Manchin: Schumer ‘will not have my vote’ on $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill

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Bernie Sanders and the Democrats seeks to inject socialism into America with this monstrosity of a bill. In addition, it has been discovered that this bill would allow the IRS to monitor bank transactions, potentially violating the 4th Amendment. The bill will also grant amnesty to millions of people who have entered the United States illegally. And the bill would provide free community college to Americans, while funding  radical “green” projects in the years ahead. This bill must be stopped. Keep calling Senator Manchin and tell him to vote no.

Manchin: Schumer ‘will not have my vote’ on $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill

By Fox News, September 12, 2021

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday that he will not vote in favor of his party’s $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package, which is a central part of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and needs the support of all 50 Democratic senators to pass.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Manchin was asked by anchor Dana Bash to respond to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who said Democrats were moving “full speed ahead” on the package for which Manchin previously called for a “pause.” Manchin, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said his main issue with the package is its hefty price tag.

“He will not have my vote on 3.5 and Chuck knows that,” he said, adding that it should be more like $1.5 trillion. “It’s not going to be three and a half I can assure you.”

Manchin said the bill that Democrats should be primarily focused on is the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed in the Senate and is awaiting House action. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said a vote on that bill would be held on Sept. 27, but progressives have threatened to vote against it if the reconciliation bill is held up in the Senate.

Manchin said there is “no way” the reconciliation will pass this month, and he said progressives are making a big mistake if they follow through on their threat.

“They have to do what they have to do,” he said. “And if they play politics with the needs of America, I can tell you America will recoil.”

Appearing later on ABC’s “This Week,” Manchin criticized Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., after the senator declared on Twitter the day before: “No infrastructure bill without the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.”

“I just respectfully disagree with Bernie,” Manchin told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “I’ve never seen this in legislation. I never thought the purposes of the progress we make in legislation was basically to hold one hostage over the other.”

Sanders, who appeared later on the same show, fired back, saying “the real question” is whether it is “appropriate for one person to destroy two pieces of legislation.”

Sanders said that regardless of the party infighting, he expected both bills to eventually pass.

Budget reconciliation rules prevent Republicans from filibustering the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, so Democrats only need a simple majority to pass it. With a 50-50 Senate, Democrats need every senator in their party to vote yes, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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Bernie Sanders calls Manchin’s refusal to back $3.5 trillion spending plan ‘absolutely not acceptable’

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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New Study Vindicates States that Canceled Expanded Unemployment Welfare Early

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This new study simply confirms what common sense and basic economics alike always predicted.

ebate over the welfare state is once again making headlines. On Monday, the expanded unemployment welfare system was finally allowed to expire after more than a year. Originally created as a “short-term” measure authorized for a few months in March 2020 then repeatedly extended, these benefits paid many of the unemployed more than their former jobs, with benefits reaching up to $25/hour in dozens of states.

Dozens of Republican-led states chose to end the benefits early. This week’s termination of enhanced benefits was in the Democrat-run states that maintained the expanded payouts, and with their lapse, the debate over whether these benefits were disincentivizing work was reignited.

The Wall Street Journal even published a news article, widely circulated among welfare advocates, claiming that “states that cut off enhanced unemployment benefits early didn’t see a significant boost in job growth.” This was a bizarre spin given that the article itself notes that “economists generally agree the enhanced benefits caused some people to stay out of the labor market” and contains several pieces of evidence suggesting they did have a significant effect. But the skewed reporting is consistent with a broad pattern in media coverage and political commentary that has attempted to downplay and deny any drawbacks of the welfare expansion.

New research makes the obvious work disincentive even more difficult to deny. A new report by Mercatus Center economist Michael Farren and Christopher M. Kaiser analyzed data from the Current Population Survey and found that states which ended the expanded benefits saw twice as much job growth compared to states which maintained them.

The results “show that higher UI benefits tend to discourage employment, whereas the end of UI eligibility appears to motivate more workers to become employed,” the Mercatus researchers note. They pointed out that this is consistent with a long and extensive economic literature finding that unemployment benefits—which effectively subsidize joblessness—lead to increased unemployment.

This new study simply confirms what common sense and basic economics alike always predicted. States that ended ultra-generous benefits earlier had more job growth, while those which continued to disincentivize work had weaker job growth. But don’t expect welfare state advocates to acknowledge this reality any time soon, lest their big-government worldview begin to fall apart.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Like this story? Click here to sign up for the FEE Daily and get free-market news and analysis like this from Policy Correspondent Brad Polumbo in your inbox every weekday.

Biden’s Handlers Want You to Cough Up $6.4 Billion to Resettle 94,000 Afghans in the U.S.

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My latest in PJ Media:

Old Joe Biden’s handlers have asked Congress for $30 billion, which means that you better brace yourselves for significant tax increases in the near future. According to NBC News,  $23.6 billion of this is slated to go to deal with the devastation from Hurricane Ida and other natural disasters; the other $6.4 billion, meanwhile, is to cover the expenses of resettling 94,000 Afghans in the United States. And really, now, what could possibly go wrong?

