spending, incentivizing labor non-participation, and keeping interest rates artificially low would not
cause inflation.
The
'Inflation Reduction Act' Is A Lie, Pure And Simple. If Democratic lawmakers had to comply with federal
truth-in-advertising laws, they'd all be up on charges for the blatantly false name given to the "Inflation Reduction Act."
President Joe Biden claimed last week that "this bill will, in fact, reduce inflationary pressure on the economy." In fact,
it won't. It was never meant to. The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School examined the bill. Here's
what it concluded. "The impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero."
The Recession That Dare
Not Speak Its Name. Thursday morning [7/28/2022], the Commerce Department admitted what most Americans already
knew — the nation is in the midst of a recession. The economy has contracted for the second consecutive
quarter this year. During the first quarter, gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 1.6 percent, and it shriveled
another 0.9 percent during the quarter that just ended. Thus, the Biden economy now meets the standard benchmark
economists have used for decades to define "recession." Inevitably, the White House, its accomplices in Congress, and
the corporate media are again trying to gaslight the voters. [...] But NBER [National Bureau of Economic Research] can take
as long as 12 months to officially declare a recession. As Gerard Baker writes in the Wall Street Journal, "This is
like being told by a doctor that you are officially sick a year after your funeral." Clearly, Biden and the Democrats
want to avoid the "r" word before the midterms.
Team
Biden's refusal to admit we're in a recession is just another reason Americans don't trust our institutions.
Why don't Americans trust the government and other institutions? Maybe it's because the government and other
institutions aren't trustworthy. There's certainly plenty of evidence for both the lack of trust and the lack of
trustworthiness. And if the trend continues, it bodes poorly for America. The news is bad on the lack of
trust. A recent University of Chicago Institute of Politics poll found that a majority of Americans think that the
government is "corrupt and rigged against people like me." Two-thirds of Republicans and independents felt that way, but
things weren't much better among liberals, 51% of whom agreed. So this isn't the usual sour grapes from the party out
of power — it's a general sentiment.
Defining
Recessions Down: Biden's Pollyanna Act Won't End Well. "For the first time in a decade, our economy is in
recession. It's not official yet — the group that dates recessions doesn't act until after the fact —
but there's little doubt that we're in the midst of a downturn." That was economist Jared Bernstein back in December 2001.
He went on: "The downturn is already taking a toll on those who traditionally bear the brunt of recessions, blue-collar
workers in manufacturing, minorities, and other less-advantaged workers." That year saw only two non-consecutive quarters
of GDP decline. The unemployment rate never got over 5.7%. And when the year was over, GDP had climbed 1%.
But it's still listed on the recession roster. Today Bernstein, who sits on President Joe Biden's Council of Economic
Advisers, is trying to argue that, despite two consecutive quarters of a shrinking economy, we aren't in a recession right now.
The
Democratic Party And How To Avoid A Recession: Why Didn't We Think Of This Before? There is a multitude
of remedies for digging an economy out of a recession or avoiding an economic recession altogether. There tends to be,
however, a common thread amongst each of these methods. Since conditions that drive a recession typically emerge over
long periods of time, it generally takes a comparable amount of time for our government officials and the Federal Reserve to
correct our collective course. [...] But thanks to the Biden Administration there is a new tactic to both avoid sinking into
a recession and digging ourselves out of one once we're in it, and it's one whose efficacy is immediately evident. And
the solution is so simple, it was there all along, and we non-Democrats were all just morons for not recognizing the fix from
the beginning. All we must do to avoid or emerge from a recession is this: Simply change the definition of what
it means to be in a recession. Boom, problem solved!
Republicans
Rip Biden White House for Redefining 'Recession' amid Economic Contraction. Republican officials in the House
and Senate ripped into the Biden administration after it attempted to redefine what constitutes a recession while concerns
mount about a significant decline in economic activity this year. On Thursday, ahead of a potentially negative GDP
report expected later this week — the annualized economic growth rate shrank by 1.6% in the first quarter of this
year and appears to have contracted even more in the second — a White House blog post attempted to redefine the
term "recession."
When
is a Recession not a Recession? When The Financial Media Need to Protect Joe Biden. The Bureau of
Economic Analysis (BEA) is scheduled to deliver their calculation for the second quarter (Apr, May, June) Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) on July 28, next week. [...] As with all other highly political institutions in U.S. government, the BEA is
driven by political ideology. With the Biden administration's Green New Deal energy policy driving the U.S. economy
into the ground; and with the BEA statisticians worshipping at the same governmental altar as all other climate change
ideologues; they will do everything in their power to defend what the people behind Joe Biden are doing. [...] Joe Biden is
an avatar; a political pawn; a cognitively declining guy who has no idea what is happening around him. The people
behind the Biden administration, those in real control of what this is about, have not hidden their goals and aspirations.
Biden's
Latest Goalpost Adjustment. Axios reported that White House economic advisors on Thursday moved the goalposts
on what a recession is. The traditional definition of a recession is two or more quarters of economic shrinkage, but
the Biden administration argues that "by most measures," according to Axios, "the world's largest economy remains comfortably
in expansion mode." That's why the White House "is seeking to preempt heightened recession chatter that would
accompany two quarters of shrinking GDP." By changing the accepted definition.
White
House Press Secretary Claims Current U.S. Status is Best Economy in Our Nation's History. White House Press
Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is, at this point, transparently identified as the least qualified and capable person to hold
that position in modern history. She genuinely is lacking the ability to articulate intelligent responses to any
questions. It is also obvious to those who have followed Biden personnel decisions, that KJP was selected because she
would spout the information given to her by Chief-of-Staff Ron Klain without a moment's hesitation. She is not
intelligent enough to know the talking points are complete nonsense. She spouts the most ridiculous talking points in a
manner that reflects she believes them. That said, her capacity to stumble through nonsense and pretend it is real is
only surpassed by Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg.
The
Mass Psychosis of Liberals. Liberals have mastered the art of wanting to believe in a false reality,
constructing a Bizarro Universe, while at the same time, excusing themselves for committing the very same transgressions
against society and nature that they accuse others of doing. [... For example,] The Rich Don't Pay Their "Fair Share":
This one is especially risible, because it's so easily disproved with just the barest minimum of effort. The top 1% of
earners collect 21% of all the income earned in the country, yet they pay an astonishing 40% of all the income taxes paid in
America. As the most ridiculous of Squad members adorns herself in a designer dress costing several thousand dollars
brandishing the words "Tax the Rich," she doesn't even realize that the rich already pay far more than their fair share, nor
does she make the connection that her congressional salary puts her squarely in the "rich" category she so fervently
disparages.
Inflation: The
Price You Pay for Biden's Delusions. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation had risen at
an annual rate of 8.3 percent in April, the White House and many news outlets made much of the minuscule decrease from the
8.5 percent rate reported for March. President Biden issued a statement, for example, that called the infinitesimal
decline "heartening." CNN ran a story titled, "US inflation slowed last month for the first time since August."
This wasn't terribly comforting, however, considering that the inflation rate has nearly doubled since last April while real
wages declined by 2.6 percent. Nor is it "heartening" to see that Biden is still in denial about the role his
administration's spending has played in igniting inflation.
Jeff
Bezos Ridicules Biden and His 'Disinformation Board'. Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ridiculed His Fraudulency
Joe Biden and his "Disinformation Board" Friday over an absurd tweet about inflation. A little after six p.m.
Friday night [5/13/2022], probably an hour or so after the real Joe Biden had fallen asleep in front of a Murder She
Wrote rerun, I'm assuming it was a White House staffer who used Biden's verified Twitter account to spread this
ridiculous lie: "You want to bring down inflation?" the tweet reads. "Let's make sure the wealthiest corporations
pay their fair share."
Inflation
proves Biden has done everything wrong all at once. Our increasingly ugly inflation problem is a perfect
illustration of the Biden administration's uncanny ability to get everything everywhere wrong all at once. The Biden
administration's first response to any problem is to pretend that it isn't a problem. That's how inflation went from a
minor problem to a major one. Unwilling to take the necessary steps to rein in inflation early — pushing the
Fed to raise interest rates and slowing down the torrent of money going out the Treasury's doors — Biden and
congressional Democrats at first insisted that inflation wasn't a real problem: "Transitory," they called it. And
then when inflation turned out not to be transitory, they thought they could just pin it on the Russians. Jen Psaki
sniffed smugly at the "Putin price hike," as though Americans were too stupid to understand that inflation at home had
started long before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That gambit fizzled, too.
Where
is the Disinformation Governance Board when you need it? Biden's lackeys love to brag about how quickly incomes
are rising, but that is an intensely misleading claim. They advertise a 5.5% raise in income, but that is before it is
subject to the never-ending litany of taxes. When you factor in payroll taxes, federal income taxes, and state income
taxes, it is safe to say you reduce that number by 30% (conservatively speaking). This amounts to a net raise in income of
around 4%, which is less than half the current inflation rate of 8.3% — a significantly understated figure,
especially for lower and middle class individuals and families. Also, this "5.5% increase" is not universal —
for people who rely on fixed incomes like social security, they are essentially a year behind as it takes awhile for an
increase to reflect in their payments. The next component to consider is the rapid rise in the price of utilities,
energy, and food. [...]
CNN
fact checker slams Biden's claim that he reduced federal deficit. CNN's fact checker Daniel Dale pushed back on
President Biden's recent claim that his policies had helped to reduce the federal deficit — revealing that one
expert told him that the Democrat's assertion was "almost bizarro world" in its misrepresentation of the situation.
"Let me remind you again: I reduced the federal deficit," Biden said a speech last Wednesday. "All the talk about
the deficit from my Republican friends, I love it. I've reduced $350 billion in my first year in office." Biden
made the claim while touting his administration's economic track record — despite fierce criticism from Republican
lawmakers who argue his policies have contributed to rampant inflation and led the US economy to the brink of a recession.
Carville:
Americans Don't Understand How Good the Economy Is Right Now. Democratic strategist James Carville said
Thursday on CNN's "OutFront" that the average American does not understand how good [sic] the U.S. economy is doing.
Americans
Aren't Buying Biden's Tale Of Economic Recovery. The latest Gallup poll released Wednesday revealed that only
2% of Americans think economic conditions are "excellent," while 42% think conditions are "poor." More than
three-quarters of Americans feel that the economy is getting worse, according to polling data. Four in five adults rate
the country as "only fair" (38%) or "poor" (42%). Seventy-six percent of respondents believe the economy is getting worse,
with 20% saying it is improving, and only three percent feeling that it's staying the same.
Biden
'Not Concerned about Recession,' Touts 'Enormous Growth' after Economy Shrinks in First Quarter. President
Biden attempted to allay concerns about the performance of the U.S. economy on Thursday after the Commerce Department
announced that the economy shrank over the first quarter of 2022. "I'm not concerned about a recession," Biden told
reporters at a press conference at the White House. "I mean, you're always concerned about a recession, but the GDP,
you know, fell to 1.4 percent," Biden added. "But here's the deal: we also had last quarter consumer spending and
business investment and residential investment increase at significant rates," and "unemployment's the lowest rate since
1970." Biden said that the U.S. was seeing "enormous" economic growth alongside Covid disruptions.
Schumer
Says the "Only Way" to Reduce Inflation Caused by Biden and Democrats is to Raise Taxes on Americans. Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Tuesday said the only way to reduce inflation caused by Joe Biden and the Democrats
is to raise taxes on Americans. Senators Schumer and Manchin discussed a new tax hike and deficit reduction bill as a
way to combat inflation. [...] Speaking to reporters, Schumer said getting rid of Trump's tax cuts is the only way to combat
inflation. "If you want to get rid of inflation, the only way to do it is to undo a lot of the Trump tax cuts and raise
rates," Schumer said. "No Republican is ever going to do that, so the only way to get rid of inflation is through
reconciliation."
How
History Will View the Biden Years. [Scroll down] When Biden took office, the first big economic debate
was over his nearly $2 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package, the so-called American Rescue Plan. Coming on the heels of
multiple Trump COVID-19 stimulus policies, many leading experts in both parties warned that Biden's spending was going too
far. Overstimulating the economy in this way, they argued, would come with the risk of high inflation. [...] The "Putin
Price Hike" is only the latest Biden attempt to deflect responsibility. At first, the White House insisted that
inflation was "transitory." This was, of course, repeated throughout the press. Those who dared dissent were even
fact-checked. Inflation was all about COVID-19, they argued. Then it was all about "supply chain disruptions."
All this would come to an end, and everything will be fine, they told us. This was all before Vladimir Putin even began
his war. Now it's Putin's fault. People often don't have the time to study issues at length, but they can smell
pure political spin from a mile away.
WSJ:
Biden's lying about inflation — and workers know it. Nothing paints Joe Biden and fellow Democrats
so out of touch as their lame rhetoric about inflation being "Putin's price hike." The editorial board of the Wall Street
Journal brings the receipts on the true origins of the inflationary wave, and not just the origins but the impacts felt in
every American household. While the recent global effects have had an impact, rapid inflation began a year
ago — and so did the erosion of American income.
Yes,
It's Biden's Inflation. This week, America received news of yet another shocking inflation report: over the
past 12 months, inflation has skyrocketed 8.5%, outpacing wage gains by 2.9%. That inflation has flooded every area of
American life, from gas (up 48%) to airfare (24%) to furniture (16%) to milk (13%). Inflation is costing the average American
family hundreds of dollars per month — and, as we know, inflation is a highly regressive tax, harming those at the
bottom of the income spectrum the most. For its part, the Biden administration blames Russian President Vladimir
Putin's invasion of Ukraine. White House press secretary and incipient MSNBC employee Jen Psaki announced, "we expect
March CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to Putin's price hike," and blamed gas prices alone for the
spike. That, of course, is ludicrous.
The
Debasement of our Professional and Political Classes. [Scroll down] Do we remember the recent "stellar"
cast of Nobel-Prize winning and near-Nobel laureates who admonished us that Biden's massive deficit spending programs would
never lead to inflation? In circular fashion, Biden solicited and then cited this "blue-chip" group of experts led by
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz warned the hoi polloi not to worry about printing trillions of dollars
at the very moment pent-up demand from the COVID lockdowns was surging, when for millions the government kept issuing checks
that made staying home more lucrative than working, when interest rates were at near zero, and when the national debt was
cresting at $30 trillion. The distinguished economists promised us that if we just followed the Biden lead, then
inflation would actually decrease. Or as they put it, "Because this agenda invests in long-term economic capacity
and will enhance the ability of more Americans to participate productively in the economy, it will ease longer-term
inflationary pressure." [emphasis added].
Don't
Be Fooled by Biden's 'Only Taxing the Rich' Claims. On the campaign trail, then-presidential candidate Joe
Biden claimed dozens of times that the 98% of Americans earning less than $400,000 per year wouldn't pay a penny more in
taxes if he was elected. Apparently, the federal government could spend trillions more on a big government social
agenda at no cost to the average American. To some, that may sound like a great deal. But if 15 months of the
Biden presidency have taught us anything, it's that nothing he promises is free. In 2021, the Biden administration and
Congress spent with reckless abandon, unnecessarily racking up $2.8 trillion of new debt. Although their attempts to
directly raise taxes on working Americans were mostly blocked or stalled, their deficit-fueled spending contributed to an
enormous indirect tax on all Americans in the form of 7.9% annual inflation.
Understanding
the Progressive Mind. Everyone in Washington understands the basic causes of inflation. If you print more
money than you have real assets like gold to back it up, you devalue your currency and make everything cost more. [...] The
Biden reactionaries denied their responsibility for the costly and dangerous inflation their policies have created in the way
they normally cover up their assaults on the public — with two obvious lies. First by claiming that the
inflation was "transitory," and then by blaming it on Vladimir Putin — calling it "Putin's price hike." The
brazen character of these lies and the fact that Biden has kept repeating them in the face of devastating refutations
reflects the fact that the Democrats know full well what they are doing, which is stoking the fires of a volatile inflation
which is causing profound hardship to the very constituencies they pretend to care about — people on the lower
rungs of the economic ladder.
Illegal
immigrant population soars to 11.4 million. The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. soared by more than 1
million last year, reaching 11.4 million as of this January, according to new research released Tuesday that puts new
contours on the border chaos under President Biden. The surge is the largest in two decades and is among the largest
single-year increases in U.S. history, said Steven A. Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, the lead researcher who
wrote the paper. He used Census Bureau numbers to calculate the trajectory of the unauthorized population, figuring
there were about 11.5 million in January 2019, that figure plummeted to 10.2 million by the start of 2021, then soared to
11.4 million at the start of this year.
The Editor says...
In my opinion, the illegal alien population in the U.S. is probably around 30 million, but the news media has been saying "11 million" for at least the
last 20 years,
regardless of how many record-breaking months of illegal entry we've seen.
The
child tax credit is a ruse. Here's what is at the heart of the woke push for a permanent cash child tax
credit — really, a government-provided cash allowance to procreate. It's about creating electoral dependency
and buying votes. If leftists really wanted to help children from low-income families, they would be pushing more for
government-funded daycare to help working parents and expansion of pre-kindergarten programs for the children of working
parents. It's true that the Biden Build Back Better plan provides $100 billion over the next three years for expanded
childcare, but when you actually spread that out and apply it to the eligible 23.6 million children below age five, it's only
about $100 per month — hardly enough to pay for child care.
The Looting of America. "I'm
sick of this stuff!" barked an angry and exasperated President Joe Biden. "The American people think the reason for
inflation is government spending more money! It's simply not true!" Two days later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
doubled down on Biden's claim, attacking those pointing to Democrats' galactic spending as the main inflation culprit and
insisting, incredibly, that "the government spending is doing the exact reverse, reducing the national debt! It
is not inflationary." Pelosi even blamed rapidly rising prices on Vladimir Putin — even though the Russian
dictator invaded Ukraine just weeks ago on Feb. 24, while "Bidenflation" has been ravaging the country since shortly after
Biden took office in January 2021. As usual, whatever America's progressive ruling elites fervently claim is the truth can
reliably be assumed to be precisely the opposite of the truth.
10
Realities of Ukraine. [#6] The Ukraine war did not cause inflation and record gas prices. Both were
already spiking by early February 2022. The cause was the Biden Administration's year-long radical expansion of the money
supply at a time of post-COVID, pent-up consumer demand. It foolishly continued de facto zero-interest rates. Its
generous COVID subsidies for the unemployed discouraged a return to work, while slashing U.S. oil and gas production and
pipelines. Prior to Putin's invasion, Biden was quite publicly blaming greedy corporations, oil companies, COVID, and
former President Donald Trump for the inflation he had birthed in 2021. And he was claiming undeniable high prices were
only temporary or mostly an obsession of the elite.
U.S.
Retail Sales Collapse as Govt and Media Attempt Denial That Economy Is Contracting. When retail sales are
calculated, they are calculated in dollars. Any recorded increase in retail sales that does not exceed the price
increases in those items is factually reflecting a drop in units sold. [...]
• Furniture prices rose
0.8% in Feb, total furniture sales dropped 1.0%
• Electronics and appliances rose around 1.8% in Feb,
sales dropped 0.6%
• Online sales items rose in price around 0.5%, sales dropped 3.7%
What this
reflects is an actual contraction much greater than the dollar drop in sales. In most cases the unit sales dropped at a
rate six times the price difference. If you reverse engineer the math, the average is approximately a 15% reduction in
durable good units purchased. In a very macro perspective, that means the U.S. economy overall has approximately 15%
too much labor in the sectors associated with the categories of goods that people have stopped purchasing. This means
people working in the durable goods sector, production, assembly, transportation, delivery and retail sales staff, are about
to get laid off work, RIF'd and downsized.
Four
Charts Prove Biden Is Lying About Putin And Inflation. As inflation has continued to climb, so have the number
of President Joe Biden's excuses for why he's not to blame. First, it was a "transitory" effect of the economy
rebounding from COVID lockdowns. Then it was the result of supply chain problems because ports didn't operate 24/7.
Then it was due to a lack of competition among beef suppliers. Then it was greed. Now he's settled on Vladimir
Putin. None of it is true. But the White House is so determined to take advantage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine
it invited TikTok "influencers" to propagandize them. The mainstream press had already fallen in line, delivering
stories about why Biden is not at fault. But Biden is to blame. He set off the current inflationary spiral with
the $2 trillion "rescue plan" he and his fellow Democrats jammed through at the start of 2021. They claimed the money
was desperately needed to get the economy back on track (it wasn't) and dismissed warnings from even liberal economists that
dumping all that money (while paying people not to work) at a time when the economy was rapidly rebounding would spark an
inflationary spiral.
Pelosi
claims government spending is 'reducing the national debt' and 'not inflationary'. On Friday, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi addressed a press conference at the House Democratic Issues Conference, telling the audience that President Joe
Biden's Build Back Better agenda will not add to inflation or the nation's debt. The point came in response to a
question regarding executive action. [Video clip]
Biden
blames PUTIN for 7.9% inflation — the highest in 40 years. President Joe Biden raised eyebrows after
blaming soaring US inflation on Vladimir Putin, after the consumer price index hit another 40-year high of 7.9 percent in
February. Although the inflation data released on Thursday does not capture the full impact of Russia's invasion of
Ukraine, which occurred just days before the end of February, Biden in a statement chose to blame 'Putin's price hike.'
'A large contributor to inflation this month was an increase in gas and energy prices as markets reacted to Putin's
aggressive actions,' said Biden.
Even
CNN Isn't Buying Biden's New Lie About Inflation. We had a warning that the coming inflationary number was
going to be bad from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. That's why you knew it was going to be bad — and
she wasn't wrong. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped 7.9 percent for February, year-over-year reaching yet another
40-year-high and a new record for Joe Biden. In a statement released by the White House, first, Biden bragged about his
economy even as it's crushing Americans. Talk about out of touch. But then, just like with the skyrocketing gas
prices, Biden has a new excuse for why there's such a huge increase in the year-over-year inflation — blame that
on Vladimir Putin and the Russian invasion as well.
Kamala
Harris say it is time to make a 'transition' to green energy as she pushes electric cars. Vice President Kamala
Harris and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Monday [3/7/2022] pushed a transition to green energy and electric cars
as Americans face record high prices at the pump. As gas costs soar and more workers are returning to the office as
covid numbers fall, President Joe Biden's administration announced a $3.7 billion boost for public transportation, including
an investment in new fleets of electric buses. 'We are all in the midst of a turning point. We have the
technologies to transition to a zero emission fleet,' Harris said during the announcement. 'We can address the climate
crisis and grow our economy at the same time.'
The Editor says...
[#1] When the government prints and spends money, it does not help the economy to grow. [#2] There is
no climate crisis. [#3] High gas prices are almost entirely Joe Biden's fault, or the fault of the anonymous
committee that makes Joe Biden's decisions.
Former
Obama Treasury official says Biden is dishonest on inflation causes. An Obama-era Treasury Department official
on Thursday accused President Biden of being "dishonest" about the causes of surging inflation that has vexed
consumers. Steven Rattner, who served as counsel to the Treasury secretary, said In a New York Times op-ed that
Mr. Biden's insistence on blaming the supply chain crisis for rising inflation is "both simplistic and misleading."
"Blaming inflation on supply lines is like complaining about your sweater keeping you too warm after you've added several
logs to the fireplace," Mr. Rattner said.
Treasury
Secretary Janet Yellen admits surging 7.5% inflation is 'NOT acceptable'. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has
admitted soaring US inflation is 'not acceptable' — then insisted the American economy would be even worse were it
not for the very spending by the Biden administration that has been blamed for soaring prices. Speaking to AFP, Yellen
said of the rise in cost of living — which hit 7.5 percent last month: 'Inflation is clearly a great
concern to Americans, and it really needs to be addressed. 'Certainly it's not acceptable to stay at current levels.'
Her words were in marked contrast to Joe Biden's, who has repeatedly insisted that surging inflation figures are 'elevated,'
and a temporary phenomenon.
The
bad inflation numbers are even worse than the government says. You couldn't miss the headlines: The
annual percentage increase in inflation clocked in at 7.5%, making it the worst increase in 40 years. For anyone on a
fixed income, living off of savings, or in a low-paying job, this is a disaster. Rich people don't feel it (much) but
ordinary people do. But here's the kicker: Inflation is almost certainly worse than it was 40 and more years
ago. Moreover, because the government is in thrall to Modern Monetary Theory, it's going to get worse, lots worse.
