Biden’s BIG ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ Lie
Chalk up two more losers under the “Biden’s Biggest Blunders” column.
First, it’s official. Biden and his merry band of Demos have now driven the economy into recession. Predictably, Joe Biden insisted the economy is not in recession: “Coming off of last year’s historic economic growth — and regaining all the private sector jobs lost during the pandemic crisis — it’s no surprise that the economy is slowing down as the Federal Reserve acts to bring down inflation. But even as we face historic global challenges, we are on the right path and we will come through this transition stronger and more secure.”
To be clear, the “historic economic growth” last year was all about businesses trying to get back on their feet and restoring a degree of the economic growth momentum the Trump administration’s policies created before the ChiCom Virus pandemic hit. The same is true of all those “historic” employment numbers for which Biden keeps claiming credit.
For the record, I would not call the declining GDP numbers an “economic plunge” because there is an outside chance the Fed can use interest rates to get surging inflation under control. However, I note that by all consumer accounts, including our staff members with larger families, the 9.1% inflation rate, a 40-year high, is far lower than the inflation rate on consumer products Americans are bearing. And it does not include “shrinkflation” — a term to describe prices on essential consumer products being upsized while packaging quantities or volumes are being downsized.
As a result, consumer confidence, like Biden’s abysmal approval polling, has dropped to its lowest point since Biden took office.
Second, timed to release the same day that the GDP numbers hit in order to create a distraction, and taking Republicans by surprise, Biden announced his so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” a name that, in itself, reflects how Democrats have mastered the art of the BIG Lie.
He declared it was a “historic agreement to fight inflation and lower costs for American families.” And he insisted, “It will be the most important investment — not hyperbole — the most important investment that we’ve ever made in our energy security.” This from the guy who has done more damage to our “energy security,” particularly undermining energy production and depleting our national reserves, than any president in American history. And all in the name of limiting so-called climate change, another masterful play on words.
The primary “features” of the “Inflation Reduction Act” include hundreds of billions for boondoggle “green energy” projects, a pre-midterm election bone thrown to his leftist constituents, and hundreds of billions in tax increases — all of which will fuel inflation, not reduce it. Demos claim this BIG Lie as a big win, but it is a loser for American consumers and taxpayers.
Indeed, Biden said his assessment of this bloated spending bill was “not hyperbole” because in fact it is total bull chips.
Kamala Harris piled it higher and deeper: “The agreement reached yesterday between Leader Schumer of New York and Senator Manchin is a major step forward in our fight against inflation.”
How did Biden pull it off? Ah, yes, that flip-flopper Joe Manchin.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said of the surprise Manchin-Schumer deal: “A few years back [Manchin] said ‘I don’t think that during a time of recession you mess with any of the taxes or increase any taxes’. But alas, just yesterday, Washington Democrats announced they plan to do exactly that.”
Apparently, McConnell voted for the Demos’ semiconductor production bill believing that Manchin would not support Biden’s bloated bill. Manchin bushwhacked McConnell and the rest of the Republican senators who are expressing their righteous outrage.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) outlined Manchin’s secret deal and the backroom bushwhack in detail: “The climate and tax provisions apparently were never off the table, despite what we had been told. Apparently Democrats, specifically the Majority Leader and Senator Manchin, just moved those discussions out of the public eye into a secret back room. They’re calling it the Inflation Reduction Act. What an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Do they think anybody will be fooled? The Democratic Leader’s crafting secret deals in back rooms… To look you in the eye and tell you one thing and to do another is absolutely unforgivable.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) accurately protested the fallacy of Biden’s $369 billion on “climate” and $433 billion in new spending: “This bill is going to fuel even more inflation. It’s not going to fight inflation, no matter what Joe Manchin says. And it is going to kill jobs by raising taxes on businesses. And by the way, those taxes will also fuel more inflation because businesses will pass tax hikes along to consumers. The last thing we should be doing is putting another trillion dollar tax and spending bill into an economy that has both record-high inflation and a recession. That is something that only Joe Biden could have accomplished.”
For his part, Manchin insists he did not bushwhack Republicans, but indeed he did.
Let’s be clear: The “climate” bucks, expanding the $7,500 taxpayer-funded “credit” for buying an electric vehicle, is all smoke and mirrors. Yes, the purchaser, mostly the wealthiest Americans, does get a tax credit, but the price of that credit is already backed into the retail price of the vehicle. In other words, the purchaser is buying an overpriced car and the seller is collecting the windfall. Government-induced tax credits to change behavior never work, and, as is the case with government solar energy tax credits, they actually inflate consumer costs by the amount of the credit.
Furthermore, raising corporate taxes is, in effect, a tax on all Americans. Inflating corporate taxes inflates consumer prices because consumer product purchases pay for corporate taxes. And higher corporate taxes mean less capital to expand operations, to hire employees, and to pay existing employees better.
As for Biden’s specious assertion that his tax increases on corporations will “reduce” the deficit, the Congressional Budget Office has debunked that claim.
Political analyst David Harsanyi notes, “The Inflation Reduction Act is to inflation what the Affordable Care Act — which doubled premium costs — was to health care insurance.”
As I have noted previously, the current pace of surging inflation is the direct result of Biden’s so-called American Rescue Plan, which dumped $1.9 trillion in taxpayer-funded graft into a $300 billion economic hole created by the COVID pandemic — on top of all the 2020 “COVID relief” spending already being dispensed. That excess $1.6 trillion is indisputably a major factor in the inflation now crushing family budgets.
As a result of inflation, real hourly wages have fallen 4.8% since Biden took office, the worst since the 1970s. That is a monetary loss of $3,400 in annual wages per worker, or $6,800 per family in which both parents work. That’s a stiff price to avoid mean tweets from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
There is one potential holdout vote on Biden’s bill, Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), who has yet to signal her support. Astoundingly, she was not included in the Schumer/Manchin negotiations and has previously indicated her opposition to elements of Biden’s big spending bills.
Finally, shortly after Biden took office, with the Senate 50/50, I wrote in “Memo to Trump: Call Joe Manchin” that the former president should go to West Virginia, a state he won in 2020 by a whopping 39 points, and have a “talk” with Manchin about switching parties. Trump has an opportunity to spend the next week in the Mountain State rallying his grassroots support to “encourage” Manchin to reconsider.
All in all, we are reminded, once again, that the most destructive weapon in the Demos’ political arsenal to undermine American Liberty is the power to tax and spend, which keeps their political campaign coffers full.
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
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