Fiscal Torture
“An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.” (George Eliot)
As it pertains to the outcome of the midterm elections on November 8th, we’ve been hearing terms like shellacking, landslide, bloodbath, tsunami, wipeout, cataclysm, apocalypse, and fuggedaboudit. One can only hope that’s true.
It’s unlikely, however, with all the feel-good baloney emanating from Washington ahead of the midterms that many of us will take the time to understand the implications of some of the mendacious rhetoric and economic insanity it constitutes. I offer three characteristically modest examples:
Exhibit A
On the subject of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, a slippery cover for barrels of pork and green energy gladhanding, I enter into evidence this post from the Tax Foundation, “Details & Analysis of the Inflation Reduction Act Tax Provisions”. This synopsis should suffice to expose the prevarication:
The Inflation Reduction Act would reduce long-run economic output by about 0.2 percent and eliminate about 29,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the United States. It would also reduce average after-tax incomes for taxpayers across every income quintile over the long run. By reducing long-run economic Growth, this bill may actually worsen inflation by constraining the productive capacity of the Economy.
Sir Isaac Newton famously wrote in his Third Law of Motion, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Likewise, for every lie, there is an equal and opposite truth.
Exhibit B
And while we’re on the subject of good news, there’s this — “Fact-Checking Team Biden on Who Those 87,000 New IRS Agents Would Audit” — from The Heritage Foundation, of which this is a telling citation:
The Biden administration has promised not to raise taxes on anyone making under $400,000 a year … But considering the sheer magnitude of 87,000 new IRS agents … is it possible for all those new audits and revenues to involve only taxpayers making over $400,000? … Auditing every single taxpayer with annual income over $1 million would require only 25,000 new IRS enforcement agents, but Democrats’ bill calls for 87,000 new agents. What will all those extra agents be doing? … Despite the Biden administration’s claims, it’s almost certain that households making less than $400,000 a year would face increased audits under Democrats’ bill … And that seems to be the true intent of the IRS.
Or, as the saying goes in Washington, tu dinero es mi dinero.
Exhibit C
And for those of you who may have missed it, the definition of suckers has now been expanded to include:
- Any parents who paid their children’s ways through college
- Any students who paid their own ways through college
- Anyone who works for a living who chose not to go to college for any reason or no reason.
In this incisively brilliant post — “Biden Vote Bribe: Squeezing Chumbolone Nation Workers to Subsidize Elite College Grads” (thank you to my friend, Jim Vinoski, for the share) — the former Chicago Tribune columnist, John Kaas, wrote this:
Biden has bypassed Congress to use dubious executive powers to order a massive (and unprecedented) $300 billion to $900 billion transfer of wealth, taken from the working and middle classes and giving to the college educated to subsidize those college tuition loans … But Biden’s shakedown is unconstitutional and politically dangerous … And who pays? The plumbers and electricians pay. The truck drivers, motel maids, and others who never went to college. And those who went to college yet paid their own way, and spent years after college, eating Ramen noodles and working two jobs to scrape by and pay their debts and the bills … “There is more outstanding student debt in Washington than in any other city in the country … The average debtor in D.C. … owes $52,982 in unpaid student loans. This includes many political staffers at the Department of Education, senior advisors as well as junior aides who moved to that agency from the Biden campaign.” And the White House.
Using my Secret Political-Speak Decoder Ring, all of this translates thusly: “We don’t need no stinking Constitution. We have an election to win, promises to keep, and miles to go before we have the control we want.”
We’re in seriously deep trouble, kids. Let’s pray it’s not too late to get out of it.
Originally Published on https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/category/lifecolumns/notes-to-self/
