On the heels of the massive $1.9 trillion stimulus, relief, virus promotion, welfare bill, President Biden and his congressional delegation proposed a massive combination so-called infrastructure bill that created a totally new concept — human infrastructure. The latter portion was merely another effort to get more folks hooked on progressive give-away programs.
I was kind of hoping that human infrastructure meant that Uncle Sam would pay for a hip replacement if I ever needed one. Ooops! I forgot. I am on Medicare so Uncle Sam will be picking up the tab for most of that. My supplemental plan – for which I pay zero premium and have no idea who is paying it – will cover all the rest.
The idea of putting some $6 trillion of spending (the conservative estimate) in one bill seemed a bit over ambitious, to say the least. Even some congressional Democrats choked on that one.
It was decided – based on pressure from Republicans in Congress – that real honest-to-goodness infrastructure should be handled separate from the bag-of-goodies human infrastructure bill.
And so it was. Maybe … or maybe not.
Re-connecting the legislation
The radical left-wingers in the Democratic Party have prevailed on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to not pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill until after the Senate approves the $4 trillion so-called human infrastructure bill – essentially breaking the deal to handle them separately with the bipartisan bill moving through Congress first. Once again, Pelosi has shown her contempt of personal integrity and bipartisanship.
The economics of insane spending in Washington
While there is a lot of debate over the various Biden big spending bills, we need to understand the overarching economic realities.
Officially, the Biden administration is calling for the spending of $7-plus trillion dollars in its first six months in office – and that is if you believe the official numbers. If you do, you are very foolish.
There is an inviolate rule in government spending. Estimated future expenditures will far exceed the initial estimate – and the anticipated revenues to cover the cost will fall far short of the estimate. Ergo, more borrowing. Greater National Debt. Some economists already estimate that the cost of the three Biden legislative packages will exceed $10 trillion.
To get an idea of how much money $10 trillion really is … if we spend one dollar every day since the Big Bang launched our universe, we would only have reached the $5 trillion dollar mark today. It would take another 14 billion years to spend what Biden & Co. proposes to spend in six months.
If we gave away that $10 trillion dollars to every man, woman and child in America, we would all be getting a check for more than $30,000 each.
And keep in mind that Biden’s all NEW spending bill goes over the top of the $4.8 trillion annual federal budget for 2020 – with the biggest expenditures being Social Security and … INTEREST ON THE DEBT.
Much of that Biden money will be borrowed. America is currently borrowing more than 40 percent of the cost of the federal government every year. That means that we are placing an enormous economic burden on our children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren. We are destroying their economic future to satisfy our insatiable desires. There is now more obnoxious example of taxation without representation.
The Biden expenditures are being passed and proposed despite the fact that the December 2020 stimulus package poured excessive money into the economy – kicking off our current inflation. In addition, there are still $1 trillion dollars from past legislation that the government has not yet spent. This will put even more money into an economy that is already drowning in liquidity.
Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve has already admitted that he underestimated the inflationary impact from the flow of money into the economy – and that inflation is likely be worse than they recently projected. It is already worse – and will get worser.
Why all that spending?
The Democrat strategy of big spending is very simple. It is to make more and more of us dependent on government money. And that translates to more votes … more power … for the party that will provide that money.
The problem is not the money that is supposed to help the poor – although that is part of it. But most of those trillions upon trillions of dollars are not for the poor. They are for the middle class and the elite. It goes to academic institutions, civic groups, corporations and unions run by highly compensated executives. Universities and professors thrive on government grants. Government jobs are union jobs. This cuts out the more than 90 percent of the American contractors and workers who are not members of unions. The money flows to other government entities – states, cities, school districts. Millionaires like Al Sharpton have been the benefactors of government money – and he is by far not the only one.
Democrats see the federal treasury as a partisan bank that is the foundation of their political power. That is why all the excessive spending. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.”
He also responded to a question as to what form of government they created. He replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
Franklin’s pessimism was not unwarranted. His worse fears are being played out today. The only remaining question is whether America has the will and resolve to end this downward economic spiral leading to an inevitable disaster. It will be inflation for us and economic collapse for out progeny.
So, there ‘tis.