NBC explained that “the U.S. anticipates bringing 64,000 Afghans to the U.S. by the end of this month and 30,000 over the next 12 months, the official said. Of the funding for the refugees, $2.4 billion will go to pay for the Defense Department’s operations overseas where the Afghans are being held and processed. An additional $1.7 billion will go to the Department of Health and Human Services to provide funding and resources to the Afghans to help them set up a new home in the U.S.”

This U.S. taxpayer money would also “go to support transportation costs between overseas processing sites and the United States, security screenings, humanitarian assistance, public health screenings and vaccinations. The administration official said Afghans ‘will receive similar benefits to refugees.’ After 12 months in the U.S., the Afghans will be eligible to apply to become LPRs — lawful permanent residents — and receive so-called ‘green cards.’”

And of course all of the applicants will get those green cards no matter what they have done, up to and including slitting the throat of a woman for committing the crime of having a job, as an Afghan migrant did a few days ago in Germany. What are Western authorities going to do — deport them back to Afghanistan? With the Taliban reaching new lows in human rights abuses practically every day, there is zero chance of that. The Afghan evacuees are here to stay.

While this may thrill naïve multiculturalists and Catholic bishops, there are good reasons to temper our enthusiasm about all this. Let’s assume, although we don’t really have any good reason to do so in light of the Biden administration’s refusal to admit the reality of the global Islamic jihad, that the security screenings this $6.4 billion will pay for are completely, one-hundred-percent effective. Does that mean that the people who will soon be our neighbors will have no trouble whatsoever adjusting to American society?

Consider, for example, the fact that according to a Pew Research Center survey in 2013 (and there is no reason to think anything has changed since then), 73% of Afghans believe that Islamic law, Sharia, is not devised by human beings, but is the perfect and unalterable law of Allah. There are plenty of people in America now who believe that, but fully 99% of the Afghans surveyed stated that they believed Sharia should be the law of the land. Might any of them be among Biden’s handlers’ 94,000 evacuees? Might they have difficulty accepting a secular republic in which the government derives its authority not from Allah, but from the consent of the governed?

There is more. Read the rest here.

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France: Jihadi begins trial by professing Islamic faith, former president says jihadis just want to ‘divide us’

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

TAKE ACTION: Senator Manchin, and other moderate Democrats, are threatening passage of $3.5 trillion socialist spending bill.

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The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is trailed by reporters as she departs a meeting with fellow House Democrats about Joe Biden’s sweeping plan to expand spending on social programs, at the US Capitol on Monday. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Please see bottom of article for individual emails prepared for you to send to the senators.

CNN published an article titled:  Manchin upends Democrats’ push to enact Biden’s agenda this month, calling for ‘pause’ on $3.5 trillion bill.  The article reports in part:

Sen. Joe Manchin, the most pivotal Democratic swing vote in the Senate, threw a major wrench in his party’s carefully crafted plans to pass a massive $3.5 trillion bill by month’s end, demanding they take a “strategic pause” before considering a sweeping bill to implement much of President Joe Biden’s agenda.

Manchin, who has long been skeptical of the staggering price tag, made clear Thursday that he’s also opposed to the timeframe Democratic leaders had been charting out for months, a position that now threatens both the larger Democratic-only proposal but also the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that passed the Senate earlier this summer.

In a strongly worded op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, the moderate senator called on fellow Democrats to “hit a strategic pause on the budget-reconciliation legislation,” referring to the bill that can be approved in the Senate by just a simple majority — meaning all 50 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus have to support the bill or it will collapse since all 50 Republicans are expected to oppose it.

“Instead of rushing to spend trillions on new government programs and additional stimulus funding, Congress should hit a strategic pause on the budget-reconciliation legislation,” he wrote in the op-ed. “A pause is warranted because it will provide more clarity on the trajectory of the pandemic, and it will allow us to determine whether inflation is transitory or not.”

High inflation and gas prices caused by recent excessive congressional spending are hurting millions of American families and threatening our economy.   Fox News Poll reports: “83% worry about inflation, majority says benefits hurting economy.  Inflation tops the list of economic concerns for voters– ahead of taxes, unemployment, the federal deficit, and interest rates.”   The increasing gasoline prices and energy costs will likely go even higher with the left’s obsession with the New Green Deal which is part of the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

It is fiscally irresponsible for congress to throw more money on the inflation fire that will break the budgets of more American families and burden them with entitlement programs that will endure forever.   Additionally, the $3.5 trillion plan will require much more money from the private sector to pay for more entitlement programs thus pushing America even closer to socialism while hurting our robust economy.  This bill will increase energy costs and our dependence on foreign oil thereby weakening national security.

Florida Family Association has prepared emails for you to send to encourage Senator Manchin and other moderate Democrats to stand firm against the socialist spending bill.  This is our chance to try to slow fiscal insanity and socialism.  It is important for your influence in this situation that each senator receives their own email without inclusion of email addresses for the other representatives.  Florida Family Association urges you to take the few minutes that will be needed to send all seven emails for this important situation.

