In less than six months in office, President Biden has become the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation’s history. After our government dished out over $6 trillion (1 1/2 times the annual budget) for largely misguided Covid-19 relief, Biden has frantically pushed for another $4.5 trillion in what he terms his “Build Back Better” plan. This would be $10.5 trillion added to the normal budget cycle. Most of the future deficit spending would be in support of climate change initiatives and socialist entitlement programs. Here is an abbreviated look at this insane spending.
Biden’s vision of grandeur sees himself as the new Franklin D. Roosevelt with a type of “New Deal” plan. Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan is three-fold: American Rescue Plan, American Jobs Plan, and American Families Plan. The American Rescue Plan was funded by Congress last March in the amount of $1.9 trillion making the total price tag for Covid relief a whopping $6 trillion. That included three stimulus checks paying individuals a total of $3,200. Much of the rest of the relief money went to pork projects which had nothing to do with Covid. The remaining Jobs Plan and Families Plan would have a combined cost of $4.5 trillion.
The American Jobs Plan, often called the infrastructure plan, was designed to fund much more than what is typically understood as infrastructure like roads, bridges, airports, etc. It redefined infrastructure to include clean energy, electric cars, workplace programs, and other climate change and social initiatives. After weeks of partisan haggling, the Republicans prevailed in cutting the proposed $2.6 trillion projects to those improving real infrastructure at a cost of $1.2 trillion, most of which was transfer of money already approved for other programs. This bipartisan agreement was accepted reluctantly by the president. However, in announcing the agreement, Biden proclaimed that the American Families Plan had to be a part of it. Biden’s staff quickly convinced him to walk back that statement. Then, Speaker Pelosi jumped on the bandwagon saying the House would insist on a families bill concurrent with the jobs bill in an overall reconciliation bill which I’ll explain later. And the battle goes on.
The American Rescue Plan is water under the bridge–massive debt already incurred. The American Jobs Plan will probably get passed as a needed infrastructure project at a relatively reasonable cost, even though we can’t afford it. But the thing that should keep every American awake at night is the remaining American Families Plan. It is purely and simply a socialism movement toward the most widespread entitlement give-away our nation has ever imagined. At an official cost of another $1.8 trillion (some analysts predict over $2.5 trillion) this plan would have 57% of two-parent families and 80% of single-parent families receiving government benefits and assistance. The plan includes free community college, increased college Pell grants, three months of government paid leave for everyone with a new baby or family illness, free child care, free pre-K school, all parents with minor children would get an annual cash payment of $3,000 to $3,600 per child depending on age, subsidized health insurance for almost everyone, plus substantial increases in the food stamp program and low income housing.
President Biden’s talking-points answer to how we could take on such a monumental national debt is to squeeze more taxes out of corporations and the wealthy. That strategy has been denounced by almost every budget analyst in the country. If every corporation and rich person in America were taxed into poverty, it would not begin to pay for such financial commitment as our nation would be incurring. In reality, the middle class would pay much higher taxes under the Biden plan. And our national debt, presently $28 trillion, will continue to skyrocket. Interest alone on that debt is currently $1.3 billion a DAY, and interest rates are rising rapidly.
The only defense conservative Senators have in curbing this squander is the filibuster which requires 60 votes to pass most bills. However, the Senate liberals have a trick play for that. There is a parliamentary procedure where a non-budget-cycle bill can be contained in a separate annual budget bill called “reconciliation” which is filibuster proof and decided by a majority vote. Normally, the components of the Build Back Better plan would be subject to Senate filibuster. But, if they are rolled into the 2022 budget reconciliation bill, a simple majority would send the whole thing to the president for signing. The Democrats are so desperate to pass the American Families Bill, they will likely try to use the reconciliation weapon. If the Democrats’ reconciliation ploy works, they would probably tack on billions, if not trillions, worth of additional social programs to the bill. The only hope then is for at least one Democrat in the 50-50 Senate to vote against the bill.
A clear objective of the Build Back Better Plan is to push more Americans into big government dependency. As more people become dependent on the government’s Democratic sponsored programs, more people will vote Democrat. As Democrats become more and more of a majority, they will enact more government programs. It would be a death spiral into socialism, the ultimate goal of many Democrats in Washington.
The 19th century French diplomat, Alexis de Tocqueville said, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” You were very wise, Mr. Tocqueville.
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