[...] Certainly, inflation has shot up with incredible speed, as happened in 1982, but real inflation is probably even worse
than the accelerated rate suggests. That's because, in 1990, the government changed how it calculated inflation
(something it also did in 1980).
Six
Basic Concepts Liberals Don't Get. [#2] Stimulus spending stimulates only government growth. The economy
is stimulated when people spend money. But before the government can dole out stimulus checks, it has to take the money
from taxpayers. So taking money away from taxpayers and then giving some of it back is somehow supposed to give them
more money to spend? Economic prosperity cannot be spurred by government spending. "Build Back Better" is a lie
just as "Shovel Ready Projects" was before it. Every dollar the government takes from its citizens is one less dollar
being spent to buy a product or hire an employee. Taking money from people who actually produce something, and then
giving less of it back, does not create economic growth. It throttles it. The only thing that actually grows as a
result of government stimulus spending is government itself.
Treasury
Secretary Janet Yellen Falsely Advertises Build Back Better in Memo to Senate. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen
is carrying out a desperate, last-ditch effort to sell the increasingly unpopular Build Back Better Act before the year ends.
Yellen sent a memo to the Senate Dec. 9 titled "Fiscal Responsibility and the Build Back Better Act." She wanted to get
ahead of major reports that delivered a one-two punch to the Democrats' plan to increase taxes and dole it back out to friends
of the party. Despite repeated assertions of the bill being paid for, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released
a report showing that the temporary policies in the bill would increase deficit spending by $3 trillion. On top of
that, inflation is hitting a 40-year high as consumer prices continue to rise because of out-of-control government spending.
As the Biden administration finds itself unable to escape the real economic consequences of its left-wing policies, Yellen in her
memo swings blind with claims that are far removed from reality.
Biden's
Build Back Better Lie Revealed: $5 Tril Isn't 'Zero'. President Joe Biden and other Democrats have smugly
responded "zero" or "nothing" when asked what the massive Build Back Better plan will ultimately cost. Not to be rude,
but this is an outright lie, as a new government analysis clearly shows. "My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero
dollars," Biden tweeted on Sept. 25 from his White House account. "Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes
and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America.
And it adds zero dollars to the national debt." In the ensuing weeks, that lie got repeated by others. That
includes White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who told gullible leftists in the mainstream media that the bill would cost
nothing, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who added the novel twist that the massive bill is "fully paid for."
The
Wall Street Journal Slams Biden And Dems: Build Back Better Price Tag Is 'Lie Of The Year'. President Joe
Biden and his Democratic allies have consistently said that Biden's 'Build Back Better Plan' will add zero dollars to the
deficit. This — of course — is mathematically impossible, but the Democratic party and their pals
in the media have repeated it often enough in hopes it becomes true. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal editorial board
issued a blistering column, explaining why the true cost of the BBB plan is at least $3 trillion over a 10-year span of
time and calling the claim zero dollars the "lie of the year": [...]
Why
won't the White House take inflation seriously? [Scroll down] And for all that the Biden White House now
claims to take the inflation threat seriously, one cannot help but feel the administration basically views the problem as one
of messaging and spin, rather than anything more serious. Consider, for example, the insincere way in which Build Back
Better has been rebranded as an urgently needed inflation-busting measure. The economic picture is radically different
to when Build Back Better was first introduced. And yet we are supposed to believe that the legislation remains the
perfect set of measures for the moment. The White House has officially dropped talk of "transitory" inflation, but they
clearly still think of it as a temporary problem.
CBO
blows the lid off Biden's agenda as Bidenflation shows its teeth. Where is Paul Volcker when you need
him? In the early 1980s, the late Federal Reserve chairman stared down double-digit inflation and made it blink
first. Back [then], Volcker helped President Ronald Reagan wring inflation out of the economy in what proved to be an
extremely traumatic but also necessary process. Volcker's work in constricting the money supply with interest rates
almost unthinkably high — the federal funds rate peaked at 20% — helped pave the way to the economic
expansion of the Reagan era.
The
White House's Desperation on the Economy Devolves Into Complete Absurdity. Objectively, the news on the economy
over the last few weeks has not been encouraging. November's jobs report showed a miss of over 50%. Then yesterday's
inflation numbers dropped like a thermonuclear weapon on the White House's narrative. After a week of colluding with
the media and waging a PR war to try to convince people the economy is actually great, inflation was revealed to be 6.8%, the
highest in 39 years. Naturally, the polling has shown significant disapproval with the situation, whether we are
talking about Joe Biden personally or the right-track/wrong-track numbers. Yet, instead of resetting their messaging,
the White House has instead decided who's really at fault here: You. Yes, according to Jen Psaki, your concerns
over the current economic malaise are not based in reality, but are, in fact, a condition of psychosis due to COVID-19.
Democrats
don't care about inflation, the poor, the middle class, women, or science. They care about raw power.
Democrats continue to lie when they say Trump's tax cuts cost the government trillions and benefited only the rich. The
facts are that the tax cuts benefited everyone, especially those in the lower and middle classes. The government is
also getting a great increase in revenues under the Trump tax cuts. Revenues increased from over $3.3 trillion in
FY2017 to over $4 trillion in 2021. Up over 30% in four years. The tax rate cuts did pay for themselves. In
2018, the top 1% paid 40.1% of taxes even though they earned 20.9% in adjusted gross income. Somehow paying almost
double their share of income in taxes is not enough.
The
Biden-Buttigieg Pitch: It's All Free! Many Americans are concerned about the Democrats' orgy of
spending, fearing particularly that pumping so much extra money into the economy will feed the inflation that has become the
public's greatest economic concern of the moment. So Biden came up with an argument that essentially said no one should
worry because it will all be free. "My Build Back Better agenda costs zero dollars," the president tweeted on Sept. 25.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain said, "The net cost of Build Back Better is zero." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi added, "The dollar
amount, as the president said, is zero." It was all preposterous, of course. Two trillion dollars does not just appear
out of nowhere.
Almost
everything Pelosi is saying about Biden's 'Build Back Better' agenda is wrong. The House voted Friday to
advance President Joe Biden's multitrillion-dollar welfare and climate change spending legislation, the so-called "Build Back
Better" agenda. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi led the charge and made an impassioned speech promoting the
legislation. There's just one problem: Almost every single major factual claim she made about the "Build Back
Better" agenda is false. "Build Back Better is fully paid for. It reduces the deficit and grows the economy,"
Pelosi said on the House floor. This is incorrect on all counts. The "Build Back Better" plan will likely cost
taxpayers up to $4.9 trillion — and no, it isn't "fully paid for" by offsetting tax increases. (Even if it
were, that's an insane amount of money going to wasteful government spending schemes.) The nonpartisan Congressional
Budget Office concluded that the bill would add $367 billion to the deficit over 10 years — or about
$160 billion if one factors in the money possibly raised by the legislation's enhanced IRS tax crackdowns.
Varney:
Build Back Broke Is The 'Most Dishonest Spending Bill In American History'. [Video clip]
Budget
Buster: Social Welfare Bill Will Cost More Than Zero Dollars, No One Surprised. Back in September,
President Biden told reporters, "We talk about price tags. [Build Back Better] is zero price tag on the debt. We're
paying — we're going to pay for everything we spend." Biden followed that statement up with a tweet the
following day that reiterated, "My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars." White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki
echoed the "zero dollars" talking point during a press briefing saying, ""What we're talking about is how much the top-line
investments are, which are all paid for, so therefore it costs zero. No matter what the size or the cost of the
top-line investments are, we have ways to pay for it." Even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi got in on the fun, throwing
common sense and common core to the wind, telling reporters, "It's not about a dollar amount. The dollar amount, as
the president said, is zero. This bill will be paid for."
The
CBO Just Swept the Leg of Joe Biden's 'Build Back Better' Boondoggle. While Nancy Pelosi hopes to pass the
so-called "Build Back Better" bill tonight in the House, some bad news came down the line from the CBO. Previous
commitments were made by some "moderate" Democrats to vote for the bill only if the budget score came back deficit-neutral.
But the preliminary numbers are out, and it looks like the CBO has completely debunked the White House's "it costs zero
dollars" talking point. At first, Democrats were cheering on social media after seeing the following post from the CBO.
[Tweet] That excitement came from a misreading of how the CBO is scoring this bill. Instead of giving one, succinct
number, the CBO is taking it piece by piece. That was set up purposely by Democrats in hopes of muddying the waters.
CBO
Proves the Biden Administration Is Lying on Multiple Fronts. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has
effectively declared that President Joe Biden, Co-President Ron Klain, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi are liars.
Coincidentally avoiding discussion of catastrophes in the Middle East and along our southern border, Biden, Klain, and Pelosi
have long insisted their Build Back Better social welfare boondoggle "costs nothing." [Video clip] Sane
counter-arguments from sentient conservatives, explaining how the bill costs way more than nothing, have proven
correct. "The White House has begun bracing lawmakers for a disappointing estimate from the budget office, which is
likely to find that the cost of the overall package will not be fully paid for with new tax revenue over the coming
decade. Senior administration officials are urging lawmakers to disregard the budget office assessment, saying it is
being overly conservative in its calculations," the New York Times reported Tuesday [11/16/2021]. A formal score is
expected Friday.
6
Ridiculous Budget Gimmicks In House Democrats' 'Build Back Bankrupt' Spending Spree. [#4] Phony Savings from
Repealing Rule That Won't Go Into Effect: The bill generates "savings" by repealing a rule regarding prescription drug
pricing rebates issued in the final days of the Trump administration. CBO and the Medicare actuary concluded that the
rule would raise Medicare spending, meaning that its repeal would save money, at least in theory. (I explained the issue
in detail earlier this summer.) But the rule hasn't gone into effect — and won't ever go into effect, given
process flaws leading up to its issuance and a legal challenge based on those procedural flaws. Moreover, Democrats
have (unofficially) said they don't want the rule to go into effect. But the Biden administration won't withdraw the
rebate rule officially, because Democrats want the phony "savings" that comes from Congress repealing a rule Biden has no
intention of moving ahead with.
Surprise!
Biden's Spending Bills Will Not 'Cost Zero Dollars'. President Joe Biden's administration is facing a daunting
reality check after claiming for months that their spending agenda will "cost zero dollars," with the head of the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO) saying the White House drastically overestimated the revenue the IRS could gain by cracking
down on tax loopholes. Biden and numerous other senior Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill have repeatedly
insisted that their $1.85 trillion social spending package will add nothing to the national debt. They argued the
package included enough pay-fors to offset the spending programs. CBO chief Phillip Swagel brought that claim down on
Monday, however, saying that the tax loophole crackdown in the bill would only garner $120 billion, a far cry from the White
House's projected $400 billion, according to The New York Times.
Joe
Biden's big cookbook for inflation. Joe Biden says we must pass his huge slush-fund social-spending package now
in the works in Congress in order to reduce inflation. Since when does throwing money at anything reduce
inflation? Did Obamacare reduce health care costs? Did all the cash thrown at higher education, such as federal
student loans, reduce college tuition? If they pass free daycare and pre-K education, then as sure as the sun rises,
those prices will skyrocket because the providers will have a captive audience. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen says
inflation will drop magically to 2% next year. We know that earlier this year, she and others said the current
inflation in the system is just transitory. White House chief of staff Ron Klain and others say that since these slush
funds are "paid for," they aren't inflationary. They claim these slush funds are "paid for" by pretending that the new
entitlements will last a few years and then be paid with all the revenues from tax hikes on "the rich" over ten years.
Of course, that's a lie, too.
How
long can MSNBC viewers fall for the lies? [Scroll down] For months MNSBC has been following the Democrat
Party line that inflation was all but non-existent, then it was "transitory," and now while it is real, inflation is not a
problem. After Velshi MSNBC's next program, The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart came on. His first guest was
the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who discussed rising prices. "Part of the
reason that people are talking about inflation is that there are costs rising for American families across the county."
Duh! Her party's solution? Of course it's the expensive Build Back Better bill that includes child care money —
and that will bring down costs for Americans. Wow. Give Jayapal her Nobel Prize for Economics now!
The
White House's Latest Statement on Gas Prices Is So Astonishingly Stupid... In the ongoing saga that has been
the stream of completely delusional propaganda that has been coming out of the Biden White House, nothing has been more
astounding than the spin on our current economic downturn. [...] We've heard everything from arguments that inflation is a
good thing to suggestions that printing additional money doesn't cause inflation. Yes, they want you to believe that
increasing the supply of money, thus decreasing the value of the money already in circulation, is not the literal primary
cause of inflation and certainly hasn't contributed to the highest inflationary rate in nearly 40 years. Mayor Pete
is out there saying that one inflation fix is Biden's Infrastructure Plan, which is just massive Government Spending, likely
requiring the printing of more money, without creating anything or increasing production because the vast majority of
planning and funding for roads and infrastructure comes from state and local sources anyway. The result of printing
money is almost always inflation.
Economically
incomprehensible Biden regime says printing more fake fiat money will reduce inflation. In a shocking (but not
really) display of economic illiteracy, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has stated that the only way to stop runaway
inflation is to print more fake fiat "funny money" currency from the Federal Reserve. Yellen told fake financial news
outlet CNBC that passing the Biden regime's new multi-trillion-dollar "infrastructure" package is the only way to lower
prices at a time when the impact of previous spending bills is already moving the country towards a hyperinflationary
collapse. "What this package will do is lower some of the most important costs, what they pay for health care, for
child care," Yellen stated, "they" referring to the peons below her who are suffering because of she and the regime's
existing monetary policies. "It's anti-inflationary in that sense as well," she added with a straight face.
White
House: Rising Gas Prices Proves Government Should Spend More on Green Energy. The White House on Friday
said that rising gas prices proved that the federal government should spend more on green energy. "The rise in gas
prices over the long term makes an even stronger case for doubling down our investment and our focus on clean energy
options," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during the daily briefing. Psaki acknowledged that the White House
had suspended oil and gas leases on federal lands, but clarified that existing leases were still able to produce. She
blamed market fluctuations driven by OPEC for rising gas prices and repeated that the Biden administration would continue
monitoring any cases of possible price gouging by energy companies.
The Editor says...
The federal government has no money of its own to spend on anything. When someone says the government should spend
more on their pet project, they're playing with someone else's money.
As America Teeters on Fiscal Disaster,
Biden Worries about the Weather. President Biden promised the $1.75 trillion spending package won't "add a
single penny to the deficit" or "raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year." Those are important things to
promise, given mounting inflation and a flatlining economic recovery. But without plans to slash red tape or get
Americans back to work, the only way for Biden to fulfill such promises is with magic. None of the Democrats' proposed
tax increases can provide enough revenue.
Will
Governments Survive the Coming Peasant Revolt? [Scroll down] Budgets grew bigger than tax revenues could
afford, and the system of stealing from the peasants to enrich the lords was threatened. So what did the system do to
preserve power? It de-coupled the dollar from any tangible value in the real world by ending the gold standard.
Now paper dollars were worth more than the value of their paper only if people shared the delusion (or at least accepted
their government's assurances) that paper is as valuable as gold. Without anything tethering the dollar to real-world
assets, the government giddily used the last half-century to print and spend dollars until the value of a dollar today is
worth only two cents compared to 1971. Again, those who own assets have seen their wealth in terms of dollars
artificially rise, while those who work on salary have suffered, as everything has gotten more expensive. Local, state,
and national debts ballooned. The rich benefited enormously. The middle class fell into poverty. And the
fuse of an unavoidable debt bomb triggering a future financial collapse got lit. Everything the government does today
is about lengthening that fuse in order to delay the explosion while preparing for the aftermath once it goes boom.
Democrats
Use Accounting Gimmicks to Conceal Spending in Bloated 'Build Back Better' Bill. President Joe Biden is
twisting arms to get "agreement" this week on hundreds of tax and spending provisions in his multitrillion-dollar social
welfare bill while key Democrats seem to be settling on a plan to keep the price tag down. They want to reduce the
overall size of the spending bill to "only" $1 trillion to $2 trillion (as though those two numbers were even remotely
close), and only fund programs for a short time, assuming that it would be too painful for a future Congress to stop funding
them. There's simply too much in this massive "Build Back Better" bill to digest — free community college,
paid family leave, universal pre-K, bigger child tax credits, climate "incentives," and, of course, major expansions of
government spending on health care, as The Daily Signal has explained in numerous articles.
True
cost of Dems' plans: $7.5 trillion and a lot of gimmicks. After months of criticizing Sens. Joe Manchin
and Kyrsten Sinema for balking at the original $3.5 trillion price tag, congressional Democrats are finally accepting reality
and paring President Biden's social welfare package to between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion over the decade. Does
this mean they are responsibly removing the bill's worst provisions and crafting fiscally sustainable legislation? Of course
not! Instead, welcome to the gimmick Olympics, where progressives are using classic accounting tricks to hide the true cost
of the bill. Instead of producing legislation that truly costs $2 trillion over the decade, lawmakers are crafting as
much as $4 trillion worth of new initiatives, but simply using fake expiration dates to score only a few years of each
proposal. The idea is to create new federal programs, hook the constituencies on new federal benefits, and then assume that
future Congresses and presidents will not dare to allow them to expire. Those assumed extensions will then blow up
the cost far above today's $2 trillion sticker price.
Democrats'
bank-spying proposal is not about wealthy tax cheats — it's about you. This weekend, Binyamin
Appelbaum argued in the New York Times that Republicans, in opposing the Democrats' proposal to monitor bank accounts
with certain minimum transactions, are abetting tax evasion. The IRS, he notes, has recently estimated that nearly half
of all income not reported independently on W-2 or 1099 forms goes unreported. Therefore, give the government access to
your banking habits, or else you're a criminal. In logic, this is known as the "false choice" fallacy, and it is one of
several that he commits in this piece.
61%
Of Americans paid no federal income taxes in 2020? Who's greedy? Incredibly, in 2020, approximately 61% of
Americans paid no federal income taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center. Therefore, approximately 39% of Americans
paid all federal income taxes. They are rewarded for this staggering largess by being told they need to "pay their fair
share." Their "fair share," one might logically surmise, would be around 39% of the federal income taxes paid, not 100%.
The top 20% of income earners pay about 67% of federal taxes. "Progressive," you know. They should be lauded as pillars
of the community, as not only the most productive, but the most charitable folks in society. (Whether they wanted to be or
not.) Instead, they are called "greedy" by the self-same people who receive the benefits of this mass income redistribution.
The gaslighting
of America. When Biden proposes a $3.5-billion "infrastructure bill" that is heavily weighted toward social
engineering and radical "Green New Deal" initiatives, we're told that everything is infrastructure. We're also
told that the massive spending bill will cost "zero dollars" because the new taxes will be assessed only on the
wealthy. Then, to add more consternation to a public getting groggy trying to keep up with twelve-digit numbers, Biden
and his accomplices want another $80 billion for the IRS so its agents can check into every bank account that has transfers
of $600 or more. As if the IRS weren't already a liberty-crushing organization, Biden wants to provide it with more
ammo to use against those who oppose him. Nevertheless, we're told it's going after only tax cheats. Why would
these people need $80 billion more to do what they've always done? Don't ask, lest you get audited for questions they
don't want asked.
Biden Bizarrely
Claims That Government Spending Is Costless. There is only one way to describe the fiscal mindset of those in
the White House and in Congress who are proposing new federal budgetary expenditure and taxing increases in the trillions of
dollars: a fantasy land of financial irrationality. The Biden administration insists on additions to the already
bloated American welfare state that will see an expansion in entitlement programs and increased societal dependency on
government largess not implemented since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs of the 1960s. But to show just how
much Joe Biden's mind seems to operate in some alternate universe, he has recently informed us that the $3.5 trillion of
additional government spending over the next several years will cost "nothing." Why nothing? Because over
$2.1 trillion will be covered by taxing the rich and large corporations.
Even
At Half The Price, Biden's Plan Is A Self-Destructive, Freedom-Destroying Spending Spree. Just when you thought
Democrats couldn't get more arrogant or dishonest, President Joe Biden on Tuesday, visiting the congressional district of one
of the House's less-extreme Democrats, warned that "autocrats" in the world are scrutinizing America for signs of decline on
the geopolitical stage, and we therefore must "invest in ourselves" to prove "that American democracy works."
Translation: spend trillions with a T establishing a new series of cradle-to-grave entitlements that, like our
already-existing entitlements, will in short order become politically impossible ever to repeal. Biden and House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, moreover, look straight into the TV camera and tell the American people that these unprecedented,
astronomical expenditures will cost zero. This, not Donald Trump placing the spotlight on all-too-real election fraud,
is the true "Big Lie." No one using a gift card at the store in the weeks after Christmas is a big enough liar or
financial illiterate to claim that the spending spree he's enjoying costs zero.
Psaki
says $3.5T spending bill costs nothing for people earning less than $400K. White House press secretary Jen
Psaki claimed Monday that President Biden's Build Back Better agenda will cost nothing for Americans who make less than
$400,000. "Let's not dumb this down for the American public here," Psaki said in response to a question from White House
correspondent Peter Doocy about whether the package will cost "zero dollars" as the president claimed last week. [...] When
Doocy pressed for clarification regarding whether the plan costs nothing or if it is free, Psaki added: "The plan costs
nothing for the American people who make less than $400,000. If you think that companies that paid zero in taxes last
year 50 of the top companies should continue to pay zero in taxes, we're happy to have that debate."
Exactly the opposite is true.
Biden
says anyone who doesn't back his multi-trillion infrastructure bills are 'complicit in America's decline'.
President Joe Biden arrived in Michigan Tuesday to hawk his $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and the larger
budget bill at a union hall. The president landed in Lansing and was greeted by Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin,
who is facing a tough re-election fight next year. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Lt. Gov. Garlin
Gilchrist linked up with Biden on-site. Biden visited a branch of the International Union of Operating Engineers in
Howell, Michigan, the county seat of Livingston County, which chose former President Donald Trump over Biden by more than
20 points.
Jen
Psaki Is the Stupidest Person in the World (Or Hopes You Are). Psaki actually represents perfectly her brothers
and sisters on the Left in their belief that businesses are all run by Scrooge McDuck and have secret safes hiding all the
money they took away from poor people. With just the right taxes, the money will come out and the poor people will be
rich again. But [columnist Stephen Green] knows — you know — that's not how any of this works or
has ever worked or ever will work. Running a business is a constant balancing act between ever-changing costs and
incomes. And that a business that can't make a profit doesn't stay in business for long. Price of materials goes
up? Prices go up. Cost of labor increases? Prices increase. Tax hikes? Price hikes. A
business might eat a temporary cost increase for a short while in order to avoid alienating customers, but only for a
short while.
No,
government spending isn't 'zero cost'. This week, President Joe Biden made the incredible statement —
sycophantically repeated by the press — that his $3.5 trillion budget bill, which includes major spending initiatives
on everything from climate change to Medicare, would be "free." Biden tweeted, "My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero
dollars. Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make
a once-in-a-generation investment in working America." This asinine notion immediately rocketed around the political
sphere. White House press secretary Jen Psaki explained, "The reconciliation package will cost zero dollars."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said, "This is a zero-dollar bill because it's all going to be paid for with taxes on the
wealthiest corporations and the wealthiest individuals, which makes it more popular than it even was before." Members of
the media began repeating the line ad nauseum. The reason was obvious: Democrats are trying to cudgel Republicans
into acquiescing.
We Are Governed
by Children. Sometime around mid-day last Friday, as the headwinds blew strongly against the $3.5 trillion
reconciliation boondoggle, the White House and their allies in Congress decided on a new messaging strategy: Just say
it costs nothing. Yes, in the fantasy world our political leaders inhabit, $3.5 trillion "costs zero dollars."
That was the line Joe Biden dropped on September 25th. Worse, the media have run with that idea, arguing into absurdity
that tax cuts that let you keep more of your own income "cost" money but huge, multi-trillion-dollar spending bills are somehow free
because of tax hikes that may or may not produce what is claimed. Of course, what happens when you raise taxes on corporations
while spending gobs of money the government doesn't actually have?