PLEASE SEND THE PREPARED EMAIL TO ENCOURAGE THE FOLLOWING SENATORS TO STAND FIRM AGAINST THE $3.5 TRILLION SOCIALIST SPENDING BILL.  

Unfortunately, the United States Senate is blocking Florida Family Association’s email server that is used to send action emails.  Therefore, Florida Family Association has prepared an email for you to send that will open in your email client.

Click here to send email to Senator Manchin.
Joe Manchin, West Virginia
Wesley Kungel, Legislative Director
wes_kungel@manchin.senate.gov

Click here to send email to Senator Sinema.
Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona
Meg Joseph, Chief of Staff
meg_joseph@sinema.senate.gov

Click here to send email to Senator Kelly.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.
Jennifer Cox, Chief of Staff
jennifer_cox@kelly.senate.gov

Click here to send email to Senator Hassan.
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.
Marc Goldberg, Chief of Staff
marc_goldberg@hassan.senate.gov

Click here to send email to Senator Hickenlooper.
Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo
Kirtan Mehta, Chief of Staff
kirtan_mehta@hickenlooper.senate.gov

Click here to send email to Senator Feinstein.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
David Grannis, Chief of Staff
david_grannis@feinstein.senate.gov

Click here to send email to Senator Leahy.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
John Dowd, Chief of Staff
john_dowd@leahy.senate.gov

These emails will open in your email browser because the United States Senate is blocking normal form emails sent through the Florida Family Association email server.  If the above link does not open in your email browser or if the email is returned to you please prepare an email using the suggested subject line, content and email addresses provided below. Please feel free to change the wording.

Suggested subject line:

Please oppose the inflationary and oppressively burdensome $3.5 trillion spending plan.

Suggested content:

Dear Senator (enter last name),

I urge you to oppose the $3.5 trillion spending plan because it will throw more money on the inflation fire that will break the budgets of more American families, burden the private sector with entitlement programs that will endure forever  and eventually hurt our current robust economy.  This bill will push America closer to socialism than ever before.  It will increase energy costs and our dependence on foreign oil thereby weakening national security.

To call your states’ United States Senators click here and look up the phone number for your state’s senators.

EDITORS NOTE: This Florida Family Association column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Question Isn’t if Biden Will Fund the Taliban, The Question is How Will He Fund the Taliban

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The question isn’t if Biden will fund the Taliban, the question is how will he fund the Taliban.

There’s a split on that with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan suggesting that US aid may go directly to the Taliban. (Whether it goes directly or indirectly, the Taliban will still unquestionably cash in.)

Sullivan also would not rule out giving the Taliban aid in the future. He said that the US will continue to provide humanitarian assistance “directly” to the Afghan people, which, he said, would not flow through the Taliban but through international institutions like the World Health Organization and other nongovernmental organizations.

But, going forward, aid to Afghanistan through the Taliban directly will be conditioned upon the Taliban’s behavior, including whether the remaining Americans are able to safely evacuate.

“That will be about the Taliban’s actions. It will be about whether they follow through on their commitments, their commitments to safe passage for Americans and Afghan allies, their commitment to not allow Afghanistan to be a base from which terrorists can attack the United States or any other country, their commitments with respect to upholding their international obligations. It’s going to be up to them. And we will wait and see by their actions how we end up responding in terms of the economic and development assistance,” he said.

Then it was Jen Psaki’s turn to insist that Sullivan hadn’t said what he had said.

Q    And then on — on the future aid to the Taliban that Jake Sullivan was talking about this morning.

MS. PSAKI:  Yeah.

Q    He said, when it comes to economic and development assistance, the relationship with the Taliban will be about Taliban actions.  Should we understand that to mean that economic and development assistance could translate to taxpayer money eventually going to the Taliban at some point?  I know that’s different from the humanitarian aid we’ve been talking about — the World Food Programme and things like that — but these specific references that Sullivan made this morning.

MS. PSAKI:  Well, I would — I would just go back to kind of the earlier question on this.  There’s an enormous amount of money they have at the federal — in the Federal Reserve — I shouldn’t say “they” — the government of Afghanistan has in the Federal Reserve, which they don’t have access to right now.  That’s actually their money that’s being held there.  So that’s one of the questions here.

There are also sanctions that are in place on a number of leaders.  Obviously, that prevents them from doing business in various parts of the world.  I think that’s really what Jake Sullivan was referring to.

That’s not what Sullivan was referring to since he mentioned “economic and development assistance”.

But few in the media bother calling out Psaki on her constant stream of lies.

Psaki calls the money in the Federal Reserve, “their money”. As I reported in, “Biden Tried to Send Pallets of Cash to the Taliban as Kabul Fell”, that’s not really accurate.

Ahmady estimates that $7 billion of DAB’s assets are being held by the Federal Reserve which includes the gold, the bills and bonds, $300 million in cash, and another $2.4 billion in World Bank funds for aiding developing countries.

A whole lot of money came from us in the first place.

