Harris Gives Dems Victory In the Laughably-Titled 'Inflation Reduction Act'

P. Gardner Goldsmith | August 8, 2022
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Never one prone to puffery or elitism, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) offered this Sunday afternoon:

"This bill is going to change America for decades.”

He was, of course, referring to the passed-along-party-lines, Kamala Harris-decided, 51-50 victory he and his cohorts achieved with the final vote on their so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” which now heads to the House for “reconciliation” and likely swift passage there.

And Schumer was, of course, correct, since every bill the Legislative Branch passes slams America for decades – most often to the detriment of most Americans and their debt-saddled progeny. And if any of your friends think that they should interpret Schumer’s comment as meaning that the change will be a positive one, then inform them that one doesn’t put out a fire by adding buckets of gas.

Folks like Schumer, Harris, Joe Biden, Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and even the faux-budget-protector, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) will not “reduce inflation” by disgorging $369 BILLION into the world over the next few years (it was $325 billion two weeks ago, so, likely, a lot of the recent “wrangling” about this “inflation-fighting bill” had to do with adding more gasoline to the pork-spending inferno).

That’s nearly $370 billion, folks, almost half of the biggest “discretionary” U.S. budget item: the $754 billion allotted in 2022 to be showered on the U.S. military and sundry weapons handouts to “international friends.”

Pardon this writer’s lack of enthusiasm, but Schumer’s rhetorical flirtation with self-seen omnipotence either lacks any concept of what inflation is, or, if he IS aware of what it is, it reflects the diabolism of a sadistic torturer.

Let’s take a further look inside this wondrous legislation, and study it on three levels: the economic, the constitutional, and the moral/philosophical.

Fred Lucas reports for The Daily Signal:

“The Democrats’ 755-page bill increases green energy subsidies, expands the IRS, and enacts other initiatives long sought by the left, and authorizes $430 billion in new spending. That’s supposed to be offset by $740 billion in new revenues from tax hikes and increased enforcement that includes the hiring of 87,000 additional IRS agents to conduct audits and seek tax liens.”

That last bit about the additional IRS agents is important. It will see the IRS double in size, raising the agency's budget by at least 600 percent, with, as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on August 7, the number of Internal Revenue “Service” employees becoming larger than the employee population “of the Pentagon, the Department of State, the FBI, and the Border Patrol COMBINED!”

Because, it’s a “service.” Remember that.

Related: Biden’s Economic Report Mentions 'Gender' 40 Times More Than 'Inflation' | MRCTV

Adds Lucas:

“Sen. Michael Crapo, R-Idaho, offered an unsuccessful amendment that would have prohibited the IRS from using the $80 billion in new funding to audit taxpayers earning less than $400,000 a year.”

Because, as we’ll all remember “for decades,” the Dems promise that this glorious bill won’t raise taxes on those in that class-envy “below $400k per year” category. Indeed, Lucas reminds us, as well:

“That came as Senate Democrats and President Joe Biden have claimed that their bill would not raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 per year. 

However, the nonpartisan Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation determined that taxes would increase by up to $16.7 billion for Americans making less than $200,000 in 2023, and increase by $14.1 billion for those earning between $200,000 and $500,000. 

A Heritage Foundation analysis determined the bill would impose a $4,500 tax increase on the average American household over the next decade. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)”

So, let’s look at the large economic picture. You have a federal government that, as The Free Thought Project reported in January (along with a handy chart, to add power to the punch):

“In just the past three fiscal years, federal spending has swollen to nearly $7 trillion a year, up from about $4.4 trillion in fiscal year 2019. Spending was $6.6 trillion in 2020, and $6.8 trillion in 2021.

If we want to put this into perspective, we can take a look at the monetary supply at the beginning of 2020, which showed just $4.0192 trillion in circulation. By January 2021, that number had jumped up to $6.7 trillion — but this was only the beginning.

By November of last year, that number climbed to $20.354 trillion dollars in circulation — meaning that since January 2020, the United States has printed nearly 80% of all US dollars in existence.”

And in the U.S., what the media claim is inflation, but really is a measure of price increases due to an already-inflated money supply, recently came in at 9.1 percent, year-over-year, as of June.

Many people who teach or work in the field of economics can tell you it likely is twice that rate.

But the answer from Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Sinema, Manchin, Harris, and many others, is not only to spend more worthless cash, thus forcing the government to issue more bonds, to be purchased by the money-inventing Federal Reserve, THUS INFLATING THE MONEY SUPPLY, which IS the definition of INFLATION – but they want to extract, as ABC News reports, $739 BILLION in taxes from the economy.

This isn’t a “it’s just a shift to better spending priorities” world. This is theft and redistribution of wealth into politically chosen fields, taking away the free market ability – the SHEER FREEDOM – for us to spend that earned income in areas we determine are productive and worthwhile.

That includes special gifts to special states, like Kyrsten Sinema’s Arizona, which will see $4 BILLION in, as ABC puts it, “resources to combat draught in the western U.S.”

And this “Inflation Reduction Act” includes special pork handouts to the Climate Cult by favoring “green energy” corporations.

These are giant handouts for “wind and solar” and “electric vehicles” that ABC glosses over with:

“Most of the $369 billion the Inflation Reduction Act would spend on climate would go to renewable energy tax credits that would prop up clean energy technology such as carbon capture, hydrogen, renewables and energy storage. The climate provisions would also provide consumer tax credits for ‘home energy efficiency improvements’ and for the purchase of clean vehicles.”

Let’s study that for a moment.

If these are tax breaks, then why are they included as part of the “$369 billion the Inflation Reduction Act would spend on climate…”?

Because they aren’t neutral stoppages of taxation for government-preferred behavior on the part of the lemming-like, enviro-enthralled, Climate Cultist. They are handouts depicted as “tax rebates” and “grants.” They are designed to further tilt the economy towards the anti-economic non-options of wind and solar, when those are not as efficient and productive energy sources as oil, natural gas, and coal.

And you know those “Obamacare” portals in your state?

More money.

“Aside from climate spending, the reconciliation bill also would allocate $64 billion to extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies by three years, through 2025.”

And virtually not one bleeding penny of this is constitutional.

From “fighting drought” near Sinema’s home district, to a pipeline going through Joe Manchin's West Virginia (one that, somehow, was included in this rabidly anti-oil, anti-natural gas "Climate Change" bill, almost as if it was a giveaway to get Joe's vote), to federal spending on prescription drugs (that’s given a big boost, as well) to so-called "drug price negotiations" for Medicare and Medicaid that will shift costs to people paying their own prescription way using their own private insurance, to between $4,000 and $7,500 so-called "tax credits" (even if you don't owe taxes) for buying electric vehicles, to extended federal subsidies to people getting Obamacare, to a “methane emissions reduction program,” not one bit of it conforms with any enumerated power granted to any branch of the United States Government.

And even if they were, they would not be moral, for the only way the government gets its money is through making people pay in taxes. Those taxes will be forced from us, or our kids, in order to pay off the metastatic debt, but we will pay, even as the new federal spending floods more useless cash into the system.

This will not lower inflation at all. It will only lower our living standards and our already-flatlining level of liberty. It’s insulting, crass, and craven. And it surely will pass the House in a matter of days.

Related: Biden Doesn’t Understand Inflation, and That Will Harm Generations | MRCTV

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