Pompeo
rips Biden over 'zero price tag' claim. Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo ripped President Joe Biden and his
statement suggesting the average person will face a 'zero pricetag' in connection to Biden's original $5 trillion federal
spending proposal. However, that amount moved closer to $6 trillion, but only recently passed the Senate at
$3.5 trillion. A report from May suggested the true number is closer to $6 trillion, but as of now, the Senate
has put forth a bill of $3.5 trillion. It was noted as a win for Biden, despite the criticism and mounting disapproval
he faces. Pompeo posted this video of Joe Biden talking about the cost of the multi-trillion proposal. Biden says
"zero" several times, suggesting that the government will pay for everything it spends.
The Editor says...
The government cannot pay for anything. The government generates no money of its own. It can only print the money
so the rest of us can exchange our labor for goods and services. No government spending program has ever paid for itself.
A thousand such programs operating in parallel certainly won't result in anything except greater national debt.
Sorry,
Joe: Turning US into European-style welfare state won't cost 'zero dollars'. President Joe Biden is prone
to blatant whoppers, but his claims that turning America into a European-style welfare state via the biggest expansion of
federal government in decades will cost nothing are truly in a league of their own. "My Build Back Better Agenda costs
zero dollars," he tweeted last weekend, repeating his Friday line — clearly thinking Americans will believe
anything. Biden's agenda includes $1.2 trillion for infrastructure and $3.5 trillion for social spending, the Green New
Deal and other Democratic priorities. Some items in the plan are real doozies: $3 billion for tree saplings, with
priority for "tree equity"; $5 billion for environmental- and climate-justice block grants; $50 million to grow and diversify
the doula workforce; $25 million for "anti-discrimination and bias training"; $90 billion, in total, for nonprofits and
community groups — whose votes, as Betsy McCaughey notes, Dems hope to buy.
Billions
hidden in $3.5 trillion bill to tilt election scale. The Democrats' $3.5 trillion social-engineering bill
pushed by President Biden and Nancy Pelosi is called Build Back Better. It should be called Building a Political
Scam. Buried in the 2,465 pages are numerous billion-dollar grants to unnamed community organizations for vague
purposes like promoting "community engagement," providing "support and advice," and "creating equitable civic infrastructure."
Translation: Your taxpayer dollars will fund the payrolls of left-wing advocacy groups between elections. In return,
they become the campaign army staffing phone banks, harvesting ballots, and escorting people to the polls on Election Day.
Psaki:
It's 'Unfair And Absurd' That Companies Would Raise Costs For Consumers Due To Higher Taxes. White House Press
Secretary Jen Psaki claimed during Monday's press briefing that it would be "unfair and absurd" for companies to raise costs
on consumers in response to the Biden administration raising the corporate tax rate. [Transcript]
Here's
Why Biden Is so Desperate to Sell the Lie That His Plan Costs 'Zero Dollars'. As we previously reported, Joe
Biden is going all-in with this ridiculous claim, suddenly, that his $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill costs "zero
dollars." [Tweet] He wasn't alone in trying to push this claim. As we pointed out, he had Sen. Cory Booker
(D-NJ) parroting the claim. Now, other Democrats have jumped aboard the narrative train including Rep. Pramila
Jayapal (D-WA), the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. [Tweet] Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA) signed on
board as well. [Tweet] Here's White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki trying to sell the same claim. [Tweet]
Biden
Claims His $3.5 Trillion Spending Package Actually Costs $0. According to [Joe] Biden, or whichever handler
runs his Twitter account, his $3.5 trillion spending package actually costs "zero dollars." "My Build Back Better Agenda
costs zero dollars," Biden claimed in a Twitter posts. How does it cost "zero dollars" you may ask? Because Biden
just plans on robbing you, the American taxpayer, to pay for the package which in turn makes it "zero dollars." Makes
total sense! "My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars," he tweeted. "Instead of wasting money on tax
breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in
working America. And it adds zero dollars to the national debt."
The Editor says...
Nobody is that stupid. This guy is nuts.
Biden
White House's lies [are] a matter of life and death. President Biden has gotten away his entire career with
bending the truth and taking people for fools. Now the habit has infected his entire administration. So many lies
are pumped out these days that it is impossible to keep up. [...] Lie 6: The cost of the Democrats' $3.5 trillion
social welfare bill is "zero" dollars. Biden said this on Friday, when talking about slaying imaginary "trillionaires" with
a mystery-box bill no one has a clue about. "It is a zero price tag on the debt ... It's going to be zero, zero," he
said. The math doesn't need elaborating. $3.5 trillion is not zero.
Don't buy the hype.
Wealthy, big corporations do pay their fair share of taxes. [Scroll down] By contrast, the latest data
from the Congressional Budget Office shows that in 2018, the year after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) lowered taxes for
every income group, the share of income taxes paid by the top 1% of taxpayers reached a near-record high of 41.7%.
The same group paid almost 26% of all federal taxes, twice the share paid by the bottom 60% of Americans combined.
Biden's Budget:
The Road to Serfdom. In President Biden's budget speech Thursday, he referred on eight separate occasions to
"pay their fair share." He just kept repeating it. Some left-wing pollster probably told him that it plays well in
progressive precincts. As you may have guessed, this performance and its content got under my skin. Mr. Biden
is always blaming businesses and wealthy successful individuals. Always blaming them. And it's a lie. It's
a big lie. Just like any left-wing propagandist. Say it enough, and it becomes true. It goes way beyond
cognitive dissonance. It is just a big lie. Let's look at some facts. This is from the Internal Revenue
Service as analyzed by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. First, the United States has the most progressive tax system
in the world. That's according to an OECD study several years ago. Progressive means the upper end pays far more
than the low end. So here are some facts, according to IRS data from 2018, the most recent numbers available.
The top 1% of taxpayers paid $616 billion, which is 40% of all the income taxes paid.
The
true cost of Dems' '$3.5 trillion' plan is actually $5 trillion. We'll probably keep referring to it as a "$3.5 trillion"
bill to avoid confusion, but it's well worth noting that Democrats' "human infrastructure" plan would actually cost far more —
at least $5 trillion. The standard way to "score" costs is to say what they'd be over the first decade. So to reduce
sticker shock, the bill pretends that key new entitlements — in particular, a huge expansion of Medicaid — will expire
after just three years. In reality, at that point Dems will argue that it would be incredibly cruel to not fund "promised" benefits
and suggest some new tax hikes to cover the added costs.
Report:
Democrat Tax Hikes Will Raise Taxes On Middle-Class Americans Despite Biden's Claims. Congressional Democrats'
proposed tax hikes, which are endorsed by the Biden administration, will violate the White House's promises to spare
Americans who make less than $400,000 annually from any tax increases. President Joe Biden and the White House are
framing the Democrat-led tax increases as a "historic middle-class tax cut," but their promises to put the dollar burden on
just the "wealthy and large corporations" are false.
Joe
Biden Breaks Pledge: Raises Taxes on Americans Earnings over $50k. The Democrats' $3.5 trillion
infrastructure bill would break President Joe Biden's pledge not to increase taxes on working-class Americans. The
Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) found that the House Ways and Means Committee's portion of the $3.5 trillion infrastructure
bill would increase taxes on Americans making over $50,000 or more per year in the calendar year 2031, according to a Joint
Committee on Taxation (JCT) report.
Ron
Klain: $3.5T Democrat Agenda 'Adds Nothing to the Debt — Nothing to the Debt'. In the evenly divided
Senate, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia has made it clear, in writing, that he does not support the $3.5-trillion
reconciliation bill, which contains massive new entitlement programs long favored by Democrats. But Ron Klain,
President Biden's chief of staff, told CNN on Sunday [9/5/2021] he believes the package will pass, despite Manchin's "strong
views" on the price tag. "We're going to work together to find a way to put together a package that can pass the House,
that can pass the Senate, that can be put on the president's desk and signed into law," Klain told "State of the Union" with
Dana Bash.
Biden
is breaking his tax increase pledge. President Joe Biden has proposed trillions of dollars of new tax increases.
He has pledged repeatedly that his tax increases will not touch anyone earning less than $400,000. These tax increases, he has
promised, will only hit the very wealthy and the largest corporations. But the president is breaking his pledge. He
either does not realize or is ignoring the impact his corporate tax increases will have on millions of middle-class people earning
far less than $400,000. Study after study shows that the Biden tax increases will hit millions of working people, consumers,
and savers.
Democrats'
spending bill [is] bigger than advertised. Two centrist sources, one of them explicitly Democratic, provided further
reasons why Congress should reject the Democratic Party's massive $3.5 trillion "reconciliation" spending bill. The
best new reason to oppose Democrats' massive, $3.5 trillion reconciliation spending bill is that even its outlandish price
tag represents an exercise in budgetary sleight of hand. In other words, it is a lie. The Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget — a respected, non-partisan arbiter — notes in a statement that its true
cost "could exceed $5 trillion." Before getting into the details, it is worth noting this $5 trillion budget blowout
would come on top of a $1.2 trillion "infrastructure" bill that is more about social spending than bricks and mortar.
That one, in turn, would come atop — get this! — a total of $5.7 trillion already spent in six
different COVID-19 relief bills and several executive orders in just 13 months.
The
Debate Over Infrastructure Funding Gimmicks Is Exactly What's Wrong With Washington. After a conservative
backlash, Republican senators negotiating an infrastructure bill have objected to an increase in funding and authority for
the IRS. In lieu of additional revenue obtained from auditing taxpayers, how do lawmakers now propose to fund increased
federal spending allegedly on roads and bridges? Through a budget gimmick. In short, Congress now wants to repeal
a rule that 1) hasn't gone into effect and 2) likely won't ever go into effect, so it can take the phony "savings"
associated with repealing something that won't happen anyway and use it to "pay for" real increases in spending.
Jen
Psaki Contends the Remaining $1.6 Trillion In Unspent Pandemic Relief Funds Are 'Minimal'. The Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget is attempting to track the federal pandemic relief money as it gets spent. According to
their charts, out of the $900 billion authorized to be spent through administration actions, $700 billion has been allocated;
out of the $5.9 trillion authorized to be spent through legislative actions, $4.3 trillion has been allocated, and out of the
$6.3 trillion authorized to be spent through Federal Reserve actions, only $3.3 trillion has been allocated. Even if we
just stick to the administrative and legislative actions, that's about $1.8 trillion — not exactly chump change.
Yellen
Admits Inflation Is About To Surge, Says It Will Be A "Plus For Society". Last week, when Biden released his $6
trillion budget, we asked if it was a joke that the BIden budget saw just 2.1% inflation in 2021 and 2022. Fast forward
to this weekend, when Fed Chair Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen addressed our rhetorical concern, and following the G7 finmin
meeting in London where the world's most advanced nations agreed to impose a 15% minimum corporate tax rate (with zero
enforcement provisions), said that contrary to the Biden Budget, inflation could climb as high as 3% this year in what the
WaPo said was "the first time the Biden administration projected what inflation could be through 2021", which by the
way is dead wrong since Biden's budget just last week predicted only 2.1% CPI in 2021.
Senate
Republicans propose allowing states to redirect federal funds to debt reduction. Senate Republicans will
introduce legislation Thursday [4/20/2021] to allow state and local governments to redirect federal government grants they receive to go
toward paying down the growing national debt instead. In particular, the bill would ensure that Democratic-led blue
states don't end up receiving federal funds that red states have rejected. GOP Sens. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and
Rick Scott of Florida are set to introduce the Pay Down the Debt Act of 2021 to give state and local leaders the power to
take concrete steps to reduce the federal debt.
The Editor says...
I'm no economist, so tell me how that's supposed to work. The federal government prints up a bunch of money, borrowed from the national debt.
Then the states take the money, and instead of spending it, they send it back to the federal government to pay down the debt. That won't affect the debt
at all. The federal government could eliminate the middle-man and just print $20 trillion, and then have a big ceremony at which they drop all
that cash into an enormous made-for-TV piggy bank. The effect is the same. This kind of shell game is something you'd expect from the Democrats!
6
Charts Highlight Troubling Trends Driven by Growing Nondefense Spending. If you listen to the narrative being
promoted by President Joe Biden and his allies on the left, it would be easy to think that the federal government spends more
than enough on the military and little on nondefense social programs. Yet the reality is exactly the opposite.
The federal government has become home to an ever-expanding assortment of benefit and subsidy programs (and bureaucrats to
administer them), while shortchanging constitutional priorities such as national security. The growth of the federal
budget and the debt has been driven by an unsustainable growth in nondefense spending.
War
Of Words Over Inflation Stirs Questions for the Fed. The war of words unleashed on Wall Street and in
Washington by Wednesday's announcement of an unexpectedly high rate of consumer price inflation is escalating by the
day. Legendary hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller had warned on Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal that the Fed
was enabling fiscal and market excesses by not standing up to the political whims of Congress; he stated on CNBC that the
Fed's overly accommodative monetary policies posed a risk to the status of the United States dollar as a global reserve
currency. Refuting such concerns, Paul Krugman asks today in his column for the New York Times whether President Biden
should scrap his entire economic agenda merely because the spike in consumer prices as reported by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics was bigger than expected. "OK, I'm being a bit snarky here, but only a bit," Mr. Krugman
concedes. Snarky is hardly the word for the crass deprecations he offers in his concurrent newsletter, wherein he notes
"a lot of buzz around how the Fed's wanton abuse of its power to create money will soon lead to runaway inflation." The Nobel
laureate dismisses fears of monetary debasement as being anchored in neither fact nor logic but rather attributable to an
"infestation of monetary cockroaches."
New
Math: Psaki Says Inflation Is a Sign of Economic Success. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers were
just released and — in a bit of bad news for the Biden administration — they indicated inflation rose
faster in April 2021 than it had in 12 years. [...] Gas consumers don't need to see those numbers to know they've been
paying more at the pump. Nor do people looking to buy a used car or a new home. But that bad news didn't stop
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki from telling Americans that the rising prices were simply a sign of the Biden
administration's "successful economic strategy" in a word salad answer to a reporter's question Thursday [5/13/2021].
'I'm
not a deficit spender,' Biden says. In a pitch to Louisiana voters, President Joe Biden touted tax hikes on
corporations and wealthy people, measures he said were necessary to pay for his sweeping infrastructure package. "I'm
not a deficit spender," Biden said in Lake Charles, standing before a 70-year-old bridge that former President Donald Trump
had promised to rebuild two years ago were he to win a second term. It was Biden's latest stop on a nationwide tour to
build support for his nearly $2.3 trillion "American Jobs Plan," where he was joined by Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter,
a Republican.
Biden's
'families' plan costs $700B more than WH estimate: Model. President Biden's $1.8 trillion families plan
actually costs $2.5 trillion and would shrink the economy in the long run because of escalating debt, according to
projections released Wednesday by an influential budget model out of the University of Pennsylvania. The study came as
Mr. Biden vowed not to add to federal deficits to get his agenda through and pointed to other analyses that are more
bullish on his plans. The pricier estimate comes from a boost in projected costs for tax credits and spending on
provisions like universal pre-K and free community college, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model.
Joe
Biden Mumbles About His "Infrastructure" Bill, Bizarrely Claims His $3 Trillion in Tax Hikes "Doesn't Cost Anybody
Anything". Joe Biden on Thursday [5/6/2021] stumbled through remarks on the American Jobs Plan while visiting Lake
Charles, Louisiana. Biden is completely clueless and he struggled to read through his notes (as usual). Joe Biden
falsely claimed his "infrastructure" bill that has virtually nothing to do with infrastructure will create 16 million
jobs. Biden also absurdly claimed that his $3 trillion in tax hikes "doesn't cost anybody anything."
The lies of
Joe Biden. Last night, Joe Biden lied about a range of issues. NRO identifies three of Biden's
deceptions. Phillip Klein exposes Biden's falsehood regarding health care. Biden claimed that giving Medicare the
power to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs will "strengthen the Affordable Care Act — expand Medicare
coverage and benefits — without costing taxpayers one additional penny." Nonsense. Klein points out
that the Congressional Budget Office has twice concluded that "providing broad negotiating authority by itself would likely
have a negligible effect on federal spending." Yet, Biden claimed that the supposed savings would be enough to pay for an
Obamacare expansion that would cost $200 billion, according to the White House "fact sheet" released earlier in the day.
Gillibrand
mocked for calling child care, paid leave 'infrastructure'. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is getting
flak after she tweeted examples of infrastructure that seemed to stretch the meaning of the word. Merriam-Webster's
dictionary defines infrastructure as "the system of public works of a country, state, or region," "the resources (such as
personnel, buildings, or equipment) required for an activity," "the underlying foundation or basic framework (as of a system
or organization)," or "the permanent installations required for military purposes." Politically, it is often considered
to refer to transportation, roads, bridges and items of that nature. This quickly led to a barrage of mockery and
criticism. Some took an absurdist approach, implying that Gillibrand's tweet is removed from reality. "Unicorns
are infrastructure. Love is infrastructure. Herpes is infrastructure. Everything is infrastructure," Daily
Wire founder Ben Shapiro tweeted.
Will
You Be Drowned By Biden's Coming Tidal Wave Of Tax Hikes? Joe Biden's massive $2 trillion "infrastructure plan"
is in fact another giant tax hike disguised as a jobs program. Even worse, the Bidenites pretend that the taxes will
hit wealthy people and big corporations hard, while the spending will provide jobs for struggling workers. Don't
believe any of it. First, a reality check. Spending was up sharply last year, and will likely be up at least 50%
this year. Yet, even the tax hikes now being discussed won't come close to covering the spending increases. Let's
review: During the pandemic year, the U.S. spent $6.5 trillion, a 47% surge in just one year. This year, we've
already added about $4 trillion in new spending. Debt is now an unimaginable $30 trillion, and headed much
higher. And yes, we have to pay it off, even if we "owe it to ourselves," as some like to say.
The
10 Radical New Rules That Are Changing America. There are 10 new ideas that are changing America, maybe
permanently. [#1] Money is a construct. It can be created from thin air. Annual deficits and aggregate
national debt no longer matter much. Prior presidents ran up huge annual deficits, but at least there were some
concessions that the money was real and had to be paid back. Not now. As we near $30 trillion in national debt
and 110 percent of annual GDP, our elites either believe permanent zero interest rates make the cascading obligation
irrelevant, or the larger the debt, the more likely we will be forced to address needed income redistribution.
Yet
Another Big Lie Behind Biden's $1.9 Trillion COVID Bill. Last week, governors and mayors from around the
country came to the White House with cups in hand for COVID aid and found a president eager to listen to their pleas of
poverty. "They've been working on their own in many cases," President Joe Biden said, promising to come to the rescue
with $350 billion in federal "relief" funds. It was a good act. But back home, states across the country are
reporting huge surpluses, thanks not only to previous federal COVID handouts (which totaled more than $400 billion) but
because tax revenues are surging as the economy rapidly rebounds. As the City Journal reports, "Undoubtedly some states
and cities have faced challenges, but nationwide, state and local governments have seen tax revenue rebound to pre-pandemic
levels, even as they have continued to receive a large influx of federal funds."
CNN
Says Americans 'Unlikely' to See Higher Taxes Under Biden. CNN is trying to hoodwink Americans into believing
that their taxes won't increase under a Biden administration. The network's latest article read like a press release by
former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign staff: "The vast majority of Americans are unlikely to see their taxes go up
under President-elect Joe Biden, despite false claims by President Donald Trump to the contrary." The article used the
left-wing Tax Policy Center (TPC) as its source. CNN Politics writer Katie Lobosco, in her piece headlined "Will your
taxes go up under Biden? It's unlikely," reiterated the false Biden campaign position that the tax plan "wouldn't raise
individual taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 a year, which is more than 90% of taxpayers." That flies directly
in the face of a rare fact check that ABC's Jonathan Karl did on that same Biden claim.
Watch:
Liberals Complain Trump Made Their Tax Returns Smaller, Then Reality Shows Up. One of Donald Trump's key
achievements in his first four years of office was passing a massive tax cut which lowered the rates for 80+% of
Americans. Despite that, Democrats have waged a relentless misinformation campaign purporting that the tax cuts only
went to the rich and that the middle class were not helped. That's objectively not true, but that hasn't stopped the
left from showing they apparently have no idea how tax returns work.
Joe
Biden's tax plan doesn't make much sense at all. It's election season, so politicians are naturally going to
spout off some pretty weird proposals. Given what voters believe, it's not possible for every proposal to be useful and
still appeal to us for our votes. However, Joe Biden's tax proposals manage to be wrong in both theory and practice,
which is pretty good going even by the low standards of politics. The specific points that catch my eye (among the deep
well of giveaways for favored constituencies, including carbon capture, child tax credits, and all the rest) are about
corporate and capital income taxation. The theoretically wrong proposal is that the corporate income tax should
rise. This is on the grounds that corporations should be paying in to support the country that supports them. The
thing is, companies don't pay taxes. [...] We can tax, in name, groups of people like a corporation, but it is only in
name. We're still taxing people in the end.
Lying
PolitiFact Lies About Biden's Own Words on Raising Taxes. A pro-Trump political ad quotes Joe Biden directly
and the lying liars at the lying PolitiFact still rate it "mostly false." Like most of the country, I hardly pay any
attention to PolitiFact, or any of these fake fact checkers anymore. Over the years, they have completely discredited
themselves. So, they no longer move the ball. For a lot of years it was my job to expose them, at least until
they were so discredited they could no longer move the ball. Mission accomplished.
Warren's
'Wealth Tax' Wouldn't Bring in Nearly as Much Revenue as She Claims. [Elizabeth] Warren claims the tax will
bring in $3.7 trillion over 10 years. The Wharton study reveals a more realistic number not based on fantasy-land
assumptions: $2.3 trillion. Not only that, the tax will dramatically affect economic growth and shrink the wealth of
the very people she claims to be helping: the middle class. Of course, Warren's proposal is political and her people made
political assumptions about the projection. But what makes her faulty numbers important is that she is going to spend that
cash — and much more — on government programs like Medicare for All and "free" college tuition.
Elizabeth
Warren on paying for expensive program: 'C'mon, there's always money...'. In what ought to be a career-ending
slip, facing a friendly questioner, Lily Eskelsen Garc'a, president of the National Education Association, her belief in a
fantasy world where money can be endlessly spent came out. Watch her brush off concern over funding an expensive
education program with the words, "The way I see it, there's always, c'mon, there's always money. It's there."
Juan and Evita Perón thought the same thing, and they ruined the economy of Argentina, a country that had enjoyed a
standard of living comparable to that of the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, only to fall into a
long-term decline that currently has it at roughly 20% of the U.S.'s per capita GDP.
Fake
Wealth and Income Statistics. Tendentious statistics are constantly put forth by various neo-Marxists trying to
prove that American society is unjust and that confiscatory taxes should therefore be imposed on the wealthy. The
advocates of a wealth tax don't seem to be aware that we already have a 40% wealth tax imposed upon death — the
estate tax. The neo-Marxists often contrast the maximum 37% tax on earned income with the maximum 24% (technically
23.8%) tax on long-term capital gains. But capital gains taxes are often a tax on inflation.
Elizabeth
Warren's cruelty. Warren's method is to tell voters that someone else will bear the costs. She
denies the obvious truth that our problems are inherently tough to solve and instead declares that they persist only because
other politicians are bought and paid for. The real problem with Warren's tale isn't that this is class warfare,
although it certainly is that. The real problem is, rather, that it is a lie. Warren has championed "Medicare for
all" as a way to cater to her party's left-wing base, but she's also trying to sell it to ordinary people. She offers
freedom from the injustice of insurance companies and the fear of being uninsured. She tells us we'll never have to
worry about another medical bill again.
Biden: Warren's A Liar.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday [11/1/2019] accused Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) of making up the numbers
for her recent Medicare for All cost estimate. Biden went on the attack after PBS host Judy Woodruff repeated the Warren campaign's
estimate that government run health care would only cost about $20 trillion. "She's making it up," Biden said. "She's
making it up. Look, nobody thinks it's $20 trillion. It's between $30 and 40 trillion dollars. Every
major independent study that's gone out there — that's taken a look at this, there's no way — even Bernie, who
talks about the need to raise middle class taxes — he can't even meet the cost of it."
Warren:
Middle-Class Taxes Won't Go Up 'One Penny' for $52 Trillion Health Care Plan. In a long-awaited plan released
Friday [11/1/2019], Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) pledged to not raise middle-class taxes to pay for her proposed
single-payer health care system. After months of dodging questions about whether she would hike middle-class taxes to
pay for Medicare for All, the 2020 candidate made a firm promise to voters about a $52 trillion system involving
$20.5 trillion in new federal spending over the next 10 years. "We don't need to raise taxes on the middle
class by one penny to finance Medicare for All," Warren wrote in a post detailing her proposal.