The question is whether Biden is bargaining with the Taliban using the money we already had been giving to Afghanistan or whether he’s playing with new taxpayer monies.

As I wrote…

The Taliban were hoping to get their hands on Afghanistan’s money, but much of it is in the United States. The most tangible part of Afghanistan’s assets, $1.3 billion in gold, is sitting in downtown Manhattan, a little bit south of Ground Zero, in the vaults of the Federal Reserve. If there were any justice, that money would be used to compensate the police officers, firefighters, and workers who died on that day or later on from ailments related to 9/11.

COLUMN BY

DANIEL GREENFIELD

RELATED ARTICLES:

Idiots: After Pakistan Helps Taliban Take Power, Biden’s Handlers Ask Pakistanis to Help Fight Jihadis

Some Afghan Evacuees Brought Their Child Brides to the U.S. With Them

Taliban holding US citizens on six planes, demanding payment to allow planes to leave Afghanistan

British Border Force admits some Afghan evacuees have forged papers

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

San Francisco To Pay Violent Criminals Not to Shoot Each Other

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Only the rational people of California can put an end to this madness by voting to recall Governor Newsom on September 14th.

San Francisco to Fight Rising Gun Crime by Paying People Not to Shoot Each Other

By Breitbart, September 2, 2021

San Francisco will roll out a pilot program in October that will pay “high risk” individuals not to shoot one another, Fox News reported.

The program, which is sponsored by the Dream Keeper Fellowship, will pay 10 people “who are at high risk of being on either end of a shooting” $300 per month to forego the violent crime. Notably, the Dream Keeper Initiative is part of San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s (D) plan to divert $120 million from the city’s law enforcement budget to projects aimed at helping the city’s black minority.

“These small investments can transform the lives of individuals, but they can also transform communities,” Sheryl Davis, executive director of the Human Rights Commission, told Newsweek.

In August, Mayor Breed said she believes the program will cut down on violent crime in the city, which has skyrocketed this year.

According to Fox News, there have been 119 recorded gun crime victims in the first six months of 2021, “which is double the number during the same timeframe in 2020.” In 2020, homicides rose 35 percent.

Richmond, California, reportedly instituted a similar program, which the media called “cash for criminals.”  A 2019 study concluded that the program helped reduce gun homicides in the city by 55 percent, the report states.

Fox News continued:

Critics of the program have pointed out that similar initiatives haven’t been very successful, with the Washington Examiner‘s David Freddoso saying in a Wednesday op-ed, “It was also tried in Sacramento, where its promoters boast that ‘only’ 44 percent  of participants were subsequently arrested on new charges — well, as long as you don’t count about one-third of the participants who dropped out or were arrested in its first six months.

California also recently decided to throw money at its drug problem by paying people to stay sober, something Gov. Gavin Newsom called “contingency management.” He asked the federal government for permission to use tax dollars to pay for it through Medicaid.

RELATED TWEET:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

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Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

Biden’s America-Last Administration: U.S. Aid Will Keep Flowing to Taliban

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https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1432746089669595141

My latest in PJ Media:

The war is lost, but no one is going to be held accountable and the same blinkered woke dopes are in charge. In fact, the one whose very name is Blinken, the secretary of State, explained Monday how the Taliban could gain the “international legitimacy and support” that is obviously such a high priority for them, and explained that even if it didn’t become the Leftist woke paradise of Blinken’s imagining, the American money will still flow. Of course. It always does.

Blinken claimed risibly that henceforth, the America-Last administration of Biden’s handlers would be guided by a concern for something that has never appeared on its list of priorities up to now: “our vital national interests.” Yeah, sure, Tony. Pull my other leg. More plausibly, Blinken assured the world that despite the last few weeks of catastrophe and humiliation, the American taxpayers will still be filling their cars with $4-a-gallon gasoline and driving to their pathetic nine-to-fives so that the elites can demonstrate their concern for the people of Afghanistan: “If we can work in the new Afghan government in a way that helps secure those interests … and in a way that brings greater stability to the country and the region, and that protects the gains of the last two decades, we will do it.”

The gains of the last two decades? What were those? Blinken didn’t say. He was too busy promising the Taliban American money: “The United States will continue to support humanitarian aid to the Afghan people. Consistent with our sanctions on the Taliban, the aid will not flow through the government, but rather through independent organizations, such as U.N. agencies and [non-government organizations.] And, we expect that those efforts will not be impeded by the Taliban or anyone else.”

Of course the Taliban won’t impede the money flow. They’re much more likely to appropriate it. Just as UN agencies in Gaza are wholly compromised by Hamas, it strains credulity to think that UN will be able to operate freely and independently of the Taliban in Afghanistan, or will even try to do so. But in Antony Blinken’s blinkered world, the UN is an incorrupt and thoroughly uncorruptable organization, and so no American taxpayer should object to his or her or xer money going to UN outposts in the Taliban’s Afghanistan. Really, what could possibly go wrong?

Blinken demonstrated his lack of acquaintance with reality yet again when he explained that if the Taliban wanted international approval, it would have to become a Leftist nanny state like the U.S. and its allies, all concerned with diversity and inclusiveness: “The Taliban seeks international legitimacy and support. Our message is: any legitimacy and any support will have to be earned.”

Is that right? And exactly what leverage do you have on the Taliban if they don’t earn it, Mr. Secretary?

There is more. Read the rest here.

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Kinder, Gentler Taliban Murder Afghan Folk Singer, Because Music Is Un-Islamic

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Taliban moving U.S. military vehicles to the Islamic Republic of Iran

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urges Biden’s handlers to take in ‘no less than 200,000’ refugees

Staggering amounts of US hundred-dollar bills left for Taliban

Afghanistan: Taliban hold military parade with US equipment

Al-Qaeda top dog returns to Afghanistan

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Stanford Study: More Businesses Have Already Fled California This Year Than in All of 2020 [Video]

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California is in decline. The Golden State lost population in 2020 for the first time in decades, and the exodus included celebrity entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and Joe Rogan. A long list of businesses, some as well known as Disney, Hewlett-Packard, Nestle, and Toyota, have either relocated or sent some jobs outside of the state in recent years.

But just how bad have things really gotten in California? A new study from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University analyzes the anecdotes and finds a damning trend.

Authors Joseph Vranich and Lee E. Ohanian examined available reports of companies relocating their headquarters outside of the Golden State. They find that 265 major companies have moved on to greener pastures since January 1, 2018.

The study also reports that the rate at which businesses are leaving the state is rapidly accelerating. For the first six months of 2021, the rate is nearly twice as high as it was last year. That means more businesses have already left California this year than in all of 2020.

The authors note that this count is, if anything, an enormous underestimate. Many small businesses exiting the state do not receive media coverage and are not required to file compliance reports, so many of their exits go uncounted in the analysis.

These businesses take more than just jobs with them when they leave the state. The local communities lose out on investment, income for local businesses, tax revenue, philanthropic work, and much more. So, it’s of the utmost importance to analyze why businesses are leaving California en masse.

Per the study, major reasons for leaving include “high tax rates, punitive regulations, high labor costs, high utility and energy costs, and declining quality of life for many Californians which reflects the cost of living and housing affordability.”

These issues all ultimately trace back to the state government. California has regulated and taxed its once-thriving economy into a coma. The state now ranks as the 50th-worst state to do business in, according to Chief Executive magazine’s 2021 survey. Meanwhile, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council ranks the Golden State the 49th-worst state to do business in. And the Tax Foundation reports that California has the 49th-worst business tax climate in the country.

It’s little surprise that top destination states, per the study, include Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, and other states that have taken markedly different policy approaches.

The great thing about a federalist, 50-state system is that different states can try different things. But this new Stanford study exposes the devastating results of California’s experiment with big government and welfare-state largesse. When empowered to vote with their feet, citizens and businesses alike choose freer markets over centralized government control.

COLUMN BY

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. Like this story? Click here to sign up for the FEE Daily and get free-market news and analysis like this from Policy Correspondent Brad Polumbo in your inbox every weekday.

One of the Biggest Welfare State Expansions in U.S. History Just Got Approved By the House

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And the whopping $3.5 trillion price tag could even be an underestimate.

It’s another day that ends in y, so, Congress just nonchalantly voted to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars. On Tuesday, the House approved a $3.5 trillion spending resolution on a party-line vote, with Democrats backing the measure and Republicans uniformly opposing it.

“House Democrats passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution on Tuesday, 220-212, advancing the party’s effort to pass a sweeping economic package that would expand the nation’s social safety net,” Axios reports. “Democrats now will be able to use the budget reconciliation process to pass a bill — likely later this fall — by a simple majority, tackling key priorities like health care, child care and climate change.”

The so-called “Human Infrastructure” plan paves the way for further bills allocating these trillions toward enormous expansions of the welfare state across many different areas and industries. It includes education measures like taxpayer funding for “free” community college and “universal” pre-school, as well as healthcare expenditures like expanding Obamacare subsidies—even for the wealthy—and adding more people to government healthcare programs. It also has climate schemes like huge electric vehicle subsidies, the creation of a “Civilian Climate Corps” to supposedly create “green jobs,” and much, much more.

It would honestly be easier to list what’s not in the proposal than what is.

The expense here is truly mind-boggling. Remember that this spending plan comes on the heels of more than $6 trillion in ostensibly-pandemic-related welfare spending and in addition to a $1+ trillion transportation infrastructure bill. And this is all in light of a $28.6 trillion—and counting—national debt. This additional $3.5 trillion bill amounts to, roughly estimated, about $24,400 in new spending per federal taxpayer.

If enacted, this plan would be one of the biggest expansions of government and the welfare state in American history. To put it into context, consider President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, the legendary set of government programs enacted in the 1930s that created Social Security and many other forms of welfare still with us today.

Well, the New Deal cost $41.7 billion at the time. And, roughly translated, that’s about $875 billion in today’s dollars. So, the welfare spending plan House Democrats just approved is several times bigger in total cost than the inflation-adjusted New Deal!