Democratic
Debate: 10 Questions Left on the Cutting Room Floor. [#1] About the Trump tax cuts, Democrats like
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., claim that 83% of the benefits would go to "the top 1%, richest people in this country,
and the most powerful corporations." But the Washington Post fact-checker said: "The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center
found that initially more than 80 percent of taxpayers would get a tax cut, with less than 5 percent getting a tax
increase." Why, then, do you keep restating what The Washington Post said isn't true?
Democratic
Party presidential candidate are unqualified... and weird. [Scroll down] Elizabeth Warren, AKA
Pocahontas, says she will fund Medicare for all by taxing the "wealthy and big corporations." Even Joe Biden found this
ludicrous and unbelievable. She refused to answer the question whether she will raise taxes on the middle class to fund
Medicare for all. We all know that tax rates have to be raised on all taxpayers to fund Medicare for all. All the
candidates have proposals to "fix health care." Nobody asked the candidates why we need to "fix health care," since
Obama supposedly fixed it with his Obamacare. We were told by Obama, Biden, and Pelosi that Obamacare would reduce
premiums and insure the uninsured and that we could keep our doctors. Evidently, Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and the rest of
the gang lied to us. Shocking.
Elizabeth
Warren's stubborn dishonesty on raising middle-class taxes. Sen. Elizabeth Warren deservedly drew heat
from several rivals over her stubborn refusal to acknowledge that implementing a $32 trillion plan to provide free health
insurance to everybody would require increasing middle-class taxes. But since she keeps trying to make the same bad
argument, it's worth reviewing what's so dishonest about it. Warren, whenever she's asked about whether middle-class
taxes would go up, argues that costs would only go up for corporations and the wealthy, but "costs would go down for the
middle class." Essentially, she's trying to make the case that because middle-class Americans would be getting free
healthcare, their costs would go down overall.
Liberals
Don't 'Invest'; They Spend Other People's Money. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-avowed socialist,
sometimes sounds like a multibillionaire entrepreneur when promoting his political agenda. He intends, you see, to
"invest" a great deal of money. Of course, unlike a billionaire entrepreneur, Sanders won't be investing his own
money. He will be "investing" yours. Nor does Sanders intend to be a mere retailer. He is promising to make
"massive investments" in a "Green New Deal" that will result in "a wholesale transformation of our society."
Bernie:
'A Lot of People in the Country Would Be Delighted to Pay More in Taxes'. Democrat presidential candidate
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said on Wednesday night [6/12/2019] during a CNN interview that "a lot of people" would love
to pay more in taxes if it meant that they got government-run health care.
No,
Tax Cuts Aren't Causing the Latest Deficit Spike. The Treasury Department reported a $208 billion deficit for
the month of May — which is $61 billion higher than May 2018. To put that in perspective, the deficit for the
entire year of 2007 was $161 billion. In the first eight months of the current fiscal year, red ink has already reached
$738 billion. Even adjusting for inflation, the total annual federal deficit has exceeded that only six times in the
nation's history (five of them under President Obama). Not surprisingly, the Republican tax cuts are taking the blame
for this year's extraordinary deficits.
Over
$10,000 to Dems, $650 to GOP: Just How 'Non-Partisan' Is The Congressional Research Service? Late last month,
the Congressional Research Service released a report entitled "The Economic Effects of the 2017 Tax Revision:
Preliminary Observations." "On the whole, the growth effects tend to show a relatively small (if any) first-year effect
on the economy," the CRS found, adding that "Although examining the growth rates cannot indicate the effects of the tax cut
on GDP, it does tend to rule out very large effects in the near term." A number of media outlets, as could be expected,
went apoplectic, declaring that the Trump tax cuts have nothing to do with the booming economy, and thus also won't make up
any of the revenue lost. With the supply-side tax cuts of Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W.
Bush all followed by economic booms, you would think the doubters' faith in the religion of coincidence would be shaken.
Washington
Post Gives Biden 4 Pinocchios for Claiming Only the Rich Got Trump Tax Cuts. One of the misperceptions of the
tax cut is that because tax refunds have been relatively flat when compared to last year that most people didn't get a tax
cut without taking into consideration the adjustment in the tax withholding tables which added roughly $25 per week to the
average paycheck. A point the media rarely mentions. The Post contacted the Biden campaign and received the
standard line about the tax cuts being a giveaway for the wealthy and big corporations and gave Biden the maximum four
Pinocchios for misstating the facts.
MMT:
The Latest Liberal Economic Fantasy. The new economics is called Modern Monetary Theory or MMT for short.
MMT is gaining traction among high-profile Democrats and other liberals that are looking for ways to finance social and
ecological programs that they hope to implement in the future. [...] Critics say that MMT is neither monetary nor a
theory. It more closely resembles a political opportunity, since it puts everything in the hands of enlightened
politicians. Its promoters keep the theory sufficiently vague to avoid close scrutiny. They tend to stay outside
of the mainstream economic journals and inside social media.
How
Democrats misled the nation about Trump's tax cuts. As even The New York Times (yes, the anti-Trump Times)
noted, Tax Policy Center figures show 65 percent of taxpayers got tax cuts last year, thanks to the 2017 Trump tax reforms;
just 6 percent had to pay more. Yet in early April, SurveyMonkey found only 40 percent of Americans believed they
saw savings, and only 20 percent felt sure they had. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll last month found even fewer, just
17 percent, thought their families would pay less. Why are so many people under the wrong impression about their own taxes?
9
Apocalyptic Lies Fed To Americans About The Republican Tax Bill. Monday [4/15/2019] is the first Tax Day under the new
Republican tax bill passed in December 2017, and the results are not what Democrats and their media apparatus predicted. Many
Americans are discovering that they are not only alive and well, but indeed paying less taxes. As Ben Casselman and Jim
Tankersley pointed out in The New York Times, there is a disparity between what Americans thought they would be paying the IRS
this year, and what they actually paid. This myth, "appears to flow from a sustained — and misleading —
effort by liberal opponents of the law to brand it as a broad middle-class tax increase."
Vox
Writer Praises Progressives for Misleading Americans on Tax Cuts. Vox writer Matthew Yglesias praised
progressive groups for misleading Americans about their taxes Monday [4/8/2019]. In a tweet, Yglesias praised the
"messaging success" over President Donald Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The president signed the bill into law in
December 2017. At the time, then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) said the bill would save families making
$73,000 per year more than $2,000. "[P]rogressive groups did a really good job of convincing people that Trump raised
their taxes," Yglesias said.
Newsrooms
that rushed to report tax refunds were smaller this year go silent on IRS data showing refunds have increased.
Tax refunds are up from where they were this time last year by 1.3 percent following the fourth week of the 2019 filing
season, according to new Internal Revenue Service data. To be more specific, the average tax refund has increased to
$3,143 from $3,103 last February, according to cumulative statistics comparing the 2018 and 2019 filing seasons. Oddly
enough, certain newsrooms have responded to this development with total silence. I say "odd," because it was just a few
weeks ago that these same newsrooms rushed to report that tax refunds were smaller this year, suggesting either implicitly or
explicitly that the decrease was tied to the Republican Party's tax reform bill.
Democrats
Are Misleading Americans About Their Tax Refund. Democrats looking to score points against President Donald
Trump this week focused attention on data from the government that showed refund checks going out to early filers were
smaller than they were a year ago. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) falsely claimed that smaller refunds indicated that
the tax cuts amounted to a "middle-class tax hike." The smaller refund checks, however, were not indicators that taxes
have gone up. In fact, two-thirds of American households got a tax cut this year. For middle-class families with
children, over 80 percent got tax cuts.
Cuomo
blames federal tax law for $2.3 billion New York budget deficit. New York State is facing a $2.3 billion budget
deficit, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo believes it's largely due to the Trump administration's tax reforms which, on the "flip
side," have taxed the rich and may be encouraging wealthy residents to leave. President Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,
which takes effect for the 2018 tax year, places a cap on the state and local tax deduction (known as SALT) that Americans
can take. Residents of largely blue states with relatively high state and local taxes are adversely affected, Cuomo says,
by the new cap of a $10,000 deduction. New York state's average SALT deduction was around $22,000 before the law changed.
Trump's Tax
Cut 'Scam' Created 1.3 Million New Jobs, New CBO Data Show. During the tax cut debate in 2017, Republicans
argued that the cuts would at least partially pay for themselves by spurring economic growth. Democrats said they were
nothing more than a giveaway to the rich. The latest data from the Congressional Budget Office makes it clear that the
GOP had it right.
The
Importance of Getting History Right. [Scroll down] Another lie, born of ignorance, is that the American
revolution was merely a tax revolt. The idea is to minimize our history down to financial considerations: dialectical
materialism. But anyone familiar with the Currency Act and the Intolerable Acts knows full well that more was at
stake. Many of the colonials were descended from people whose ancestors had suffered under British law and how it had
reduced large sections of Ireland and some parts of Scotland to abject poverty. They were determined not to become New
World vassals. But if one wants to minimize the treasure that is our Constitution, then reduce American history to tax law.
No, The
Deficit Isn't 'Soaring,' And Yes, Tax Revenues Are At Record Highs. In the first two months of the new fiscal
year, tax revenues are up. But so is the deficit. Why? Because spending continues to outpace revenues.
So why do tax cuts keep getting blamed?
Skin In The
Game. The argument that tax cuts reduce federal revenues can be disposed of quite easily. According to
the Congressional Budget Office, revenues from federal income taxes were $76 billion higher in the first half of this
year than they were in the first half of 2017. The Treasury Department says it expects that federal revenues will
continue to exceed last year's for the rest of 2018. Despite record federal revenues, 2018 will see a massive deficit,
perhaps topping $1 trillion. Our massive deficit is a result not of tax cuts but of profligate congressional
spending that outruns rising tax revenues. Grossly false statements about tax cuts' reducing revenue should be put to
rest in the wake of federal revenue increases seen with tax cuts during the Kennedy, Reagan and Trump administrations.
Yes, lefties,
tax cuts work. They are actually working extremely well here in the U.S., and the additional growth from a new
one will obviously give the government higher revenue in the long run. It is too bad that both parties spend too much
on government, but revenue is not the problem. Their overspending can be seen in the deficit, which has increased
because of the massive debt run-up under President Obama and previous presidents. Then there's the Federal Reserve:
instead of doing anything to check Obama's overspending, it held rates at zero and allowed Obama's pathetic economy to go
on. But as economist Herbert Stein has noted, anything that can't go on will stop. So now they are raising rates
to get inflation under control, this after years of allowing Obama to print money.
No,
Tax Cuts Are Not Driving Deficits — It's The Spending. Are President Trump's massive tax cuts what's
driving federal deficits upward. Everyone says so. But, it's not true. It's just a way for lawmakers to
distract the public while they crank up the spending machine. Just like the Senate did this week.
Open
Borders Are Not Libertarian So Long As America Is A Welfare State. On social media, libertarians tend to argue
that immigrants, even illegals, pay taxes too, through their rent to their property-tax-paying landlords. The average
annual per child expenditure of an American public school is $12,000, and as high as $29,000 in Washington, D.C. and other
jurisdictions. The idea that many immigrants, living crowded into low tax assessment properties, pay anything like
$12,000 annually in property taxes per child they commit to the local school is prima facie ridiculous.
Elizabeth
Warren stands by call to overturn income tax cuts. Despite the recent boost in the economy, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth
Warren isn't budging on her position to increase taxes. "Let's be clear, the Republicans just gave away a trillion and a half
dollars in tax cuts to billionaires and giant corporations," Warren told the Herald yesterday [7/28/2018]. "Those tax decisions, they're
not about numbers, they're about values. They're about who you believe the government should work for."
Fed Up in Seattle.
Don't believe the hype that "Amazon killed the Seattle head tax," the new levy that the city recently passed on businesses to
fund an affordable-housing initiative. The truth behind the city council's stunning reversal — repealing the
tax by a 7-2 vote, just four weeks after passing it 9-0 — is that Seattle citizens have erupted in frustration
against the city's tax-and-spend political class that has failed to address the homelessness crisis, despite record new
revenues. As recently as a few years ago, it seemed as if Seattle voters largely viewed our hyper-progressive city
council as a harmless oddity in an otherwise tolerant, thriving, liberal city. But times have changed. Now,
according to recent public polling, 83 percent of Seattle voters are dissatisfied with how the council has addressed
homelessness, 65 percent believe that the local government hasn't used new tax revenues effectively, and 63 percent
believe that the city has enough money to solve the problem but isn't pursuing the right policies.
Nancy
Pelosi: 'Democrats believe you must pay as you go'. Democrats will lower the federal debt if they retake control of the
government, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday [5/10/2018], even as they seek to enact major infrastructure spending and
other new programs while undoing the GOP tax law. "Democrats believe you must pay as you go," the California Democrat said at an
event hosted by the fiscally conservative Peter G. Peterson Foundation. New government investments must be offset in the
budget, she said. Pelosi steered clear of saying how Democratic initiatives, such as a new federal education and housing funding,
would be paid for.
The Editor says...
If the "Democrats believe you must pay as you go," why is
the national debt over $21 trillion?
No, The U.S.
Isn't 'Undertaxed'. One of the talking points Democrats and the left often drag out to justify reversing the
Trump tax cuts is that the U.S. is "undertaxed" compared with other nations. A new study shows that's false.
Keeping My Earnings Is Not
a 'Subsidy'. One might argue about the efficacy of our state's and nation's tax code and how its myriad tax
deductions are arranged, but that doesn't mean that keeping our own money is the equivalent of a subsidy. I've heard
reasonable arguments for reducing tax deductions for home ownership in exchange for reducing other taxes. [...] Hammering
people with a massive tax bill upon a home's sale will only reduce mobility and limit the number of resale houses that become
available, but tax hikers don't often worry about the Law of Unintended Consequences. But this mischaracterization of
"subsidy" is widespread. If we're all subsidized, then no one is subsidized. It's all moral equivalence,
at that point.
What
a Crumby Thing for Cory Booker to Say. Never mind the eight years during which President Obama accumulated more debt than
all prior presidents combined. [Senator] Booker insists that keeping too much of our paychecks and not the government spending
too much is what drives up the national debt. If Booker has any plans for cutting spending outside the military, they are
the only thing in Washington that has not been leaked. Letting people keep more of what they earn is not "spending," and companies
giving more of what they earn to their employees is not spending, either. Booker is typical of those who believe that all money
belongs to a government that decides how much of it we will be allowed to keep in exchange for our votes.
Tell
the Truth on Tariffs! While totally free trade is an ideal and a goal, it is impossible to accomplish without
becoming wholly interdependent on other nations. There will always be another country capable of driving your domestic
industry into the dirt on some product or another, as no one nation can be the most efficient and best producer of everything
that nation requires. Because some industries cannot be outsourcedwithout risk to national security — even
to friendly nations — trade representatives have always balanced imports and exports of these products through the
use of taxation (tariffs) to both protect the viability of their domestic industries and to ensure a place for their own
exports in the economies of other nations. While a simplistic explanation, it covers the basic function of tariffs.
Throughout history, administrations and regimes have misused tariffs, sparking "trade wars." And it is true that these
disruptions have proven costly to both sides, but to say "no one wins in a trade war" is patently false.
New
York Times issues embarrassing correction after botching story attacking Trump's tax plan. The New York Times
issued an embarrassing correction after a report that attacked President Donald Trump's recently passed tax plan got the
numbers about as wrong as could be. The lengthy Feb. 23 feature, headlined, "Get to Know the New Tax Code While Filling
Out This Year's 1040," sought to detail how Trump's tax plan would hurt middle-class families. A hypothetical couple —
christened Sam and Felicity Taxpayer — would see their tax bill rise by nearly $4,000, according to the story. Then
came the correction saying the family would actually see taxes go down.
Tax
cuts and more money in your pocket is nothing but a 'dark cloud' for Democrats. Last week President Trump's tax
cuts started to get personal as people across the country logged into their bank accounts and began to find increases in
their paychecks. The doom and gloom tax cut scenario the Democrats tried to sell the American people started to become
exposed as nothing more than highly charged rhetoric. This from a party desperate to justify why not a single one of
them voted in favor of letting people keep more of their money. As people's wallets began expanding this week it just
got real. More money back in the hands of people of every income level — brought to you by President Trump
and the Republicans in Congress.
A thousand dollars is mere chicken feed to a limousine liberal.
Wasserman
Schultz joins Pelosi in mocking size of $1K cash bonuses linked to tax cuts. Florida congresswoman and former
DNC chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz joined House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday to ridicule the economic
repercussions of recent tax reform legislation. An audience at Florida Atlantic University witnessed Ms. Pelosi
double down this morning on her recent "crumb" criticism of cash bonuses given out by companies like Apple, AT&T, Boeing,
Comcast, Disney, Home Depot, Fiat Chrysler, Southwest Airlines, Verizon, Wal-Mart and Well Fargo. The event, which was
sponsored by the group Not One Penny, included Ms. Wasserman Schultz's assertion that $1,000 doesn't go "very far for
almost anyone."
Immigration
Is Destroying the Welfare State. Recall how the Democrats supported President Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership, a "free trade"
deal that would have gutted American industries. And it is Democrats who oppose President Trump's attempts to stop illegal immigration,
which hurts America's poor. The Democrats don't care about American workers. They care about winning elections. At this point,
the chorus of "progressive" rhetoric reaches a fever pitch. "But we need immigrants to support the welfare state! We need
immigrants to pay for Social Security!" Saying it does not make it so. In truth, immigration is destroying the welfare state, in
America and throughout the West. This is happening because immigrants receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. Of course,
this is not true for every immigrant — some never collect government handouts — but it is true for the overall immigrant
population. Studies from across the Western world prove this point.
Newly
Released Arizona Crime Data Just Shattered a Key Liberal Narrative on Immigration. If you're going to do a study attempting to
prove the general law-abidingness of illegal immigrants, wouldn't you want data that compiles actual illegal immigrant crime rates?
Considering the fact that legal immigrant crime is indeed low, any study using data that lumps legal and illegal immigrants together is
bound to be skewed.
Poll
Shows Public Waking Up to Media Lies About GOP Tax Plan. Now that a little thing called economic reality has
overtaken months of dishonest media reporting about the Republican tax bill signed into law by President Trump last month, a
plurality of 47 percent support the bill, while only 34 percent remain opposed. This is a huge (and predicable)
turnaround when compared to those polls released in the heart of the media campaign to kill the tax bill.
Cutting
Through the Media's Falsehoods About 'Dreamers'. When members of Congress battled over the budget, some
threatened to block funding unless Congress provided amnesty to illegal alien Dreamers who benefited from President Barack
Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Donald Trump announced he is ending.
Conscientious members of Congress should not give in to this threat. Amnesty will encourage even more illegal
immigration — just as the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act did. That bill provided citizenship to
2.7 million illegal aliens. Yet by 1995, another 5.7 million illegal aliens were residing in the U.S.
Many of them crossed the border to join their newly legalized friends and family. Others, no doubt, believed that
since the U.S. provided amnesty once, it would do so again. However Congress decides to deal with Dreamers, it should
be based on the real demographics of the DACA populace, not the glamorized image typically presented by the media.
Still
Looking for Tax Disaster, Democrats Are in for a Surprise. The Democrats and their media allies did everything
they could to defeat Trump's tax cuts and reforms. They continually lied to the public in a bid to make them believe
that less than half of the taxpayers would actually get cuts and that the bill was meant to benefit only big, rich
corporations. Therefore, we got all sorts of articles, obviously fed to journalists by left-wing think-tanks and
Democratic politicos, claiming that the tax cuts aren't good or aren't performing as promised. So, two weeks into a
ten-year program, we are now hearing whining that all the promises of the broad-based reform haven't been fulfilled yet.
7 reasons pope
is wrong about immigration. I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of being lectured by Pope Francis
about migrants and refugees. In his latest message on the subject, he suggested national laws strictly controlling the
influx of migrants and refugees is akin to "hostility" and "sin." [...] Has the pope welcomed refugees and migrants into
Vatican City, which he controls? If so, how many? And, if he has, why is he limiting the number? Vatican
City is considered a sovereign nation-state. It is a wealthy one that considers its own security seriously. Why
would the pope lecture other nation-states about immigration policy without first setting an example with his own?
San
Francisco plutocrat Nancy Pelosi sniffs disdain at Americans' tax bonuses, calling them 'crumbs'. The only
thing worse than Senator Elizabeth Warren having to pretend she likes the tax cuts she vehemently opposed in Congress is
wealthy House minority leader Nancy Pelosi looking down her nose in disdain at the millions of Americans celebrating their
tax bonuses. She actually called the spectacle "pathetic" and the bonuses "crumbs."
Nancy
Pelosi's elitist Democrats — America, this is the party of the rich, sneering at the poor. Here in
my home state of California, in response to President Trump signing the GOP tax reform bill into law, state Senate Democratic
leader Kevin de Leon has taken up a new cause: fighting for the right of the richest Californians to evade their taxes.
It's almost unbelievable — but true. De Leon (who is also the leading challenger to Sen. Dianne
Feinstein in her primary battle as she seeks re-election this year) has proposed setting up a new so-called charity that
would enable the Silicon Valley and Hollywood elite to claw back their losses from the Trump administration's new tax reform
law. [...] Another prominent California Democrat also revealed her true colors this past week over taxes: our old friend,
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. She dismissed $1,000 worker bonuses given in response to the GOP tax cuts as "crumbs."
Ingraham
Takes on Pelosi for Saying Companies Just Giving Out 'Crumbs' After Tax Cuts. Laura Ingraham took on House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for saying companies' bonuses to workers following the passage of the Republican tax cuts are
mere "crumbs." "Maybe it's a crumb if you live in Pacific Heights or the Sea Cliff neighborhood of San Francisco and
you're married to Paul Pelosi, maybe then it's a crumb. But for most people it's real money," she said.
Waste
Management CEO reacts to Nancy Pelosi 'crumbs' comments on bonuses. Waste Management CEO James Fish responded
to Rep. Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) criticism of bonuses given to employees following the passing of the Republican-backed
tax reform bill. In an exclusive interview with FOX Business' Liz Claman, Fish said the bonuses will be go to drivers,
landfill workers and customer service agents. "We are giving it to those folks not just because not only are they hard
working, but they don't participate in our annual bonus which typically are for salary employees," Fish said during an
interview on "Countdown to the Closing Bell" Friday [1/12/2018]. The House Minority Leader on Thursday called the
recent wave of corporate bonus given to workers as a result of the Republican tax bill as "crumbs."
Ex-Obama
Treasury secretary: Tax cuts 'leaving us broke'. Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew expressed concerns
about the new GOP tax law's impact on the debt, arguing that it is "leaving us broke" and could lead to cuts in social safety
net programs. "I fear that the next shoe to drop is going to be an attack on the most vulnerable in our society," Lew
said in a Bloomberg interview. "How are we going to pay for the deficit caused by the tax cut? You're going to
see proposals to cut health insurance from poor people, to take basic food support away from poor people, to attack Medicare
and Social Security."
The Editor says...
Memo to the former Treasury Secretary: Deficits are not caused by tax cuts. Deficits are caused by spending borrowed
money, mostly on stuff we don't really need. Call me if you need further advice.
Virginia
Dem: GOP Government 'Dangerous to All Living Creatures,' Especially Federal Workers. Rep. Gerry
Connolly (D-Va.) urged Congress before the holiday break to protect federal workers in the event of a government shutdown,
adding that a "united" federal government under Republican leadership is "dangerous to all living creatures." "They've
already been asked to sacrifice in a way no other group in America has been asked to sacrifice, contributing well over
$200 billion to deficit reduction," he said on a conference call Dec. 20 with American Federation of Government
Employees (AFGE) National President David Cox Sr.