The crazy thing is that the $3.5 trillion price may actually be an underestimate.

One of the major provisions in the spending plan is further extending the recently-expanded “child tax credit,” an expensive welfare program that sends regular checks with taxpayer money to families based on how many kids they have.

The $3.5 trillion resolution, when eventually fleshed out into full spending legislation, is likely to reauthorize the tax credit for 2 to 4 years. However, the White House and leaders in Congress have openly said they want to make it permanent. So, we can expect them to simply re-extend it in a few years. They are most likely only doing a shorter extension in this bill to keep the sticker price of the legislation down.

According to American Enterprise Institute senior fellow and Rowe scholar Matt Weidinger, this means the spending plan could ultimately cost up to $1 trillion more than currently advertised. That’s right: the already-exorbitant $3.5 trillion price tag could really be more like $4 trillion or $4.5 trillion in practice.

“If they only extend something for two years but want to make it permanent, all that means is that in two years, someone else is going to have to figure out how to pay for the extension,” Weidinger told me in a phone interview. “But it’s no less of an expectation that they want to make it permanent… they can just only squeeze so much sugar into this 5-pound sack that they’ve created for themselves today.”

Yet, given the sad normalization of profligate spending in Washington DC, some people might unfortunately be unfazed by the prospect of trillions more going out the door. But we should still be alarmed.

“Money doesn’t grow on trees, and somebody has to pay for this,” Weidinger argued. “Whatever the spending promises are today, they will be matched by some tax hikes—including in this legislation—but not nearly enough to actually cover the true cost of this. So, if you want bigger government, more disincentives for people to be working and supporting themselves, and if you want to leave bigger bills for our children and grandchildren to pay, you’re going to love this plan. [If not], you should be quite skeptical of this plan.”

Of course, the headlines and Americans’ attention are understandably concentrated elsewhere, as chaos grips Afghanistan and the pandemic persists. But we cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that Congress is all the while voting away trillions from our pockets and expanding the scope of the welfare state to unprecedented new heights.

COLUMN BY:

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Like this story? Click here to sign up for the FEE Daily and get free-market news and analysis like this from Policy Correspondent Brad Polumbo in your inbox every weekday.

Leftists in U.S. and UK Want Reparations Paid to the Taliban

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My latest in PJ Media:

Richard Burgon, a member of the British Parliament for the far-Left Labour party and Secretary of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs, demonstrated Tuesday that the Left’s commitment to the redistribution of wealth is indefatigable: He declared that what the West really needs to do now is start forking over money to the Taliban. Burgon tweeted: “The crisis in Afghanistan is the result of 20 years of disastrous military intervention. Just as in Iraq & Libya, backing US-led invasions led to a huge loss of life. There is no military solution in Afghanistan. The focus now should be on reparations and supporting refugees.”

Yes, reparations. Paying reparations to Afghanistan would essentially mean funding the Taliban, which has a billion-dollar budget as it is and has no need of the largesse of British or American taxpayers. And Burgon is not alone. Britain’s far-Left Stop the War Coalition issued a statement Sunday demanding that the British government “take a lead in offering a refugee programme and reparations to rebuild Afghanistan, an act which would go a great deal further in advancing the rights of the Afghan people, women in particular, than continued military or economic intervention in the fate of the Afghanistan.”

The call for reparations to the Taliban has been heard on this side of the Atlantic as well. Shabana Mir, an associate professor at American Islamic College in Chicago, first implied that Afghanistan didn’t need any help from the West: “The Western savior narrative vis-a-vis Afghanistan is a framing of Afghanistan as in need of Western help, as dependent on Western help — rather than as a Western-exploited and Western-ravaged people and land.” Then, however, she added: “The U.S. owes s**tloads of reparations to Afghanistan.” The U.S. should have no say in how this money is used: “I have hopes that Afghans can build, if military contractors and the U.S. would get the hell out of the way.”

Meanwhile, far-Left Canadian “journalist” Paul Jay believes that “there must be significant reparations paid to the Afghan people to be administered by the U.N.” Another Leftist “journalist,” Spencer Ackerman, who was primarily responsible ten years ago for getting all mention of Islam and jihad removed from U.S. counterterror training, asked: “What do we owe the Afghan people? We owe them a life they can live, resettling them in the United States if they so choose, and we owe them reparations. Reparations is a charged word, and I do not use it here to suggest that reparations for the descendants of the enslaved ought to wait until we pay reparations for the War on Terror. I mean here that throughout history, the losers of wars have had to pay reparations, though typically to the regimes and not people. But it is people whom the U.S. owes, not regimes.”

There is more. Read the rest here.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Ayanna Pressley’s ‘Cancel Rent’ Hypocrisy, Exposed

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The congresswoman’s rental income is another reminder that landlords are not all wealthy CEOs or big companies.

“Landlord” has become a dirty word in progressive politics. From the #CancelRent movement to support for the CDC’s unlawful “eviction moratorium,” prominent left-wing politicians want the government to back the “good guys,” renters, at the expense of the “bad guys,” landlords. So, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley may have some explaining to do.

The Massachusetts Democrat and #CancelRent advocate has apparently been a landlord for several years now, according to new investigative reporting. She has reportedly earned tens of thousands of dollars in rental income from a Boston property.

“Pressley’s 2020 financial disclosure, filed on Friday, disclosed between $5,000 and $15,000 in rental income from a Boston property in her husband’s name,” Fox News reports. “The property was converted into a multi-family apartment after it was purchased, according to Pressley’s disclosure.”

It’s unclear whether or not Pressley chose to “cancel” rent for her own tenants.

“Pressley’s office did not immediately return Fox News’ request for comment on whether she and her husband canceled rent for their tenants at any point in 2020,” the report continues. “She disclosed the same range of rental income – between $5,000 and $15,000 – in 2020 as she did in 2019, before the pandemic began.”

However, the moral of the story here is much broader than another instance of possible hypocrisy from big-government politicians. (There’s been no shortage of such examples during the pandemic to date). In fact, the congresswoman’s rental income is another reminder that landlords are not all wealthy CEOs or big companies.

Ayanna Pressley is not a multi-millionaire. She is not “the 1%.” In fact, she came from poverty and has an inspiring story of making it against the odds. And now, she is, most likely, somewhere in the middle or upper-middle class. But so are many other landlords, despite progressive rhetoric that paints them all as wealthy and greedy.

According to CNBC, around 14 percent of landlord households earn less than $50,000 annually. Another 15.4 percent earn $50,000-$89,000, while roughly 30 percent are in the $90,000-$200,000 range. In short, a huge portion of landlords are working or middle class.

So, government interventions into the rental market are not the benevolent interventions protecting the working class from exploitation by the rich that #cancelrent advocates claim. Canceling rent, eviction moratoriums, and similar policies are arbitrary and unfair measures that make some working class people winners but others losers. Congresswoman (and landlord!) Ayanna Pressley, of all people, should know that.

WATCH: Why the CDC’s Eviction Moratorium is INSANE (and Illegal!)

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DEATH BLOW: Here’s What’s Inside Comrade Bernie Sanders $3.5 TRILLION Budget

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This is an act of war.

What’s Inside Sen. Sanders’ $3.5 Trillion Budget

By Joseph Lord, The Epoch Times, August 11, 2021 Updated: August 11, 2021

On Aug. 11, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) publicly released the full text of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) $3.5 trillion budget proposal. A few hours later, the Senate narrowly confirmed the budget 50-49. Now, the budget must win approval from the House of Representatives after they return from their recess.

The outline is expected to be the first step in the Democrats’ ambitious plans for increased Federal spending on “human infrastructure,” including education, health care, and housing initiatives. However, the resolution does not include an increase to the debt ceiling, setting the stage for another political battle when Congress returns.

On Aug. 9, Sanders discussed the components of this ambitious plan on the Senate floor, saying that that the $3.5 trillion budget proposal and reconciliation bill would be “the most consequential and comprehensive piece of legislation for working people… that [the Senate] has addressed since Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

Some of the expenses in Sanders’ budget are nothing new—around $800 billion annually for national defense, $70 billion annually for international affairs and foreign aid, $45 billion for research, NASA, and other scientific pursuits, and $20 billion in subsidies for farmers. Still, many of the expenses listed here are new and ambitious.

Citizenship for Illegal Immigrants

Sanders began his speech unveiling the budget by saying that the time “is long overdue for comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship for millions of undocumented workers and families in this country.”

Giving citizenship to illegal immigrants has been a top priority for the Democratic Party since 2016. As part of this proposal, the party is doubling down on that by allowing for up to $107 billion in spending by the Judiciary Committee.

Free Child Care and Secondary Education

A large portion of the budget is devoted to education, with over $726 billion slated to go toward various programs like childcare, pre-K, and tuition-free community college.

Sanders criticized the state of childcare in the country and asserted that the legislation would ensure that “no working family in this country should be paying more than 7 percent for their childcare.” Sanders said this would be accomplished through providing subsidies to parents to help them afford childcare and by providing higher wages to childcare workers.

The legislation would also provide free pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds. “God didn’t create an education system that begins in Kindergarten,” Sanders explained.

Finally, the Democrats have no intention of forgiving student debt or making all public colleges and universities free, but the plan does provide for tuition-free two-year community college.

Federal Housing

The budget also allocates $332 billion toward government subsidies for low-income and affordable housing. Sanders criticized the high number of homeless people in the country, and this budget resolution paves the way for the Democrats in Congress to pass more comprehensive housing reform laws.

New Healthcare Reforms and Funding

Another huge focus of the budget is expansion of the Federal Government’s role in health care. As with child care workers, Democrats hope to increase health care worker wages. Sanders criticized the lack of paid leave in the United States, and said that with the new budget the party also plans to legislate paid family and sick leave.

Additionally, the proposal would devote $18 billion to the Veterans Affairs Committee in order to upgrade VA facilities.