In
Attacking Trump Tax Cuts as 'Theft,' Democrats Prove They Don't Believe in Private Property. When Republicans
in the U.S. House and Senate passed historic tax reform that will decrease taxes for more than 80 percent of Americans,
Democrats branded the tax cut a "heist." Terms such as "looting," "theft," and "heist" suggested that Republicans weren't
giving Americans back more of their hard-earned money, but rather stealing from the poor to give to the rich. This
rhetoric is revealing — it shows that Democrats no longer believe in private property, a cornerstone of American
values and the basis on which President Abraham Lincoln argued against slavery. "Shamefully, Republicans were cheering
against the children as they rob from their future and ransack the middle class to reward the rich," House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tweeted, adding the hashtag #GOPTaxScam. She was far from alone in adopting such rhetoric.
Attn.
Nancy Pelosi! CBS News finds families who WON'T be killed by the tax bill. You know it's bad for the Dems
when even the mainstream media can't give an assist. Here's a CBS News story that did NOT cooperate with the Democrat
narrative of "Armageddon" and mass misery.
Danger in 2018 for
the Party of the Rich (Democrats). [Scroll down] According to the the Center for Responsive Politics, she
[Nancy Pelosi] has a net worth of $196 million. And that was in May 2017. Since then there's been another 10+%
run-up in the stock market, so that would conservatively push her well over the $200 million mark thanks, ironically, to the
policies of Donald Trump. (Okay, not entirely, but unquestionably to some extent.) Over the last decade or so, American
politics has had something of a role reversal. The Democrats have increasingly become the Party of the Rich —
Silicon Valley, Hollywood, media, a good swath of Wall Street — making Pelosi's statement and similar remarks made
by Schumer particularly absurd. Moreover, it is well known — but not well known enough yet — that
what Pelosi said was a straight-out lie.
The
Democrats Stink of Weakness and Defeat. Armageddon, she called it. That was Nancy Pelosi, the insane woman who
is somehow in charge of the Democrats' House caucus, speaking about the just-passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The bill would later
pass in the House, largely on the same party lines it's passed throughout the legislative process, due to procedural necessities,
Wednesday [12/20/2017]. [...] We wouldn't take Pelosi seriously, because it's impossible to truly do so. After all,
she's completely crazy and it's obvious to anyone who bothers to observe both the gibberish emanating from her lips and the
unstable body language surrounding it. Except that the unhinged sentiments she offered as a reaction to the passage of
a bill which will provide a tax cut to 80 percent of the American public aren't just hers. They belong to the entire
Democratic Party.
GOP
tax bill causes Nancy Pelosi to lose remaining fragment of her mind. The GOP tax bill is now very close to
passage, and as that became clear last night, Nancy Pelosi put on her spelunking gear for another deep descent into insanity
and self-unawareness: [...] A warning about plutocracy from a super-wealthy member of Congress who's been in power for
decades? Pelosi might be trying to convince people the tax bill will cost them their lives, but it clearly has yet to
even take away her unintentional sense of humor.
Blame
entitlements — not the tax bill — for blowing up the deficit. Writing in The
Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria recently called the GOP tax bill the worst piece of legislation in modern history.
Why? Because, he claims, it will starve the federal government of the resources it needs for public investments in
infrastructure and research. But Zakaria's assessment is misleading. He is right that a budget crunch is now
underway and will intensify in the years ahead, but the primary cause is not tax cuts. Left out of Zakaria's account is
the role that runaway entitlement spending is playing — and will continue to play — in squeezing other
government programs. If his main concern is inadequate public investment in annually appropriated domestic accounts
(sometimes called "domestic discretionary spending"), he should focus his ire on President Obama and the many other
Democratic and Republican politicians who have favored consumption-oriented entitlements at the expense of all other public
priorities. Left unchecked, entitlement spending will overwhelm the federal government in coming years —
with or without the GOP's relatively small tax cut.
Unhinged
Pelosi Claims Tax Bill 'Does Violence' To Vision Of Founding Fathers. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi spewed
utter nonsense on the House floor on Tuesday, hysterically claiming that the Republican's tax plan "does violence to the
vision of our Founders." Pelosi railed against Republican lawmakers in her speech, decrying the bill as a morally obscene
"scam" designed to "install a permanent plutocracy." "This GOP tax scam is simply theft, monumental, brazen theft from
the American middle class and from every person who aspires to reach it," Pelosi said. "
Foolish
Dems have set themselves up for tax cut blowback. The unquestioning media support that Democrats receive for
their narratives — regardless of their truth or falsity — has led congressional Democrats out on a limb
that President Trump is about to saw off, when he signs the tax reform bill. Unlike foreign policy or regulatory
reform, people pay much more attention to their personal experience than to political rhetoric. In fact, voters care so
much about the economy that they will see that the Democrats have been blowing smoke at them. James Freeman of the Wall
Street Journal calls it "The February Surprise" — the increased paychecks that the vast majority of American
workers will experience in February, when the tax reform bill is implemented by IRS issuance of withholding guidelines in
January. The contrast between the positive personal results and the extreme rhetoric of Democrats opposing it will come
home to voters in a very personal way. Yesterday [12/19/2017], on the House floor, Nancy Pelosi, in the words of
Lifezette, went off the deep end, complete with goofy signs.
Five
ways the media tries to convince us tax cuts are bad. To hear the media tell it, tax cuts are Bad For You and
you won't like the result. Pay no attention to the fact that the cost of living is up, the government is bigger,
incomes have stagnated, large corporations are no longer creating jobs, and the U.S. hasn't had a major tax cut since 1986.
Somehow, we are all supposed to believe tax cuts which put more of our own money in our pockets, will make us
miserable. It's the most fallacious collection of up-is-down arguments ever assembled.
Pelosi:
GOP Congress 'Robbing from Future by Increasing Debt;' She Upped Debt $5T in 4 Years. House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi, during whose four-year speakership the debt increased by more than $5 trillion, said at her press briefing
today that the Republican-controlled Congress is "robbing from the future by increasing the debt." Pelosi made the remark
as part of her criticism of the Republican tax-reform plan. "This is who they are," Pelosi said. "This is what they
came here to do: tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the middle class, at the expense of the health and well-being of
the American people. Robbing from the future by increasing the debt."
That
Democratic rhetoric about taxing the rich? It's a con. Democrats have asserted for years that the rich
aren't paying enough in taxes. In her Democratic National Convention speech in 2016, Hillary Clinton put it in the
party's characteristically way, saying "Wall Street, corporations, and the super-rich are going to start paying their fair
share of taxes." Never mind that, according to the most recent data, the "1 percent" pay more than 25 percent
of all federal tax revenue, more than the bottom 60 percent of income earners combined. Democrats are usually loathe
to give a specific number, but whatever the rich are paying, it isn't enough.
The
GOP tax plan is not the apocalypse liberals think it is. Liberals have some reservations about this tax bill
that just passed Congress. And when I say reservations, I mean reservations for a heavy-duty rubber room at the nearest
lunatic asylum. For tinkering around with some details of the tax code and decreasing the bill many Americans pay to
Washington each year, "The GOP is monstrous; their policies kill, starve & maim," wrote actor-comedian Rob Delaney.
Josh Gad, that cuddly snowman from "Frozen" turned tax wonk, tweeted, "If you are not a billionaire, today should very well
be marked as one of the most disgraceful acts in modern political history. Madness won." Madness certainly won
over Delaney, who is now urging people to join the "Democratic socialists."
Pelosi:
GOP tax proposal 'the worst bill in the history' of Congress. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
declared unequivocally on Monday that the GOP tax overhaul is the worst legislation ever considered by Congress. "I
have said that this was stiff competition by some of the other things they have put forth, is the worst bill in the history
of the United States Congress," Pelosi said during House floor debate on the tax proposal. Pelosi cited the rushed
process and impact on the deficit to justify her assertion. [Video clip]
How
Democrats Corrupt English To Create Hysteria. [Scroll down] Liberal columnists, for example, will
earnestly argue that Republicans, who at this moment control the Senate, the House of Representatives, and White House thanks
to our free and fair elections, are acting undemocratically when passing bills. As you know, democracy means
raising taxes on the rich. Just ask all the folks who told us democracy died over the weekend. But the most
obvious and ubiquitous of the Left's contorted contentions about the tax bill deliberately muddles the concept of giving and
the concept of not taking enough. This distortion is so embedded in contemporary rhetoric that I'm not sure most of the
foot soldiers even think it's odd to say anymore. "You really shouldn't lower everyone's taxes because it creates
deficits and makes harder to expand important programs like Medicaid" doesn't have quite the same kick as "You're killing the
poor!" Whatever you make of the separate tax bills the House and Senate have passed, though, the authors do not take one
penny from anyone. In fact, no spending is being cut (unfortunately). Not one welfare program is being
block-granted. Not one person is losing a subsidy. It's just a wide-ranging tax cut without any concurrent
spending cuts.
Sick
and Tired of Schumer and Others Continually Lying about Tax Cuts and Debt. What makes me sicker is that almost
all reporters just repeat Schumer's talking points as if they are factual. They repeat the outright lies over and over
again, and then after indoctrinating the readers with pure garbage, they take a poll of fewer than 1,000 people, skewed
with more Democrats than Republicans, to show that the people aren't in favor of reform. Then they run the poll results
as if they are somehow factual news. Reporters should be truly ashamed of themselves for pushing an agenda instead of
ever even considering reporting actual results of previous tax cuts.
Senate Bill Kills
Obamacare's Taxes on the Poor. It was as inevitable as, well, death and taxes that the Democrats would react to
the Senate tax reform bill with public lamentation, rending of garments, and portentous declarations about the death of the
Republic. It was no surprise, then, that Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) charged the Republicans with "tearing down our
democracy" or that Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) also accused them of "undermining democracy." In reality, the Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act is among the best pieces of legislation produced by either house of Congress in decades, not least because
it eliminates the individual mandate and medical expense taxes
The
Latest Tax Cut Lie: The Senate Bill Will Hurt The Poor. "Senate GOP tax bill hurts the poor more than
originally thought, CBO finds." That's the headline in the Washington Post describing a Congressional Budget Office report
released on Sunday [11/26/2017]. The story claims that the "Republican tax plan gives substantial tax cuts and benefits to
Americans earning more than $100,000 a year, while the nation's poorest would be worse off." Later, the Post story talks
about the bill's "harsh impact on the poor." This conveniently fits with the Democrats' evergreen talking point on tax
cuts — that they benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. But is it true? [No.] First of all,
the CBO doesn't describe the Senate bill as being "harsh" to the poor. That's the spin put on by the reporter.
The
Tired Canard of 'Tax Cuts for the Rich'. Behold a tax plan, or more precisely, two tax bills, one of the House
signature, the other of the Senate. I'm told that there are all kinds of juicy (or disastrous, depending on whom you
ask) bits in it, but what stands out to the casual observer is the top line. The House version defines four income tax
brackets, topping out at a rate of 39.6%, while the Senate proposes seven, with a top rate of 38.5. Apparently, this is the
best we can expect from a federal government supposedly dominated by small-government Republicans. Yet the Democrats weep,
gnash their teeth, rend their garments and exhibit other well-rehearsed expressions of impending Armageddon. [...] Democrats
shed nary a crocodile tear for the Deficit when it was their guy blowing it up for eight years.
Democrats
Don't Let Facts Get In The Way Of Criticizing Tax Reform. When trying to condemn the House GOP tax relief plan,
Democrats "spread far and wide the false claim that families making less than $86,100 on average will face a hefty tax hike;"
a claim The Washington Post gave four Pinocchios. [...] According to The Washington Post, Democrats have
"falsely claimed" that the House tax relief bill would raise taxes on a significant portion of middle-class families. [...]
Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) claimed that he had spoken to "all the [New York] Republicans" and they told him Republican
leadership was "forcing" them to vote for the House bill. [...] A number of Senate Democrats, including Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), claimed that the Senate tax relief
bill was "kicking 13 million people off health insurance."
Fact
Check: Everything About This Sally Kohn Tweet About Tax Reform is Incorrect. Liberal activist Sally
Kohn — who is delightful in person, but wrong about almost everything — tweeted an attack on the GOP
tax plan yesterday, urging her followers to [denounce] Republican defenses of their proposal. Basically everything
in her tweet was wrong.
Democrat
Fundraising Letter Tied Tax Cuts To Neo-Nazis. Democrats certainly don't appear to have an issue with using
fear to fundraise. A Senate Majority PAC mailer with an enclosed letter from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tied
together the Kremlin and neo-Nazis with corporate tax cuts. "This Must Stop," the mailer says above the words,
"Corporate Tax Cuts. Discrimination. Kremlin. Medicaid Cuts. Bribes. Repealing Health
Care. Neo-Nazis."
Four Pinocchios:
Senate
Democrats falsely claim GOP tax plan will raise taxes for most working-class families. [Scroll down] But notice
the funny thing about this calculation: Only a small percentage (6.5 percent) of the nearly 122 million households in the
bottom three quintiles will actually face a tax increase. Meanwhile, more than 97 million (80 percent) will receive a tax
cut. Doing the math the same way the JEC staff did, we come up with an average tax cut of about $450 for those 97 million
households. Indeed, at the far end of the chart, you will see that every quintile on average receives a tax cut — not
a tax increase.
WaPo
Tears Apart Dem Talking Point That Tax Cuts Only Benefit Wealthy. The Washington Post soundly debunked the
claim, made by numerous Democratic lawmakers, that the GOP tax reform bill will result in a tax increase for middle class
households in a fact check published Thursday. A number of prominent Democratic lawmakers have publicly claimed the tax
reform bill, scheduled to be released Thursday, will result in an average tax increase of $794 for households making up to
$86,100 annually. WaPo fact checkers traced the claim back to a report produced by Democrats on the Joint Economic
Committee, that predicts that some 8 million households making less than 86,100 per year will see their taxes
increased. "If enacted, the Republican tax reform proposal would saddle 8 million households that earn up to
$86,100 with an average tax increase of $794 — a substantial expense for working families," the report reads.
Associated
Press Says: Don't Cut Taxes! The Associated Press is one of many "news" outlets that has gone into overt
opposition, now that we have a Republican rather than a Democrat in the White House. Today's AP "Top News" feature is
headlined: Doubts arise on whether corporate tax cut would boost growth. The passive voice is generally a
giveaway. Where, exactly, are doubts "arising"?
The
Big 3 Tax Cut Lies That Democrats Keep Telling. With President Trump turning his attention to tax reform, Democrats are
busy dusting off their shopworn claims about federal income taxes. Almost nothing they say about taxes is true.
Unstable:
Obamacare bailout in NH. It's not a tax. It's not a fee. It's an "assessment." The New Hampshire
Department of Insurance wants to charge health insurance companies a $36.8 million assessment to fund a reinsurance pool in
order to prop up the state's failing health care exchange. "To call it a tax is misstating what it really is," argues
Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny.
Tax Lies for the
Gullible. One of the key arguments of those who oppose what they call "tax cuts for the rich" is that the Reagan administration
tax cuts led to huge federal government decits, contrary to "supply side economics" which said that lower tax rates would lead to higher tax
revenues. This reduces the whole issue to a question about facts — and the hard facts are available in many places, including a local
public library or on the internet. The hardest of these hard facts is that the revenues collected from federal income taxes during every year
of the Reagan administration were higher than the revenues collected from federal income taxes during any year of any previous administration.
Schumer:
Money for Border Wall Could Be Used to 'Give Just About Every American Broadband'. "The money is better used
elsewhere," Schumer said. "If the wall is $50 billion dollars, you could use that money to give just about every
American broadband."
The Editor says...
Maybe the Senator's assertion (about what can be purchased with $50 billion dollars) is true, but generally [#1] just because you have money on hand,
that doesn't mean it has to be spent, and [#2] one prioritizes budget items and spends money on the things one needs the most. The border wall is a
matter of national defense which is needed a lot more than "broadband" service for every American. (Or a lot of other things — like close-up
pictures of other planets.) Illegal aliens can be deterred with low-tech physical obstacles that are only a little more daunting than the Rio Grande.
Razor wire, for example. And [#3] broadband service is really overrated: Most Americans watch too much television already.
The Obamacare Financing
Flimflam. Now we know why the Obama administration unilaterally changed rules on Fannie Mae funds in 2012. They basically screwed
private-sector bondholders and shareholders to create a slush fund for left-wing groups allied with the administration. These funds do not
go through Congress. They are treated as off-balance sheet entities, where the amount that comes to the government is treated as a net reduction
in expenses instead of an increase in revenue. In other words, it allows Congress and the president to pretend they are controlling spending.
Obama's
biggest whoppers. [For example,] "We signed into law the biggest middle-class tax cut in history." This 2011
claim was not based on a dollar figure but on dubious math — that supposedly 95 percent of working families received some kind
of tax cut under the Making Work Pay provision in Obama's stimulus bill. John F. Kennedy actually wins the prize for
biggest tax cut, at least in the last half-century. By the same measure, the income tax provisions of George W. Bush
tax cuts were more than twice as large as Obama's tax cut over the same three-year time span.
Before
and After Obama: 10 Signs of a Diminished America. The national debt was $10.6 trillion when Obama took office, while complaining
that George W. Bush's deficits were not only too high, they were downright unpatriotic. [...] Obama would go on to add more debt than
Bush in just three years of his spendthrift presidency. He leaves office with a national debt of $19.7 trillion, coming just
shy of doubling the debt all by himself, and all we got for it was a mediocre economy, dwindling workforce, and sky-high welfare dependency.
Pelosi blames Bush for $9 trillion
in debt added under Obama. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi blamed former President George W. Bush and the
Republicans on Friday [1/13/2017] for the more than $9 trillion that has been added to the national debt under President Obama's
watch. Pelosi argued that under Obama, the annual budget deficit, which contributes to the national debt, has been reduced
dramatically, and said that without Obama's work, the national debt would be even higher. She also mostly blamed Bush for
not paying for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Reaction to the article above:
Nancy Pelosi and the
Big Lie. Every word Nancy Pelosi utters is a lie, all conjunctions and articles included. President Bush
submitted a budget for fiscal year 2009, which included a projected deficit of a way-too-high $407.4 billion. However, the
Congress, then under control of the Democrats, with Mrs Pelosi serving as the Speaker of the House, declined to pass President Bush's
budget. Rather, after the end of FY 2008 on September 30, 2008, Congress funded the federal government through the
mechanisms of continuing resolutions, rather than normal budgeting and appropriations.
Obama
Pats Himself On The Back: 'Every Country On Earth Sees America As Stronger' Than Before I Took Office. Obama
opened the press conference by touting his economic and policy achievements before heaping praise on his own shoulders.
"Almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago." "In other
words, by so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than when we started," he continued.
The Editor says...
These statements are coming from a man who operated the government without a budget for eight years and more than doubled the national debt.
Is
Obama Opening Up the Federal Spending Floodgates to Get Hillary Elected? During the last year of his reign of
error, our beloved Nobel Peace Prize winner, Obama ran out of government accounting gimmicks to falsely proclaim Federal
deficits have been falling. His legacy of debt accumulation will go down in history as the last dying gasps of a
crumbling empire built upon Keynesian delusions, political corruption, and a Deep State establishment hellbent upon retaining
power at the cost of global war and financial collapse. The entirely fabricated government propaganda data point known
as the Federal deficit skyrocketed by 34% in fiscal 2016 (Federal year is Oct. 1 to Sept. 30). The reported deficit in FY15
was a mere $438 billion. Obama and his brain dead minions had boasted about such a small deficit. The country has
been in existence for 227 years and Obama had the balls to boast about "achieving" the 8th highest deficit in our
history. Just for some context, the savior also led the country to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th highest deficits
in the country's history. Bumbling Bush achieved the 7th highest in the glorious year of 2008.
In
6 Months Since Budget Deal: Debt Up More Than $1 Trillion. In the six months that have passed since
then-retiring House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cut a budget deal with President Barack
Obama that suspended the legal limit on the federal debt until March 15, 2017, the federal debt has increased by more than
$1 trillion. The Senate passed "The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015" with a vote held in the early morning hours of
Friday, Oct. 30. Obama signed it on Monday, Nov. 2.
Debunking VAT
Myths. The value-added tax is a very dangerous levy for the simple reason that giving a big new source of
revenue to Washington almost certainly would result in a larger burden of government spending. That's certainly what
happened in Europe, and there's even more reason to think it would happen in America because we have a looming,
baked-in-the-cake entitlement crisis and many politicians don't want to reform programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and
Obamacare. They would much rather find additional tax revenues to enable this expansion of the welfare state. And
their target is the middle class, which is why they very much want a VAT. The most frustrating part of this debate is that
there are some normally rational people who are sympathetic to the VAT because they focus on theoretical issues and somehow
convince themselves that this new levy would be good for the private sector.
National
Debt Will Soon Eclipse GDP, Says Comptroller General. U.S. Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, the man responsible
for assessing the federal government's fiscal condition, told a Senate panel Wednesday [4/6/2016] that the government will
soon owe more than the entire economy produces. During a Senate Budget Committee hearing on the Government
Accountability Office's (GAO) audit of the federal government's fiscal year 2015 financial statements, Dodaro said that
despite a modest reduction in the annual budget deficit, the national debt remains a serious and growing problem.
Auditor: Government
Will Owe More Money Than Entire Economy Produces. An auditor for the Government Accountability Office told
lawmakers Wednesday [4/6/2016] that in the next few years the federal government will owe more than our entire economy
produces. Gene Dodaro, the comptroller general for the Government Accountability Office, testified at the Senate Budget
Committee to provide the results of its audit on the government's financial books. "We're very heavily leveraged in debt,"
Dodaro said. "The historical average post-World War II of how much debt we held as a percent of gross domestic product was
43 percent on average; right now we're at 74 percent." Dodaro says that under current law, debt held by the
public will hit a historic high.
Senate
Dem: National debt is not 'a threat to our country'. Senate Democrats on Wednesday couldn't agree that federal
debt is a national security problem, in a hearing aimed at assessing the long-term strategic implications of the government's
$19 trillion debt. "A realistic discussion about it, and accepting expert opinion that this debt that we have is not
actually right now a threat to our country, is I think a more realistic and honorable way of talking to the American people
about it," Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday [4/6/2016].
Top 10 Lies in Obama's
State of the Union. [#1] "[W]e've done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters." This is pure
fiction. Obama has doubled the national debt, and it's not because he cut the deficit. Rather, he spent staggering amounts of money
in his first months in office — which he assigns, dishonestly, to the previous fiscal year, under George W. Bush. He
"cut" (i.e. spent more gradually) from that spending, but only under protest, after Republicans took the House in 2010. It is true that
Obama's 2015 budget deficit was about 25% of his 2010 deficit. But he referred to "deficits," plural. Until last year, all of
Obama's deficits were worse than all of Bush's deficits except for the last two.
WH:
'We Will Close Gitmo Because It is Bad for Our National Security and Because It's Too Costly'. Congress has
expressly forbidden President Obama from transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to the United States, but White
House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough shrugged it off on Sunday [1/10/2016]. "What the president just said is, he's going
to work with Congress, present them a plan to close (the prison), and then he'll make some final determinations," McDonough
told Fox News Sunday [1/10/2016].
The Editor says...
Guantanamo costs about half
as much as Obama's annual Hawaii vacation.
Criminal Intent:
Déjà vu all over again. Janet Yellen increased interest rates for the first time in nine years
this week. She isn't raising them because the economy is strengthening. The economy just happens to be weakening rapidly,
as global recession takes hold. The stock market is 3% lower than it was in December 2014, and has basically done nothing since
the end of QE3. Wall Street is throwing a hissy fit to try and stop Janet from boosting rates by an inconsequential .25%.
Janet would prefer not to raise rates, but the credibility and reputation of her bubble blowing machine is at stake. The Fed
has enriched their Wall Street benefactors over the last six years, while destroying the real economy and the middle class.
Hillary
Clinton panders to middle-class voters with unrealistic tax promises. If there is a social or economic need,
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has a tax credit to match. She's proposed one for businesses that
institute profit-sharing plans (cost: $20 billion over 10 years); another for hiring disabled veterans; and,
as of last week, a tax credit worth up to $1,200 to help families defray the cost of caring for their elderly members at
home (a $10 billion, 10-year item). Coming soon: changes to Social Security to benefit workers who take time off
to care for the elderly. When it comes to paying for these "targeted" benefits, plus her other promises such as universal preschool,
however, the former secretary of state has a clear principle: none of the 97 percent of U.S. households that earn
$250,000 or less per year will be asked to contribute higher taxes.
Bias alert!
The writer at the Washington Post seems to think that taxes are contributions, which the government asks for,
as opposed to demanding they be paid under threat of imprisonment.
Lifting
Debt Ceiling A Signal For Spending Spree To Begin. $18,532,338,091,711.00: That was the national debt late
Thursday [11/5/2015]. The feds couldn't wait to start bingeing once Congress lifted the debt ceiling and canceled spending
caps. A week earlier, the debt stood at roughly $18.1 trillion. What happened? Economist David Malpass of
Encima Global was the first to alert us to the sudden surge in borrowing. On Tuesday [11/3/2015], the national debt
skyrocketed by $339.1 billion. In one day! It's the most borrowing in one day for all of American history,
according to USA Today.
"US
Debt Is Three Times More Than You Think" Warns Former Chief U.S. Accountant. In a shocking admission for most
of mainstream America, the former U.S. comptroller general says the real U.S. debt is closer to about $65 trillion than the
oft-cited figure of $18 trillion, thanks to unfunded liabilities which simply cannot be ignored. As The Hill
reports, unless economic growth accelerates, he warns, "you're not going to be able to provide the kind of social safety net
that we need in this country," adding unequivocially that Americans have "lost touch with reality" when it comes to spending.
The
Most Devious Liars in the Room. A critical thinking person might wonder why the National Debt went up by 26%
more than the deficit officially reported by our trustworthy leaders. This is where the hocus pocus of government accounting
enters the picture. You just don't count things that would make the deficit bigger. You pretend the SSI and SSDI
entitlement programs aren't running deficits. You pretend you are being paid back by Fannie and Freddie, when it is just
meaningless accounting entries. And this doesn't even scratch the surface of the true annual deficits.
Debt
Ceiling Lifted, and the Same Day, Debt Jumps $339B. The U.S. national debt jumped $339 billion on Monday
[11/2/2015], the same day President Obama signed into law legislation suspending the debt ceiling. That legislation
allowed the government to borrow as much as it wants above the $18.1 trillion debt ceiling that had been in place.
Podcast: Liberal Lies About
Taxes. The core topic of today's show is the troubling misinformation campaign by the media and the far-left on the topic
of tax rates. They simply refuse to tell the truth about the results of past U.S. income tax rate cuts because the data runs counter
to their class-warfare narrative. [Audio clip]
The Selfish'
'Charity' of Liberals. Liberals often attack conservatives for not being charitable and caring. But studies show
that conservatives give more of their own money to charities and that people who go to church give more than people who don't.
By the traditional definition, it's liberals who are lacking in charity. The disconnect can be explained by this quote from a
liberal on FaceBook: ["]There is precious little difference between me giving charity directly, and the government
taxing me a little more and using that.["] Apparently liberals don't realize that increasing tax rates impact everyone,
not just them.
Income
Inequality: Totally Irrelevant In A Country Like America. The fundamental issue behind income inequality could be boiled down to a single
question: Are poor Americans better or worse off because Bill Gates ($79 billion net worth), Oprah Winfrey ($3 billion net worth), Michael
Jordan ($1 billion net worth) and Mark Zuckerberg ($40 billion net worth) are living in the United States?
The
Fed Just "Discovered" Another $2.7 Trillion In Debt. The people of the United States, misled by its politicians, and plundered
by its financial institutions, are swimming in so much debt that no one will probably ever grasp the truly staggering amount —
if indeed it can ever be fully calculated. Forget paying it all back; the Federal Reserve isn't even apparently aware of how deep the
crisis goes. Officially, the U.S. was already $59 trillion in debt in 2015, but now the number is significantly higher. When
the Fed is changed its method of tracking and reporting debt numbers, and replaced a single Credit Market Instruments chart with two separate
charts for "debt securities" and "loans," it suddenly reported an additional $2.7 trillion.
The
Nation's Budget Outlook Is Worse Than You Think. The CBO's latest "Budget and Economic Outlook Report" projects
that after dropping this year and next, annual deficits will start to climb and will top $1 trillion in 2025. That's a
slight improvement over the forecast that the budget office made in March. But it still means that the country is on an
unsustainable path. The truth is that given the vast array of revenue, spending and economic variables, nobody can reliably
predict what will happen that far out — a fact that the CBO itself admitted when it started making 10-year budget
forecasts in the mid-1990s. The problem is that these 10-year forecasts have been consistently wrong in one
direction — they've been way too optimistic.
150
Days: Treasury Says Debt Has Been Frozen at $18,112,975,000,000. The portion of the federal debt that is
subject to a legal limit set by Congress closed Monday, August 10, at $18,112,975,000,000, according to the latest Daily
Treasury Statement, which was published at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday [8/11/2015]. That, according to the Treasury's
statements, makes 150 straight days the debt subject to the limit has been frozen at $18,112,975,000,000.
$18,112,975,000,000 is about $25 million below the current legal debt limit of $18,113,000,080,959.35.
The Editor says...
As long as you're cooking the books, why not just freeze the national debt at a thousand dollars?
Obama:
'Real' IRS Scandal Is That It's 'Poorly Funded'. During an interview on the Daily
Show, President Obama insisted that the IRS scandal isn't real. He blames Republicans for not
providing enough money to the federal agency to allow it to do its job. Obama explained that
accusations that they were specifically targeting conservative organizations was false and that IRS
employees were simply implementing laws passed by Congress "poorly and stupidly."
'Just Asking'.
One of the ways of fighting poverty, [President Obama] proposed, was to "ask from society's lottery
winners" that they make a "modest investment" in government programs to help the poor. Since free
speech is guaranteed to everyone by the First Amendment to the Constitution, there is nothing to
prevent anybody from asking anything from anybody else. But the federal government does not just
"ask" for money. It takes the money it wants in taxes, usually before the people who have earned it
see their paychecks. Despite pious rhetoric on the left about "asking" the more fortunate for
more money, the government does not "ask" anything. It seizes what it wants by force. If
you don't pay up, it can take not only your paycheck, it can seize your bank account, put a lien
on your home and/or put you in federal prison. So please don't insult our intelligence by talking
piously about "asking."
Four Pinocchios:
Clinton's
claim that illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than some corporations. "In New York,
which I know a little bit about because I represented it for eight years and I live there now, our
undocumented workers in New York pay more in taxes than some of the biggest corporations in New
York." — Hillary Clinton, roundtable in North Las Vegas, May 5, 2015.
Obama:
I'm not a 'tax-and-spend' liberal. President Obama expressed amazement Wednesday [4/15/2015]
that his opponents portray him as a tax-and-spend liberal, and he also gave a plug for the fiscal responsibility
of the Clinton administration. "If you listen to some of my political critics, they always want to paint
me or the Democratic Party as this tax-and-spend, you know, irresponsible," Mr. Obama said at a town-hall meeting
in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Since I came into office, the federal deficit's come down by two-thirds."
Obama
Decries Austerity As Federal Spending Climbs 8.3%. When President Obama announced his
budget plan, he said it was time to end the "mindless austerity" in Washington. While he was saying
this, federal spending was shooting up 8.3%. [...] What's more, Treasury expects outlays for the
entire year to run close to $3.9 trillion, which is higher than either the CBO or the White House
forecasts. If Treasury is right, that will mean a 10% increase in federal spending without anyone
lifting a finger. This, mind you, comes at a time when inflation is running at about 1%.
One
Chart Is All It Takes: The Ludicrous Claims of Obama as a "Deficit-Cutter". Oh, and
did I mention the chart itself comes from the Obama Federal Reserve?
Obama
Claim of $1.8 Trillion Deficit Cuts Open to Question. President Barack Obama's budget
is relying on a series of familiar accounting tricks to show $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction over
a decade, an amount that would shrink by almost half if they were excluded.
White
House Unaware That 6 Million Americans Will Pay Obamacare Tax This Year. White House
Press Secretary Josh Earnest described reports that millions of Americans would be getting tax bill
because of Obamacare as "inaccurate" just days after the Treasury Department estimated that 6 million
Americans will pay about $2 billion in individual mandate taxes this year. "I don't think
it is accurate to suggest that millions of people are going to get a tax bill as a result of this,"
Earnest said in response to a question Tuesday [2/3/2015] about the millions of Americans who will
pay a tax penalty for not having health insurance in 2014.
Independent
analysis finds Obama's 'middle-class' tax cuts won't help three-quarters of the middle class or two-thirds of the
poor. President Barack Obama calls his tax and spending plan 'middle-class economics,' but most
middle-income families would see little change in their tax bills.
Obama
Complains About 'Mindless Austerity' While Bankrupting The Country. President Obama says it's time to
end the "mindless austerity" and start spending again. This from the man who's alone added $6.7 trillion
to the nation's debt. 'I want to work with Congress," Obama said in releasing his fiscal 2016 budget, "to
replace mindless austerity with smart investments." Mindless austerity?
Obama:
'We can afford' $74B spending increase. In his weekly address, Mr. Obama made the case that the federal
government has the money to invest in infrastructure, education and other priorities because of shrinking deficits,
though he also is calling for tax hikes on the wealthy to fund his desired $74 billion increase in spending.
His budget also would undo the automatic cuts known as sequestration, paving the way for even higher spending down the road.
Obama
says his $4 trillion budget is 'smarter' than sequestration. President Obama trumpeted
his proposed federal budget for next fiscal year on Monday, calling his combination of tax hikes and
spending increases a "smarter" blueprint for boosting the middle class. "It helps working
families' paychecks go further," Obama said of his $4 trillion budget. "It gives Americans of every
age a chance to succeed." Obama's budget released Monday [2/2/2015] offered few concessions to a
Republican-controlled Congress, proposing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases to pay
for his progressive economic proposals.
Obama:
My budget is a 'blueprint for success'. President Obama Thursday [1/29/2015] touted the looming
release of his federal budget, urging Republicans to support a slate of tax increases to pay for his
economic blueprint for the middle class. "We have to choose what we want that future to look
like," Obama said in an op-ed published by the Huffington Post. [...] The president is calling for a
7 percent spending hike in fiscal 2016, the elimination of across-the-board budget cuts, the
so-called sequester, and an increase of $320 billion in taxes over the next decade.
Tax
hikes won't improve the state of our union. President Barack Obama revisited a number
of familiar — and failed — themes in his State of the Union address. Once
again, the president is asking for higher taxes on the wealthy and more government entitlement programs
for the poor and middle class. [...] What is notable is that despite six years of sluggish economic
growth and repudiation of his economic policies in last fall's elections, the president is sticking
to his class warfare guns, choosing to grow government rather than the economy.
New
IRS Data Expose Dems' Phony Tax-the-Rich Mantra. Democrats unveiled a plan Monday
that — surprise — would boost taxes on the rich. But new IRS data
show these soak-the-rich campaigns are based on total falsehoods.
New
CBO Report Explodes Tax Fairness Myths. The CBO looks at the distribution of household
income and federal taxes up through 2011, the last year for which it has data. It found, for
example, that: While the top 1% of households accounted for 15% of all income, they paid 35% of
all federal income taxes. The bottom 20% accounted for 5.3% of income, but they got more in
refundable tax credits, on average, than they paid in income taxes. Even when you include payroll
and other federal taxes, the bottom 20% carried just 0.6% of the total tax burden.
Fundraising,
Or Hate Speech? [R]ecall 2012 — not exactly ancient history —
when Harry Reid repeatedly claimed that Mitt Romney had gone for a decade without paying any taxes.
And was, therefore, presumably a felon, since no one says that Romney has gone without income. This
was not just a lie, but an insane lie. The idea that a person can earn millions of dollars and just
choose not to pay taxes on his income — as though the tax system were entirely optional, and we
get to select our own tax bracket — is absurd. It is, nevertheless, commonly implied when
Democrats talk about taxes.
50
Things Barack Obama Has Done Wrong: [#10] When he was running for office in 2008, Obama claimed that,
"Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax,
not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." He lied.
The Big-Spending
Obamas. Does President Barack Obama know how much he is spending? Critics of the
president asked that question after he asserted, "Since I've been president, federal spending has
risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years." (This figure comes from an online article that
has been widely debunked because, among other sleights of hand, it interprets modest rates of increase
in annual spending as a reduction in the spending, even though the total actual spending under Obama's
watch has been gargantuan.)
More
Fuel Efficient Cars Causing Highway Trust Fund to Go Broke. The problem, you see, is
that the Highway Trust Fund is "going broke," by the Beltway's curious definition of the phrase.
It is sort of the way that after a round of painful "cuts," spending somehow still goes up.
The Highway Trust Fund takes in more than 18 cents on every gallon of gasoline sold in this country,
so there is plenty of revenue. Just not enough to meet Washington's needs and desires. People
are driving more fuel efficient cars and with gas already around $4 a gallon, not taking the trips they
might otherwise take. So instead of having the $50 billion that Congress budgeted, the trust
fund is looking at $34 billion.
The Editor says...
Fuel efficient cars are not the problem. The problem, as you can read below, is that the
government spends money from the Highway Trust Fund on projects that have nothing to do with
highways.
Federal
Highway Trust Fund Pays for Bike Paths in Wisconsin. A looming shortfall in the
federal highway trust fund threatens to dramatically cut the amount of money states get from the
federal government for road and highway maintenance. But even as some policymakers examine the
possibility of raising taxes to boost revenues, a review of federally-funded transportation projects
in Wisconsin finds that federal money has been spent on things like bicycle paths, archeological
research, and beautification projects, among other things.
Why is the HTF out of money?
The current law governing the federal highway and transit programs, set in effect by the last
highway bill, is called MAP-21: Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century. MAP-21 authorizes
annual spending well above the revenue the HTF will collect and funds a host of parochial projects
that have no business being handled at the federal level. This practice has allowed HTF expenditures
to far eclipse the amount of revenue collected from fuel taxes.
Highway
Trust Fund Nearly Out of Money. Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the
Cato Institute, raised similar concerns in testimony in May to the Senate Finance Committee.
"There is no reason to raise the federal gas tax," Edwards said. "You send the money to Washington,
a lot of it gets lost in paper work and bureaucracy and pork-barrel politics." In his testimony,
Edwards noted, since the 1970s, "fuel taxes have been siphoned off for non-highway purposes,
particularly with the creation of the transit program in 1982. About one-quarter of HTF spending
today is for non-highway purposes."
Obama's Plan: Taxes, Spending And Debt. When Obama released
his budget this March, he said it included "smart spending cuts" and closed "tax loopholes" that benefit only "the
wealthiest Americans." Obama added that his budget would put "our debt on a downward path as a share of our
total economy, which independent experts have set as a critical target for fiscal responsibility." As with
just about everything Obama says, none of these claims turns out be true. When the Congressional Budget Office
scrubbed Obama's budget, it didn't find a balanced or responsible plan at all.
Obama's
Economy-Killing Tax-Hike Frenzy Knows No End. In his first campaign, President Obama pledged to cut taxes
for all but the very rich. Now that another tax day has come and gone, it should be very clear that his pledge
was just another in a long line of falsehoods. [...] A new report from Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), a group that
advocates tax cuts to restore economic growth, says that President Obama has so far pushed for 442 tax
hikes — many of them aimed squarely at the struggling middle class whom Obama has vowed repeatedly
to protect. If Obama were to get his way, he'd be the most prolific tax hiker in history.
Obama
casts GOP's balanced-budget plan as 'massive tax cuts' for millionaires. President
Obama on Saturday continued his election-year assault on the House GOP's latest budget proposal,
telling Americans the plan would "raise taxes on middle-class families with kids" and cut crucial
programs while giving more handouts to the rich. In his weekly address, Mr. Obama made his
case — without explicitly saying so — why voters should elect more Democrats
in this November's midterm elections and contrasted the GOP plan with his party's priorities.
Drudge
Exposes Another ObamaCare Lie, Pays 'Liberty Tax'. Despite White House claims no one has to pay
ObamaCare's individual mandate tax until next year, a Web heavyweight points out that self-employed individuals
file their estimated taxes this year for 2014. In what could be the tweet heard around the world, Internet
icon Matt Drudge tweeted at 11:09 a.m. Friday: "Just paid the ObamaCare penalty for not 'getting
covered' ... I'M CALLING IT A LIBERTY TAX!" A mere 22 minutes later, White House spokesman Jesse Lee
tweeted: "Flat lie, no fee for previous year." Lee's tweet shows just how little the White House
knows about business, particularly small business, [...]
The
Profound Arrogance and Stupidity of Liberals in Charge. The recent Twitter kerfuffle between Matt
Drudge and the Obama/media/academic complex over the ObamaCare tax demonstrates in plain view and without question
something many of us have known for years: while the organized left insist that they are the only ones smart
enough to run the world, they remain astonishingly ignorant of how it works. [...] In none of these attacks on Drudge
did it occur to these media maestros how self-employed people are impacted by the tax ramifications of ObamaCare.
It's
Not an Obamacare Tax: It's an "Individual Shared Responsibility Payment". Here's your Orwellian Phrase for the
Week: Individual shared responsibility payment. Yeah... Go ahead and try to wrap your brain around that
amalgamation of contradictory concepts. The phrase is not gleamed from some glossy DNC spin-office, or a Harvard professor's
latest psychobabble posing as an academic paper. Apparently the phrase is the IRS's fancy (new) term for the Obamacare
Mandate tax that individuals will have to pay if they fail to get health insurance this year.
White House report says $763 billion stimulus
was free. President Obama's $763 billion stimulus was basically free, according to a White House report that said the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act was so successful that it paid for itself.
IRS Targeting: Round Two. President
Obama keeps claiming that he had no knowledge of the Internal Revenue Service's abusive muzzling of conservative groups. That line is hard to
swallow given that his Treasury and IRS are back at it — this time in broad daylight. In the media blackout of Thanksgiving week,
the Treasury Department dumped a new proposal to govern the political activity of 501(c)(4) groups. The administration claims this rule is
needed to clarify confusing tax laws. Hardly. The rule is the IRS's new targeting program — only this time systematic, more
effective, and with the force of law.
How
Much Redistribution Is Enough? To deflect attention from ObamaCare's failures, the president this month trotted out his income
inequality chestnut. "A dangerous and growing inequality," he intoned, "has jeopardized middle-class America's basic bargain." He
argued, "as a trickle-down ideology became more prominent, taxes were slashed for the wealthiest, while investments in things that make us all
richer, like schools and infrastructure, were allowed to wither." Apparently, nobody bothered to brief the president before he delivered
this speech. Fact is, federal transportation spending has climbed 39% in real terms since 1980, and spending on education has more than
doubled. And while Obama claims taxes were "slashed for the wealthiest," the average tax rate among the top 1% was higher in 2010 than
in the early 1980s.
Obamacare
laid bare. [Scroll down] Obamacare is the largest transfer of wealth in recent American history. But you can't say that openly lest you lose
elections. So you do it by subterfuge: hidden taxes, penalties, mandates and coverage requirements that yield a surplus of overpayments.
So that your president can promise to cover 30 million uninsured without costing the government a dime. Which from the beginning was the
biggest falsehood of them all. And yet the free lunch is the essence of modern liberalism. Free mammograms, free preventative care, free
contraceptives for Sandra Fluke. Come and get it.
Banging the Drum for Default. Actually, default is
not paying the interest/principle on what one has borrowed. Current federal revenue is way more than enough to easily pay what we owe on federal
notes, bills, and bonds. If the feds do indeed have enough revenue pouring in to meet their obligations, then actual default would be an act of
volition, a decision by the president. The president would have to decide to squander the full faith and credit of the nation. Such an action
would be an impeachable offense. The president tells us that the deficit has been cut in half. He's right, but that's only because it's come
down from astronomical levels.
Obama: Not Allowing Gov't to Borrow
More 'Would Amount to a New Tax'. Obama said once the debt ceiling is raised and the shutdown is over, "there's a lot we can accomplish
together." He called for more job creation at a time when Obamacare is prompting some employers to cut jobs or move workers to part-time.
And he called for additional deficit reduction in a "smarter, balanced way," which is code for tax hikes.
Obama: 'Raising the Debt
Ceiling ...Does Not Increase Our Debt,' Though It Has 'Over 100 Times'. Raising the debt ceiling doesn't increase the nation's debt, Pres. Obama
declared in a speech today [9/18/2013]. In a speech at the Business Roundtable headquarters in Washington, D.C., Obama dismissed concerns about raising
the debt ceiling by noting that it'd been done so many times in the past.
The Editor says...
This is the kind of double-talking flim-flam that one would expect to hear from a used car salesman out in the sticks — not from someone
holding a respectable public office.
New Obamacare rule
uses terms 'shared responsibility payment' and 'penalty' instead of 'tax'. The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) final rule on Obamacare's
individual mandate, released this week, uses the term "Shared Responsibility Payment" more than 50 times to describe the mandate's non-compliance
penalty, which the Supreme Court in 2012 defined as a tax. The IRS also used the term "shared responsibility penalty" in the rule, which does not
identify the individual mandate as a tax.
Bam's phone-y tax. Take note of the Obama
administration's latest "for the children" initiative: expanding high-speed Internet for schools across the country. [...] Team Obama recognizes there's
little appetite in Congress for another program. So it's not even going to try for legislation. Instead the plan is to stick AT&T with the bill.
And Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc. [...] To the extent Americans notice the new fee, they are likely to direct their anger at the private carriers rather than
the politicians.
Reporters Laugh When Obama's Spokesman
Denies Another 'End Run' Around Congress. The White House press corps laughed when President Obama's spokesman on Wednesday [8/14/2013] said
the president, in directing the Federal Communications Commission to raise cell phone taxes to pay for broadband Internet access in schools, would not be
going around Congress.
Democrats'
Lust For Spending Continues. All the talk of massive deficits and the need to cut spending apparently hasn't sunk
in on Capitol Hill, at least not among Democratic lawmakers who continue to push massive amounts of new spending.
The Spending Cuts that Never Were.
Do Washington politicians think we are stupid? There are no cuts in Federal spending. Yet big-government politicians and advocates
continually beat the drum about (nonexistent) budget cuts. Are big-spenders playing a "long con?" [...] President Barack Obama tried to
blackmail Americans into accepting tax increases by holding air travel hostage. Let's call Obama's tactic what it is: extortion.
Obama tried to convince Americans and Congress that unless Congress surrendered to Obama's agenda for higher taxes and higher debt limits,
businessmen and vacation travelers would face long delays at airports.
Tax Breaks Don't Unfairly
Benefit The Wealthy. A new Congressional Budget Office report shows that the rich get most of the benefit from various deductions and
credits in the tax code, music to the ears of the soak-the-rich crowd. But since the wealthy pay nearly all the nation's income taxes, this is
hardly a sign of unfairness. According to the CBO report, the government "spends" about $900 billion through deductions, exclusions, special
tax rates and tax credits, with more than half going to the wealthiest 20% of households, while just 8% goes to the bottom fifth. Democrats, who
ordered the report, celebrated the news, since it appears to provide ammunition for their campaign to impose another tax hike on the rich in the name of
fairness.
The Bully Pulpit. We have truly entered the world of "Alice in
Wonderland" when the CEO of a company that pays $16 million a day in taxes is hauled up before a congressional subcommittee and denounced on
nationwide television for not paying more. Apple CEO Tim Cook was denounced for contributing to "a worrisome federal deficit," according to
Senator Carl Levin (D., Mich.) — one of the big-spending liberals in Congress who has had a lot more to do with creating that deficit
than any private citizen has.
The Apple Tax Diversion.
You almost have to admire Carl Levin's timing. Amid a furor over politicized IRS tax enforcement, the Michigan Democrat on
Tuesday tried to change the subject to a hardy Washington perennial — corporate tax loopholes. Too bad his designated
business pinata, Apple, demonstrates instead the insanity of the tax code that Mr. Levin has done so much to write.
Outgoing IRS Chief: Taxes [are] Voluntary.
On Friday, former acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, said that America's tax system is
"voluntary." During the hearing, Rep. Devin Nunes (D-CA) said in passing that the U.S. tax code is a "voluntary system." Miller simply
responded, "Agreed." This line has been used before by none other than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
There Was No Surge
in IRS Tax-Exempt Applications in 2010. Fewer groups sought recognition as 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations that year than in 2009,
according to the Treasury Department.
CBO: Obama Vastly Exaggerated
Deficit Cuts In Budget. When Obama put out his budget in mid-April he said that it "will reduce our deficits by nearly
another $2 trillion," and "does so in a balanced and responsible way, a way that most Americans prefer." But the CBO report
finds that Obama's budget will cut 10-year deficits by just $1.1 trillion, with annual deficits starting to rise again after 2017.
And far from being balanced, the CBO found that his plan's tax hikes would outweigh spending cuts by nearly 6 to 1.
The 'Independent' Revenue Service.
One notable aspect of the Internal Revenue Service scandal is President Obama's strange view of accountability within the executive branch.
In his Monday [5/13/2013] remarks addressing the targeting of conservative groups for tax-exempt scrutiny, Mr. Obama declared that the IRS is "an independent
agency." [...] The IRS is many things, but "independent" isn't one of them. It is formally part of the Treasury Department and is headed
by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who is appointed by the President. The Commissioner is accountable to the President reporting
through the Treasury Secretary.
More
about the use of the IRS as a weapon.
Obama: $1 trillion in
Obamacare spending is historic 'tax cut'. As part of a Mothers' Day weekend defense of his signature legislative accomplishment,
President Obama claimed that the law represented the "largest health care tax cut for working families and small businesses in our history."
His argument was a Hail-Mary effort to redesignate subsidies for individuals to purchase health insurance on government-run exchanges as a "tax
cut." But according to the Congressional Budget Office, these subsidies actually qualify as more than $1 trillion in "Exchange
Subsidies and Related Spending."
Obama Budget Shows
Middle-Class Tax Pledge Was Fraud. A new study shows President Obama's budget would significantly boost taxes on the middle
class. Funny, we seem to recall him promising voters that only the rich would pay for his grandiose spending plans.
The Decline of Obama. In the 2014 budget he announced last week, Obama
proposed a more accurate way of calculating the inflation rate for annual cost-of-living increases in Social Security. It's a technical change in pursuit of
honesty and good government. And if adopted, it would cause benefits to grow more slowly, though almost imperceptibly so. [...] Then came the catch. The
president's price for adopting this gentle reform was hundreds of billions in new tax increases. It was a price Republicans were certain to reject, as Obama
surely knew.
Senate Democrats Want
Unnecessary $1.5 Trillion Tax Increase. It has been nearly four years since the last time the Senate passed a budget.
In that time, it hasn't as much as proposed a budget. That at long last changed yesterday when Senate Budget chairwoman Patty Murray
(D-WA) released a budget plan for next year. Now that the Democrats in control of the Senate have at least proposed a budget,
passing it through the senior chamber will be the next challenge. Doing so will be no small order. It could be difficult
because, to no one's surprise, Murray's budget includes a massive tax increase. She wants to raise taxes by $1.5 trillion
over the next 10 years. She would do so by "closing loopholes."
Obama: Our Out-of-Control Debt Is 'Sustainable' for the Next
Decade. In an interview with former Bill Clinton apparatchik George Stephanopoulos aired on ABC Wednesday morning [3/13/2013],
President Barack Obama shared his beliefs about where the nation stands financially. The takeaway quotes from that sit-down concern
Obama's unserious take on the size and grave nature of the federal government's annual deficits, which have exceeded $1 trillion
during each of the past four fiscal years, and the national debt, which, at $16.71 trillion as of Tuesday, has increased by over
$6 trillion since he took office less than 50 months ago.
Pelosi: 'Tax Cuts Are Spending'.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) said today that the government must cut spending, and then explained that:
"Tax cuts are spending." "Our whole budget is what $3.5 trillion," Pelosi said at a Capitol Hill press conference.
"So, when we talk about reducing spending, we certainly must, and we certainly have — $1.6 trillion in the
previous Congress, $1.2 [sic] of it in the Budget Control Act.
Harry Reid
Won 'Whopper Of The Week' For $2.5 Trillion Deficit Reduction Claim. During a speech on the Senate floor last week, Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid falsely claimed that the Democrats have reduced the budget deficit by $2.5 trillion. It's such a gross lie it's
almost laughable, and earned Reid the "Whopper of the Week" award from The Washington Guardian.
Harry Reid falsely claims the government has cut the deficit
by $2.5 trillion. It's politically fashionable now to say you've helped reduce the nation's debt. And at nearly $1 trillion
annually, there's a lot of debt to be reduced. But during a speech this week on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid claimed
that over the past two years the government has reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion — almost double the amount the deficit is
right now. "In the last two years we have reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion," he said.
The Editor says...
This shows how comfortable the Democrats have become with the word trillion.
Rep.
Conyers: 'The Debt Is Not Endangering Us a Bit ... We Don't Think There's a Problem'. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the
ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on Thursday [3/14/2013] that the nation's current debt of $16.7 trillion
is "not endangering" the country, adding that "some debt is not a bad idea" and that he and other congressional Democrats "don't
think there's a problem." Conyers and other liberal Democrats spoke at a Capitol Hill press conference about their initiative
to compel Congress to cancel the across-the-board budget cuts (sequester) of $1.2 trillion over 10 years, which
actually are reductions in the rate of increase in federal spending and amount to $44 billion for this year.
The Logic of Liberalism.
[Scroll down] In sum, the liberal solution almost always involves more governmental intervention, more governmental
interaction, and particularly more taxation. Moreover, the liberal wants to be involved in everything; no issue is too
unimportant for their watchful eyes. [...] One could justifiably argue that every proposed tax dollar increase is earmarked
to be spent on three or more distinct venues. This small, though paradoxically large, detail is never explained by anyone.
President
Obama's Colossal Media Blunder. Eschewing talks with Congress or any pretense of leadership, he is instead flying
around the country burning $180,000 an hour on Air Force One laying out a parade of horribles that will descend upon us if the
growth of federal spending were reduced by one iota. Why is he doing this? Because the mainstream media are lapping
it up. Poisoned meat coming to grocery shelves near you! Air traffic grinds to a screeching halt! Fires, murder,
and mayhem in the streets as first responders are laid off!
Simpson-Bowles Exposes Obama's
Phony Deficit Claims. Liberals are howling about the latest Simpson-Bowles deficit plan because, they say, it's too right wing. It's
hardly that. But the plan does expose how fatuous President Obama's claims about the deficit have been.
Obama uses cops and firemen as props:
Republicans Would Rather
Protect the Wealthy Than First Responders, Obama Says. Speaking at the White House on Tuesday [2/19/2013], President Obama said Republicans
have a choice: "Do you want to see a bunch of first responders lose their jobs because you want to protect some special interest tax loophole?"
He was surrounded by emergency responders as he spoke.
The Editor says...
I wasn't aware that firemen and cops received their paychecks from the federal government.
Without Serious Spending
Cuts, the Conservative Base Will Walk Away. What the Fiscal Cliff deal also illustrates is the utter mendacity of Democrats who for years
droned on and on about the Bush tax rates as "tax cuts for the wealthy." The vast majority of Democrats (49 in the Senate and 172 in the House) voted
to make the evil Bush tax rates permanent. The lapdog media, however, contends that the president won big in the Fiscal Cliff deal.
The Sequester Was
Always About Raising Taxes. President Obama's proposal to delay the $1 trillion sequester with a "balanced" package
of spending cuts and tax increases should come as no surprise. Since its initial conception back in August 2011 (it was Obama's
idea), the sequester has always been viewed by Democrats as a mechanism with which to exact higher taxes from Republicans.
Democrats offer only one solution to any problem: More
spending and higher taxes.
Harkin: 'Is It a Spending
Problem? No ... It's a Misallocation of Wealth'. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said on Thursday that U.S. government
does not have a spending problem, but America suffers from "a misallocation of wealth." "I look at it this way," Harkin
said at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on the Budget Control Act of 2011 (the law that includes the automatic spending
cuts referred to as "sequestration"). "We're the richest nation in the history of the world. That kind of begs the
question doesn't it? If we're so rich, why are we so broke?"
The Editor says...
There are so many lies and half-truths in Senator Harkin's outburst that it is difficult to catalog them all. First, the United
States is not necessarily the richest nation on earth, if the country's assets are weighed against its $16 trillion debt. Second,
the private individuals' wealth cannot be counted toward the "nation's" wealth. Third, the top 1% of American taxpayers pay most of
the taxes already. Fourth, the reasons for this country's financial ailments are no mystery: the government employs far too
many bureaucrats, gives money to people who are too lazy to work, rewards promiscuous women for repeatedly giving birth to illegitimate
children, and wastes billions of taxpayer dollars on extravagant pork barrel projects that benefit no one.
NY Times Notices Obama Tax Hikes Are
Crushing Americans, Fails to Mention Obama. This should be the first in a series. Wait until these poor [people] start have to paying $20,000 a
family to start for their free ObamaCare. Still, curiously missing from this story is the name of the man responsible for this massive tax hike.
Remember
Obama's tax hikes on the rich to pay debt? He's already spent every penny. For weeks Obama traveled the country telling
anyone who would listen and some who'd rather not that he's so absolutely positively determined to cut America's $16.4 trillion
national debt that he did so much to grow. And he was insistent on milking money from the rich to do just that. Well, guess
what? That $50.4 billion spending bill for, among other things Hurricane Sandy aid, just ate up every single penny of
that tax hike for this year, plus another $10 billion.
The bankruptcy of the Obama-Pelosi
'progressive' agenda. Government spending is up over a trillion dollars, the federal deficit is spinning out of control
and the country faces a credit downgrade by Moody's. Former speaker Pelosi vilifies Republicans for not embracing the President's
"balanced" approach, but he shows no interest in cutting spending and only passion for raising taxes on success.
Sandy relief bill eats up taxes on
the rich. Congress is poised to clear the final $50 billion chunk of emergency aid for Superstorm Sandy relief Monday
[1/28/2013] — and in one vote, it will have used up all the new tax money President Obama won by raising rates on the wealthy in
the "fiscal cliff" deal.
Now They Tell Us:
Obama's Tax Promises Were Bogus. Remember all those mainstream news reports before the election about how President Obama's
expansive spending plans would require massive tax hikes on everyone, not just millionaires and billionaires? Neither do we.
But somehow after the election, reporters are finally admitting that Obama's budget numbers simply don't add up and that new taxes on the
middle class — including a European-style value added tax — are "inevitable."
Obama's Zero-Sum Game and
the Coming Redistribution Bubble. Obama has used redistribution rhetoric to spend so much money that a deficit of over
5 trillion dollars has been created in just his first term. What does Obama expect will happen when this debt needs to be paid?
If all of the Obama debt is paid by only the rich, then the zero-sum solution would predict that less money is then available to redistribute to
the poor. If Obama expects all taxpayers, both rich and poor, to pay this debt, everyone will be left with less disposable income.
Through time, then, more income taxes will be used to service the debt payment, not to support income redistribution. The president and his
army of academic supporters refuse to address this issue.
The truth about Obama's tax fake out.
Further out, this agreement will do almost nothing to slow the dangerous erosion of our nation's financial strength; projected ten-year
deficits of $7.9 trillion will be whittled down by $650 billion as the wealthy, by the way, pay not "a little more," but quite a
lot more. On top of a hike in rates from 35% to 39.6%, the wealthy will also see deductions phased out, will be paying new surtaxes
on investment income to fund ObamaCare and Medicare as well as higher rates on investment income. In addition, several states,
including California, have passed new taxes on those in the top income brackets.
Let's Retire These
Tired Straw Men in 2013. The notion that somehow the budget is going to be balanced "on the backs of" a sacred-cow
contingency (usually teachers, policemen, and firefighters) is quite difficult to respond to, simply because it doesn't make any
sense coming from Obama and his party. The Democrats extended the Bush tax cuts in December 2010 when they had total control
of the federal government. In January 2011, the Republicans gained control of only the House and couldn't push changes to tax
policy. Moreover, the Bush tax cuts helped the middle class and working class tremendously.
Obama: 'I Cut Spending by Over a Trillion Dollars in
2011'. Appearing on NBCs "Meet the Press" on Sunday, President Barack Obama said that he cut spending by more than $1 trillion in
2011. However, the White House Office of Management and Budget says that federal spending increased by $147 billion from fiscal 2010 to
fiscal 2011.
The Fiscal Cliff Diversion. [Scroll down] Yet
maybe the most telling informational deficiency is the shortage of reporting on the economic stimulative effects of previous income tax and capital gain
tax reductions. Reductions that then resulted in growing tax revenues and appreciable increases in prosperity for the American people. In
fact MSM stories have tried to debunk the realities of the Coolidge, JFK, Reagan, Clinton and Bush 43 tax reductions that kick started past sagging
economies. The media's reluctance to discuss tax cutting or the subsequent economic surges that followed their execution has largely removed these
strategies from public debate.
The truth is that politicians are
telling lies. If a tax rise is modest enough to be politically acceptable to much of the electorate, it will not produce anything like
enough to finance the universal American entitlement programmes, social security and Medicare, into a future with an ageing population. There is
no way that "taxing the rich" — that irresistibly glib Left-wing solution to everything — can make present and projected levels
of government spending affordable.
With Election Over, Americans
Find They Were Duped By Democrats And Obama. Remember how Obama and his Democratic surrogates taunted Republicans repeatedly, saying they
wanted to raise taxes only on "millionaires and billionaires" while cutting taxes for the middle class? When Republicans tried to do just that,
Obama said no thanks.
American Politics as a Confidence
Game: One of the most incredible and successful confidence games recently has centered on claims that the rich don't pay
their "fair share," with the implication that the rest of us are shouldering a disproportionate burden of federal income tax payments.
Now, the target in this case consists of half the population that pays no federal income taxes at all, along with their
"shills" — supporters — in the media and elsewhere.
Priebus: Obama's Fiscal Cliff Talks 'Dishonest Conversation'.
"It's ridiculous that we're having conversations about raising taxes in order to avoid a fiscal cliff, which is something that will, obviously, raise taxes on every
American no matter what you make — and that the president is willing to do in order to try to raise taxes on people no matter what their income is," [RNC
chairman Reince] Priebus tells Newsmax in an exclusive interview.
Boehner's Plan B Exposes Obama's Grade-A Tax Lie.
For years, President Obama said he just wanted to raise taxes a little bit on millionaires and billionaires. So guess how he responded when House Speaker John Boehner proposed
to do just that.
Obama Peddles Massive Myth About The Fiscal
Cliff. Practically every time he opens his mouth these days, President Obama warns that middle-class taxes will automatically go up on Jan. 1 if
Congress fails to act on the fiscal cliff before year's end. [...] But Obama is creating a false sense of urgency — and needlessly scaring millions of
middle-class families — simply to gain additional political leverage over Republicans.
Obama's Tax-the-Scapegoat
Strategy Is Doomed to Fail. In an interview with Fox News host Bill O'Reilly last year, President Obama claimed he "didn't raise taxes
once." O'Reilly didn't challenge the claim, and other reporters repeated it as fact. But it was completely false.
White
House's spending cuts? Critics call it creative Washington accounting. "Over the past several years and as a part of the debt
limit negotiations, they pretended to cut spending using the Washington definition, meaning that spending doesn't rise as fast as it was
going to," Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute said. The "Washington definition" Mitchell refers to is baseline budgeting, a technique
put in place in 1974 as a part of post-Watergate reforms that allows spending increases every year by factoring in inflation and population
increases. Under baseline budgeting, legislators frequently use the term "cuts" to describe what is, in reality, a slowing of projected
growth.
What happens if we confiscate 100% of
all the income for people who make more than $200K? The IRS received 3,924,490 tax returns showing an income over $200K.
These returns represent a total income of $1.964 trillion! That's a huge amount of money. But it's still not enough.
The federal government is spending about double that this year. Confiscating 100% of the income from those who made more than $200K
funds the federal government for only about six months.
Italics in original.
Tax-the-Rich
Obama Fairy Tale Won't Magically Restore Public Services. The Obama administration and its allies are so desperate to portray tax
hikes on the rich as the solution to all our problems that they're trying to persuade the public that tax cuts for the rich caused all
those problems.
Spender in Chief. Obama's plan for a fiscal cliff
compromise reflects his hostility to spending cuts. Instead, he wants to raise taxes by $1.6 trillion. That's a nonstarter.
He wants another stimulus of $50 billion. It's already DOA on Capitol Hill. Worse, he's back with the most fraudulent spending cut
of all, $800 billion in reduced funding for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a few years from now when they're no longer being fought.
Obama Wants to Spend More, More, More. President
Barack Obama is demanding more than $1 trillion in new spending as part of a deal to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, according to a top
Republican Senator. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, is taking the White House to task for
its "disappointing" effort to mislead the American people on the issues of spending and taxes.
Mantra Raves. It's not hard if you have a show on
MSNBC. There's a mantra and all you do is repeat it, like a fourth grade math teacher going over the same fractions year after
year until she starts to develop a dislike for 10-year-olds. I get home from work and click on the TV and MSNBC's Chris Matthews
is saying "the rich" aren't paying their "fair share."
Fiscal Cliff Notes: Part II. It sounds
very plausible, and constant repetition without a challenge may well be enough to convince the voting public that, if the
Republican-controlled House of Representatives does not go along with Barack Obama's demands for more spending and higher tax rates on the
top 2 percent, it just shows that they care more for "the rich" than for the other 98 percent. What is remarkable is how
easy it is to show how completely false Obama's argument is. That also makes it completely inexplicable why the Republicans have
not done so.
Costly Words. I have several pet
peeves, and one of them is the idea that when Americans get to keep their own money, it somehow "costs" the government.
Obama
believes 'balanced' means more spending, higher taxes. President Obama has made clear that he will not accept a deal to
avoid the "fiscal cliff" that does not include tax rate increases for families making more than $250,000 annually. But just how much
will this tax increase accomplish in terms of reducing deficits and putting the nation on the right fiscal track? As it turns out,
not much.
Full List of Obamacare Tax Hikes. Obamacare law contains
20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses.
Sky-High
Spending, Not Bush Tax Cuts, Drives Deficits. President Obama often talks about the need for a "balanced"
approach to deficit reduction, by which he means tax hikes in addition to spending cuts. At the recent presidential
debate, for example, he said, "We've got to reduce our deficit, but we've got to do it in a balanced way —
asking the wealthy to pay a little bit more along with cuts." The only problem with this approach is that the
massive projected deficits over the next 10 years aren't the result of too few taxes. They are entirely the
result of too much spending.
Obama's Big Tax Increases on Small Business.
It is quite a stretch for President Obama to argue that he wants to cut taxes for small businesses. In reality, he is proposing to increase taxes
on small businesses by around $49 billion.
No More Excuses. Interestingly, Obama and the Democrats have had
their own stock response line to every problem — it's George W. Bush's fault. Blaming the current economic mess on tax cuts, as Obama
and his warm up act, Bill Clinton did, is a bit bizarre, but the Democrats don't have a whole lot to work with. Tax cuts had nothing to do
with the financial panic of 2008 or the real estate bubble that preceded it. At no time in American history can a tax cut be shown to have
caused a recession.
Schumer Cites 'Impartial' Tax Report Authored by Obama
Donor. [Scroll down] The Washington Free Beacon reported last month that the report's author, Thomas L. Hungerford, has donated
at least $3,400 to Obama and at least $2,450 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2008.
Obama's childlike belief in the money tree.
There is something at once fascinating and frightening in the Obama campaign meme that the rich should be forced to "pay a little bit more." [...] He
told an audience at George Washington University that "the rich can afford to give back a little bit more." Notice that the wording
is give back not give, as though tax revenues are monies that belong to the government in the first place.
Biden:
It Won't Cost Gov't a Penny to Help More Homeowners If GOP Would 'Just Get Out of the Way'. Vice President Joe Biden,
speaking at a high school in Detroit Wednesday [8/22/2012], said "it won't cost the government a penny" to help more homeowners stay in
their homes, "if the Republicans would just get out of the way." Biden took credit for cutting taxes for the middle class "every year
we've been in office," adding that federal taxes for the middle class are "nearly at their lowest levels since the Eisenhower administration."
Obama Lies, Claims Romney-Ryan Will Raise Your
Taxes. Suddenly the greatest tax-hiker in American presidential history, Barack Obama, is posing as a tax-cutter, and trying to position
tax-cutters Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as tax-hikers.
The shocking truth that
Harry Reid can't deny. [Scroll down] Reid didn't have time apparently to mention an accurate report that 36 Obama
White House aides are $833,000 behind in their taxes, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Nor did Reid explain how the IRS has
somehow overlooked a decade of missing tax returns from a multi-millionaire who's this administration's main political opponent.
The Obama Campaign:
Like Demagoguery, Only Dumber. Didn't the Democratic House of Representatives pass a two-year extension of the Bush-era
tax rates in 2010? And didn't the Democratic Senate likewise pass a two-year extension of the same rates? And what
president signed that extension of the Bush era tax rates — just like the one the House passed today — into law? Wasn't that
Barack Obama? So, when the Democrats extended the same rates in 2010, was it "reckless tax cuts for the wealthy?"
Was it "putting millionaires and billionaires ahead of the middle class" when the Democrats did it? Back then, Barack Obama
said it was a bad idea to raise taxes in a recession. What's changed? Is Obama now willing to raise taxes because he thinks
"the private sector is doing fine?" Or is this whole thing nothing but craven political posturing for November's election?
Dems Leave Reid Out to Dry on
Tax Accusations. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continues to accuse Mitt Romney of ducking taxes for 10 years
without a hint of evidence. [...] If Reid thought his accusations would result in another media outcry for Romney's tax returns, he
made the wrong bet. Instead the media seems to be primarily interested in chronicling Reid's bizarre outbursts.
Obama's Calculated Deception. The
Obama campaign is trailblazing new realms of dishonesty in the history of American politics, bringing to America for the first time
Soviet-style propaganda that flies in the direct face of reality, buttressed by dishonest, party-controlled media operations.
Moreover, it is a classically abusive Saul Alinsky trick to accuse your opponent of planning to do exactly what you have done, as
Obama does in continually accusing Romney of proposing to raise taxes on the middle class. Only an idiot can fail to see that
the entire Democrat party's spending plans require sweeping tax increases on the middle class.
In Obama's World,
The Government Owns Your Paycheck. Speaking last Wednesday in New Orleans at a campaign event, Obama talked about "another
trillion-dollar giveaway for millionaires" in reference to an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts. A day later, White House spokesman
Jay Carney did the same thing. He called the extension "another $1 trillion giveaway to the wealthiest Americans." What they
are talking about is the House Republicans' opposition to legislation approved in the Senate that would raise taxes on those earning more than
$250,000 a year, a sum less than the president makes yet is somehow considered to be the mark of wealth.
Obama
Promised He Wouldn't Raise Taxes On the Middle Class. He Lied. When he was asking for our vote in 2008, then candidate
Barack Obama famously promised the American people, "I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a
year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your
taxes." But as the Supreme Court has now authoritatively ruled, the Obamacare individual mandate, requiring workers to purchase
the health insurance the government specifies each family must buy, is a tax. And that tax applies to the middle class and working
people. CBO estimates that health insurance will cost $15,000 per year on average for families soon after Obamacare is fully
implemented, rising rapidly from there. That is the individual mandate tax on the middle class and working people.
A Primer on Obamanomics.
For some four years now, Barack Obama has been telling us that the dramatic tax cuts that George W. Bush got passed in order
to encourage investment, rev up the economy, create jobs, and generally let Americans keep more of their own money were
really a disaster. According to the Book of Obama, those tax cuts led to the Great Recession that it took his administration
to end. But if so, why does he want to extend those same tax cuts? If they were such a bad idea then, why are they
such a good idea now? Because a different president is pushing them?
The Invincible Lie. Anyone
who wants to study the tricks of propaganda rhetoric has a rich source of examples in the statements of President Barack Obama.
On Monday, July 9th, for example, he said that Republicans "believe that prosperity comes from the top down, so that if we
spend trillions more on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, that that will somehow unleash jobs and economic growth."
Let us begin with the word "spend." Is the government "spending" money on people whenever it does not tax them as
much as it can? Such convoluted reasoning would never pass muster if the mainstream media were not so determined to see no
evil, hear no evil and speak no evil when it comes to Barack Obama.
No, Obama
Hasn't Cut Small Business Taxes 18 Times. President Obama has been running around lately claiming he's cut small
business taxes more than a dozen times. That no doubt would be news to the nation's small business owners.
Obama Says
People Who Watch Fox News Are "Stubborn". "So, just in case some of your friends or neighbors or, ya know, Uncle
Jim who's a little stubborn and been watching Fox News and, ya know, he thinks that somehow I raised taxes. Let's just be
clear. We've lowered taxes for middle class families since I came in office," President Obama said at a campaign event in
Virginia Beach, VA today [7/13/2012].
The Invincible Lie: Part
II. The point here is that Obama knew then that tax rates and tax revenues do not automatically move in the
same direction. In other words, he is lying when he talks as if tax rates and tax revenues move together. Ms.
Borger and others in the media may or may not know that. So they are not necessarily lying. But they are failing
to inform their audiences about the facts — and that allows Obama's lies to stand.
Joe
Biden 'considers $379,000 income middle class'. Joe Biden considers himself to be part of America's middle
class, despite his $379,000 income. Speaking to the National Council of La Raza in Las Vegas about home ownership,
the vice president said that the upper class 'doesn't get it — for middle class folks like me and you, owning a
home is the single most consequential element to our existence.' President Obama has been heavily campaigning his
$250,000 threshold that would cause income taxes to rise for the wealthy.
Obama:
"If You've Got Health Insurance, You're Not Getting Hit By A Tax". At his third campaign event of the day,
President Obama told supporters in Roanoke, Virginia those with health insurance, under ObamaCare, won't get "hit by a tax."
Of course, this implies if you do not abide by the individual mandate then you will be facing a tax.
We don't 'pay' for tax cuts, Mr. President, we pay for
spending. "This isn't about taxing job creators; this is about helping job creators" — Barack Obama. Is there a
"fairness" factory out there somewhere producing jobs? If not, many questions remain about Barack Obama's obsession with ending Bush-era tax
cuts. Namely, how it would do anything to help propel economic growth? (It won't.)
Obama silent while
spokesman denies mandate is a tax. In an interview on CNN Thursday morning [7/5/2012], Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt
said that President Obama disagrees with the Supreme Court's ruling that the individual mandate in Obamacare is a tax. Anchor
Soledad O'Brien asked LaBolt: "His spokesman... said it's a penalty. The Supreme Court has said it's a tax. What does
he believe?" "That it's a penalty," LaBolt answered. "You saw our arguments before the Supreme Court..." "So then he
disagrees with the Supreme Court decision that says it's now a tax?" O'Brien asked. "That's right," said LaBolt.
Obama
Spokesman: Obamacare Is Unconstitutional, MSM Ignores. Thursday [7/5/2012], on CNN's morning show "Starting Point,"
Obama campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt first said President Barack Obama thought the individual mandate was a "penalty" even
though the Supreme Court said it was a tax. When asked if Obama disagreed with the Supreme Court's ruling on Obamacare, LaBolt
then said, "that's right. He's said that it's a penalty." Then, LaBolt lied and said the Obama administration never
even argued the individual mandate could be a tax during oral arguments...
White House Memo Urges Allies to Mislead on Obamacare
Tax. A memo published by White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe advises allies to mislead when they discuss the recent Supreme
Court decision on the individual mandate, saying they should call it a penalty when it is in fact a tax.
Delusional Thinking on the Left. What is
going on here is that liberal reporters and columnists are trying to convince us that the fact that the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare's mandate only
as a tax, and that Obama's lawyers argued vociferously that the penalty is a tax, at the same time that Barack Obama denied it is a tax, is somehow
Mitt Romney's problem rather than Obama's. This is a typical liberal tactic: if we say something over and over — in
unison! — we can make people believe it.
ObamaCare's 7 Tax Hikes On
Under $250,000-A-Year Earners. Obama's pledge against any form of tax increase on Americans making less than $250,000 a year "was thrown
out the window" when he signed the healthcare law, says John Kartch, communications director with Americans For Tax Reform (founded by anti-tax crusader
Grover Norquist).
DNC
Chair: It's easiest for the IRS to administer the health care mandate, but it's not a tax. Just remember, guys: The Internal
Revenue Service might be the best-equipped entity to administer the "penalty," and the "penalty" might be assessed on your tax return, but the
requirement to pay a "penalty" if you don't buy health insurance is most definitively not a tax.
Obamacare's Hideous History, Recounted. [Scroll
down slowly] Twelfth, as has been well documented, the administration and Democrats had to argue first that the individual mandate's penalty was
not a tax (in order to round up congressional votes), then had to argue in some courts that it was a tax (for some purposes) and in other courts that
it wasn't a tax (for other purposes), and then have to use the "it's a tax" argument as a Hail-Mary afterthought in its Supreme Court argument even
while knowing full well that if they somehow won the case on that basis, they would immediately disavow in public the very argument they used to win
the case.
Obama, Roberts, and the Left
Juristocracy. It was widely expected that Roberts would oppose using the Commerce Clause to allow Congress to do whatever it wanted, but
entirely unexpected that Roberts would give the same effective power to Congress through its taxing power, when the Obamacare legislation never
invoked that power or even the word "tax."
Lew's Law. Yesterday John wrote about the appearance of Obama chief
of staff Jacob Lew on Fox News Sunday [7/1/2012]. Lew did not simply deny that that the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare on the ground that the
individual mandate is a tax. He would't even concede that the Supreme Court so held (wrongly, in my opinion) because the lawyer representing the
government in the case asserted that it was. When Chris Wallace plays the clip from Solicitor General Donald Verrilli making the relevant point
during the oral argument before the Court, you can see the gorge rising in Lew's face. He is angry at being shown up as a liar, yet it does not
deter him in the least.
More about
the Supreme Court decision on Obamacare.
Now Available: Free "Obama" Phones.
If you are already receiving any public service, you are probably entitled to a Volksphone. There are upwards of 20 million people
enjoying what they are told are "free Obama phones". The rest of us are forced to subsidize the Volksphone through hidden taxes assessed
by the Obama Federal Communications Commission (FCC), through the universal service fund. [...] Obama's emissaries created the program, mandate
the assessments on the telecommunications companies, who then pass the cost to us. Then candidate Obama can enjoy the fruits of the
giveaway, while Chief Executive Obama can deny responsibility for levying the taxes.
Obama Lies About Reagan Endorsing
Buffett Rule. The president's narcissistic self-insertion into official presidential biographies would have us believe the Great
Communicator would agree with the Great Teleprompter Reader on taxes. Well, there he goes again.
Look What Obama's Bragging About Now.
President Obama boasts on Twitter that spending, taxes and deficits are all below where they were when he took office. The truth is, he inherited a bad
situation and made it worse.
President's Math Doesn't Add Up. [Scroll down] And what about the
president's hallmark proposal to tax all millionaires a minimum of 30 percent? As it turns out, most already are paying
that amount, so despite all of the president's bluster, it would only bring in about $4 billion per year — enough
to fund Social Security and Medicare for about a day. Apparently, in the president's world, numbers no longer need to
add up.
Krauthammer:
Obama's Buffett rule push 'an embarrassment,' 'so shameless,' 'deceptive'. "It's literally incredible,"
Krauthammer said. "It's almost an embarrassment. It's so shameless. If you were to collect the Buffett tax
for the next 250 years, that's longer than the life of this republic, you will not have covered the deficit —
Obama's deficit — for 2011.
Obama's Springtime of Discontent.
A centerpiece of Obama's re-election strategy is class warfare personified by the promotion of the Buffett Rule -- legislation
to compel Americans earning $1 million or more annually to pay a minimum 30% in income taxes regardless of the income source.
Last September the president claimed that this tax was needed to "stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade." However, it
turned out that the total amount of revenue raised by this tax over the next ten years was a mere $46 billion, while the projected
deficits in the Obama ten year budget would amount to more than $9,600 billion.
The case of President Obama's missing oil tax.
Candidate Barack Obama pushed it hard in 2008: a tax on Big Oil company profits that would flow back to families in
$1,000 rebate checks. President Barack Obama acts as if the idea never existed.
Clueless About Job Creation.
When the president begins a speech these days with praise for free markets, look out! What comes next are proposals for more
government intervention in the economy and higher taxes. That's the recipe, Obama says, to "encourage our long-term economic
growth and stabilize our budget." He said so in his Republicans-are-Social-Darwinists speech in Washington two weeks ago to newspaper
editors. Near the outset, Obama declared: "I know that the true engine of job creation in this country is the private sector, not
Washington, which is why I've cut taxes for small-business owners 17 times over the last three years." Those cuts have had
minimal effect, and not surprisingly. They were tiny and temporary, and few small-business owners bothered to claim them, if indeed
they were eligible to do so. Meanwhile, the president has persistently sought to raise their income taxes.
Obama:
I'm not trying to 'redistribute wealth'. President Obama, who famously called for tax increases on the wealthy to
"spread the wealth around," denied today [4/10/2012] that his tax increases on the rich are an attempt to "redistribute wealth."
"So these investments — in things like education and research and health care — they haven't been made
as some grand scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another," the president said today at Florida Atlantic
University. "This is not some socialist dream," Obama added, as he called for tax increases on millionaires today
to pay for those investments. When he advocated the same plan in 2008, though, Obama described this "spread the
wealth around" policy.
The Buffett Rule shows...
The President's Intellectual Exhaustion.
The Obama presidency has reached the point where a policy that virtually everyone (including the president) concedes is a gimmick is now a
centerpiece of Obama's campaign. There are many ways to measure the intellectual exhaustion of the Obama presidency. This isn't
a bad place to start.
Obama's Fuzzy Math. One passage from the president's
April 3 speech at the Associated Press luncheon in Washington, D.C., which he has repeated several times this week,
contains some dubious assertions but has yet to receive any public scrutiny. Obama contends that the GOP budget,
authored by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), would provide "an average tax cut of at least $150,000 for every millionaire
in America." It is unclear how the president arrived at that figure.
White House
considered a $170 billion soda tax to pay for Obamacare. In the view of the Obama White House, a $170 billion
excise tax on soda doesn't raise taxes on the middle class. Nor does a new $20 billion labor tax raise taxes on the
middle class. Unless the tax is specifically an income tax, it doesn't really count against Obama's pledge in their view.
This is why Obama doesn't consider various Obamacare taxes, such as new limits on health savings accounts or taxes on medical
device manufacturers, as middle-class tax hikes, although they surely will come out of middle-class pocketbooks.
Exodus:
California Tax Revenue Plunges by 22%. California politicians seem delusional in their continued
delusion that high taxes have not savaged the State's economy. Each month's disappointment is written off
as due to some one-time event.
Not One Penny More For America's Welfare
State. [Scroll down] When Democrats do talk about taxes, they are often equally disingenuous.
In 2004, John Kerry ran for president promising to raise taxes on families with incomes above $200,000 per year
and to cut taxes for the other 98% of the population. Four years later, Barack Obama ran for president
promising that the government could meet all its existing obligations and take on many new ones, while confining
tax increases to individuals making more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000. Do these
vows hold water?
ScoffCare. Where there's a
trillion dollars or more in new spending, there are going to be new taxes paid for by millions of middle-class
Americans — even if the taxes are called something else.
Ruse Conference. The
president on Friday revealed the narrative for the Obama re-election campaign of 2012, and it shamelessly
rewrites history. The story goes like this: Bush hurled the global economy on a path toward
depression by cutting the taxes of millionaires. Obama then came to the rescue with his policies —
but the Republicans dug us into such a hole that it's taking even longer to dig out. The trouble with
this myth is that even Democrats running for re-election are shunning it.
More
commentary about President Obama's news conference on September 10, 2010.
The
President's Loophole Lie. That jet-tax loophole derided by the president is one he himself
proposed as part of the stimulus approved by a Democratic Congress. Does the left teleprompter know
what the right teleprompter is saying?
President Obama's war on facts.
President Obama's "corporate jet" line from his press conference Wednesday [6/29/2011] is crashing along with
a host of other claims that fact-checkers dismissed in the hours after his speech. Obama referred to
private jets six times in his remarks, essentially describing the Republican position on how to decrease
rampant deficits as being "willing to compromise their kids' safety so that some corporate jet owner
continues to get a tax break."
One
Obama Presser, 36 Obama Lies and Deceptions. Obama held a press conference last Friday, July 15
which turned out to be a purely partisan effort to increase taxes and increase the American debt. His
speech and the answers he gave to cherry picked questions from the press was fundamentally dishonest:
in all I counted three dozen lies, deceptions and misleading statements.
Obama's
Middle-Class Tax Cut Fabrication. Since this is the first time we've heard about Obama's
"biggest middle-class tax cut in history," which he supposedly signed nearly three years ago, [Glenn]
Kessler decided to follow up with the White House.
How
'honest' is the Obama administration? Obama frequently tells blatant falsehoods about important
matters, and then in a Clintonian fashion explains how some interpretation of his words could be made to correspond
to the truth. [For example:]
• "We have excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs." He hasn't of course. He's
hired at least 50. But the WH's explanation: "we have turned away lobbyists for many, many positions."
• "I haven't raised taxes once." But he had already slashed middle-class tax deductions
for health-care, raised the tobacco tax, created a tanning tax, and done other tax hikes.
Obama:
"Since I've Taken Office, I've Cut Your Taxes". President Obama explains why he's "going to give"
Congress "another chance" to pass measures in his jobs bill. Obama also claims that he is the tax-cutter
in the race.
The Editor says...
Any claim of reduced taxes across the board is dubious at best. Regardless of that, if the president spends
money like there's no tomorrow, that will inevitably result in future taxes, rampant inflation, or the collapse of
the currency. That appears to be Obama's plan.
Destroying Jobs in Order to Save Them.
President Barack Obama is very insistent on the need to "save American jobs." ... But instead of saving
American jobs, Obama's new corporate tax is apt to worsen what is already the highest unemployment since 1983
and make America's companies even less competitive in the global marketplace.
Obama At the Plate.
It's been clear for some time that Barack Obama knows every technique in the debater's handbook, and he must have used most
of them during the course of that first White House press conference: There was the dubious revisionist history rolled
out ever so casually, as if it were accepted fact (tax cuts don't work); the assumption that any fault lies not in us but
elsewhere ... The man can say the most unbelievable things in the most matter-of-fact way, for example, his claim that
there's "not a single pet project" in his stimulus bill.
Fiscal
Stimulus Is a Ruse Absent Fed Pixie Dust. It's a jobs-creation program. No, it's
investment in our future. It's a tax-relief plan. Wait, it provides assistance to consumers
hardest hit by the economic recession. It's legislation to jump-start the economy. No, it's a
recovery program. It's a life raft for state and local governments. It's a spending bill.
Which is it? Fiscal stimulus is all things to all people. In other words, it represents the
triumph of faith over reason.
The Magic of Barack
Obama. [Scroll down] Obama shamelessly says his trillion-dollar "stimulus" plan from
which taxpayers will be enslaved for generations, will cut the taxes of the 95%. "That's insane," you
might exclaim. Well, yes, if words retain their customary meaning. When Obama said in 2004 that
people don't want their tax money wasted, the meaning of the word "wasted" is the key to understanding
The One. Obama believes that "reinvesting" tax money into the welfare system is a responsible use
of government-forced contributions from the "wealthy." When Obama speaks of tax cuts, often he is
actually speaking of redistributing tax money. In Obama's world, government spending can actually
mean cutting taxes. Words take on new meaning when Obama the Great performs his magic.
It's
Not the Economy, Stupid — It's Limbaugh. As the tax-and-spend policies of the Obama
administration extend and deepen the recession, the new administration's strategy to deal with the fallout
becomes clearer and clearer. Blame Rush Limbaugh.
The Obama Double Tax
Whammy: President Obama's proposal to provide only a 28 percent benefit for charitable
contributions by top-bracket taxpayers is part of a double whammy, since he proposes at the same time to
raise the top bracket from 35 to 39.6 percent. The double-barreled increase/decrease reflects
a two-part strategy that is much more than a simple tax increase. Less civil society and more government
power is the result.
Obama, Charity, and
Fairness. Leave it to Barack Obama to justify a tax proposal that would significantly reduce
the amounts going to charity — on grounds the proposal is necessary for "fairness."
Will Obama Seize the Radio Stations
Next? Obama started his Administration repeating the mantra that he only cares about what works, not about
ideology. That was meant to draw attention away from the fact that Obama is all about extremist ideology, not
pragmatism. That is why he is so intent on sharply raising tax rates on savings and capital and top income
earners. Nothing practical about that in promoting the economy. Just the opposite. Obama's proposed
severe global warming regulation serves extremist environmental ideology, not practical economics. Misdirection
rhetoric is another trick Obama learned from Saul Alinsky.
Obama's Tax Evasion.
[Scroll down] In the liberal imagination, the money is the government's by default, and the president and
Congress determine through the tax code how much to give back to the people. Last week Obama told an audience
in Virginia that an extension would be "giving them $100,000 for people making a million dollars or more."
But this is backwards. Low taxes don't give away the government's money. Low taxes allow individuals
to keep the money they've earned through hard work, sound investment, and good fortune.
Getting
Taxes All Wrong. Speaking to potential donors in liberal, high-tech Mountain View, Calif.,
President Obama said that low taxes are a recipe for backwardness. "Right now, we've got the lowest
tax rates we've had since the 1950s," Obama told the well-heeled crowd. "And some of the Republican
proposals would take it back — as a percentage of GDP — back to where we were back
in the 1920s. You can't have a modern industrial economy like that." These comments, while
few in number, encapsulate so many fallacies about taxes and economic growth that it's hard to know
where to begin.
Coddling
Misinformation About Taxation. Warren Buffett and President Obama claim that the rich do not
pay enough taxes. They both accuse the American tax code of being unfair and coddling the rich.
Both have been pushing the same class warfare narrative for years, using current U.S. capital gains and
dividends taxation rates as evidence for their big-government progressive agenda. Both are spreading
misinformation about all the taxes corporations and individuals actually pay.
Media Myth Debunked:
Millionaires
Don't Pay Less Tax as Percent of Income Than Lower Earners. As President Obama trots out his new
"Buffett Rule" to raise taxes on millionaires, the media are predictably assisting his efforts by spreading
misinformation about the wealthy paying less taxes than lower wage earners as a percent of income. 2009
tax figures recently released by the Internal Revenue Service thoroughly refute this assertion.
Obama figures he can just lie.
A polite word for what President Obama is being with his claims about millionaires and taxes is "disingenuous."
A more straightforward term would be lying. Neither the Associated Press nor the Wall Street Journal called
him that yesterday, but both reported the facts that the President is grossly and willfully distorting.
'You
lie!' Yes, he does. Last year, Obama pledged not to raise taxes of any kind on anyone earning
less than $200,000 a year. He also opposed mandating that everyone buy health insurance. Wednesday
night [9/9/2009], he demanded that mandate, which will effectively tax all who don't qualify for a subsidy.
Yes, President Obama lies. But it's for a good cause, so it's OK, right?
Who taught you to lie, call people
names, and accuse people of racism? Obama said at a health care town hall in New Hampshire that he never
claimed to be an advocate of single-payer health care. In stark contrast, during the Presidential campaign Obama
touted a single-payer health care system and in a speech to the SEIU in 2003 he supported single-payer health care.
Obama pledged during his campaign not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 per year. However, Obama
signed into law the single largest federal excise tax increase on tobacco products. The tax on a pack of cigarettes
was raised from 39 cents a pack to 101 cents per pack, or a 159% increase. Two simple examples of the
blatant lie.
Obama Says Health Insurance Mandate Is Not A Tax Increase.
President Barack Obama says requiring people to get health insurance and fining them if they don't would not amount to a
backhanded tax increase.
Death, Taxes and
Two Trillion Lies. President Obama promised not to raise taxes on people earning less than
$200,000 per year and vowed not to increase the national debt "by one nickel." He promised that his
nearly-trillion-dollar stimulus plan would keep the unemployment rate below 8%. (Last month, our
unemployment rate was 9.8%, the highest it's been in 26 years.) In January 2008, then-candidate
Obama promised not to negotiate behind closed doors with health care lobbyists. ... After his election,
President Obama said, "Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."
What Obama and the Media Aren't Telling You about Taxes.
Even if Barack Obama does adhere to his income tax plan, his promise that he won't raise taxes on the common man
is still a lie. A continual theme of the Barack Obama campaign has been his vow that no one making less
than $250,000 a year would get a tax increase. Now he has provided more details, pointing out that to
qualify for a tax cut you must earn less than $200,000. Then, on Tuesday, Joe Biden said during an
interview that tax breaks should go to "people who make $150,000 a year." My, my, when Obama said he
was the candidate of change, he never mentioned that it applied to figures and campaign promises.
Like a Dime Store Cowboy.
[Scroll down] The new federal tax of 62 cents per pack, to $1.01, is the largest jump since
cigarette taxes were implemented in 1951. For a couple smoking a pack a day each, that's a tax hike of
$452.60 a year. If they're overly anxious about their economic situation and puffing two packs a day
each, that's $905.20 in additional taxes per year.
Obama's Biggest Lies. President
Obama loves to make up things that are patently untrue, like every economist agrees his $800 billion
economic stimulus "has done its job," the economy "is moving in the right direction," and the Bush tax cuts
caused the trillion dollar deficits. The facts say otherwise, but he is never challenged by the news
media for his repeatedly dishonest myth-making. Here are some of his worst offenses.
The
Lies And Distortions Just Keep Coming. This most recent statement from the community organizer
in the White House is just typical of the stream of lies and distortions that have been flowing from this
Marxist president: "What I've got is the Republicans holding middle-class tax relief hostage because
they're insisting we've got to give tax relief to millionaires and billionaires..." He also consistently
refers to excessive government spending as "investments" and blames the $1.3 trillion Bush deficit —
created by his own Democrat Congress — for his continued increasing debt and deficit.
Obama's
Big Lie On Taxes. A large and ongoing problem with our public discourse is the dishonesty and
disinformation foisted on an unsuspecting public. That's certainly the case when it comes to taxes.
The
President's Low-Tax Lie. In the left's endless attempt to push tax hikes on our beleaguered
economy, it's now peddling the bogus claim that tax rates are the lowest they've been in 60 years.
Obama's
Deficit Plan is All Tax Hikes, No Cuts. Today [9/19/2011] President Obama's released a
deficit-reduction proposal that was actually written down on paper, the first time he has done so since
introducing his laughable 2012 budget back in February (the Senate voted it down 97 to 0). The
White House claims that the president's plan represents a "balanced approach" that, relative to its current
policy baseline, will increase the federal deficit initially by $300 billion in fiscal year 2012 (to pay
for his "jobs plan"), but will reduce deficits by $3.2 trillion over the next decade. The claim is
outrageously misleading.
Obama figures he can just lie.
A polite word for what President Obama is being with his claims about millionaires and taxes is "disingenuous."
A more straightforward term would be lying. Neither the Associated Press nor the Wall Street Journal called
him that yesterday, but both reported the facts that the President is grossly and willfully distorting.
Presidential prevarication. Not that there was ever any
doubt, but the Associated Press ran the numbers on President Obama's soak-the-rich tax scheme, and guess what?
The president's a fibber. The news agency culled figures from a number of key authorities — like
the IRS and the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center -- and demonstrated conclusively that top US earners pay far
higher rates than other folks. And foot a wildly outsized portion of the federal tax tab.
Math
says Obama's speech was class warfare. "Middle-class families shouldn't pay higher taxes than
millionaires and billionaires. That's pretty straightforward." That's what President Obama said
in his White House speech Monday on deficit reduction. It was even more straightforward than he seemed to
think. Not only should middle-class families pay less than millionaires and billionaires, but in fact
they already do pay less than millionaires and billionaires. Much less.
Obama's Biggest Lies.
So if "the rich" are not paying their fair share, Mr. President, what would that fair share be? Based on
these official facts, for you to run around the country telling America that we could have jobs and balance
the budget and solve the debt crisis you are creating if the rich would just pay their fair share of taxes
only demonstrates that you are not qualified to be President.
Obama's 2% Illusion.
President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to
do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax
breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't
see their taxes increased by "one single dime." This is going to be some trick. Even the most
basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and
capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new
spending ambitions.
How Democrats Make Millionaires.
Even in these hard economic times, Democrats across the nation are working on plans that will turn some of you into
instant millionaires. There's only one catch. You're not actually going to be bringing in a million-dollar
income. ... To pay this ["millionaires'"] tax, you won't have to make anywhere near a million dollars. If
you make even $300,000 a year, the cash-strapped Empire State will consider you a millionaire.