‘Extremely Aggressive’ Policies to Move US Away From Fossil Fuels

The budget allocates $198 billion to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee with an additional $67 billion directed toward the Environment and Public Works Committee. With this funding, Democrats plan to “transform [the U.S.] energy system away from fossil fuels … in an extremely aggressive way” through research and deployment of alternative energy and increased spending for regulatory agencies like the EPA.

Sanders also proposed that Democrats would create a “Civilian Climate Corps,” which he said would give young people the opportunity “to get decent pay and to roll up their sleeves … in order to combat climate change.” Sanders implied that this “Climate Corps” would help in the “extremely aggressive” transformation away from fossil fuels, but he did not elaborate on the way that the group would help achieve that.

Democrats are looking to further move the nation away from fossil fuels by providing incentives to businesses for reducing carbon emissions and by fining polluters.

New Tax Rules

Given the huge $3.5 trillion price tag on this resolution, there are also plans to change tax rules to finance it.

The budget proposes expansion of IRS tax collection without raising taxes on people making less than $400,000 per year; instead, the party will focus on raising taxes on the very wealthy and corporations.

On top of this, the party plans to increase the child tax credit.

Deficit, National Debt to Skyrocket

With such an expensive price tag, and despite new tax rules, the national debt and the deficit would climb as a result of the budget. According to estimates in the bill, the deficit would increase from $1.3 billion in 2022 up to $1.8 trillion in 2031. Because of this deficit, the national debt would be $45 trillion by 2031.

What’s Next for the Budget Resolution

With its passage by the Senate, Sanders’ budget proposal will go to the House of Representatives.

In a letter to legislators, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) stated that the August recess would be interrupted in order to consider the proposal; the House is now set to return to session Aug. 23.

Even then, the party may have a tough battle to pass a final budget. Progressives in the House are adamant that the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the budget reconciliation proposal be considered together or not at all. At the same time, some moderates have shown hesitance to approve the huge price tag of the budget but support the bipartisan bill. In a letter to Nancy Pelosi, a few of these moderate elements wrote: “As soon as the Senate completes its work, we must bring this bipartisan infrastructure bill to the House floor for a standalone vote. This once-in-a-century investment deserves its own consideration, without regard to other legislation.”

Because of this internal disagreement, the final fate of the Senate’s budget proposal is unclear.

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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DEMOCRAT WAR ON AMERICA: Biden Wants To Cut Funding for ‘Border Security Assets and Infrastructure’ by 96%

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No borders? No country.

Biden Wants To Cut Funding for ‘Border Security Assets and Infrastructure’ by 96%

President Joe Biden has now revealed there is at least one area in which he is a fiscal conservative: When it comes to providing the infrastructure needed to secure the border, he wants to spend far less than the government currently spends.

By Terence P. Jeffrey | August 4, 2021 | CNS News:

His administration has presented Congress with a Department of Homeland Security budget proposal that calls for slashing spending on what it calls “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” by 96%.

In fiscal 2021, Congress approved $1,513,000,000 in funding for border security assets and infrastructure. Biden is now asking that Congress approve just $54,315,000 for fiscal 2022. That is a reduction of $1,458,685,000 — or 96.4%.

What exactly is Biden cutting?

Biden’s DHS has presented Congress with a 562-page “overview” of its fiscal 2022 budget proposal for Customs and Border Protection. The explanation for its “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” plan is presented on pages 326 through 350 of this document.

The presentation divides “Border Security Assets and Infrastructure” into six categories: Integrated Fixed Towers (IFT); Remote Video Surveillance Systems (RVSS); Mobile Video Surveillance System (MVSS); MVSS-M2S2 Modular Mobile Surveillance System; Border Security Assets and Infrastructure End Items; and Border Wall System Program.

In fiscal 2020, it received $1,375,000,000. In fiscal 2021, it received the same amount.In the past two fiscal years — as reported in Biden’s proposal — the Border Wall System Program has been the most significant of these. “This investment,” it says, “includes real estate and environmental planning, land acquisition, wall system design, construction, and construction and oversight of a physical barrier system.”

Now, if Biden gets his way, the federal government will not spend one penny in fiscal 2022 on planning or constructing a “physical barrier system” at the border.

“Integrated Fixed Towers” are the next item in DHS’s budget proposal for border security. “This investment,” according to the proposal, “provides automated, persistent wide-area surveillance for the detection, tracking, identification and classification of illegal entries in threat areas where mobile surveillance systems are not a viable and/or long-term solution.”

How much does Biden want for this piece of infrastructure? Nothing.

In fiscal 2020, Congress approved $1,142,000 for these towers. This fiscal year, it approved nothing. Biden wants to make sure it approves nothing again.

“Remote Video Surveillance Systems” are the next item in DHS’s budget proposal for border security. “This investment,” says the proposal, “consists of permanently mounted remotely controlled systems of daylight or infrared cameras, which enhance situational awareness of border activity and facilitate proper law enforcement resolution.”

How much does Biden want for this piece of infrastructure? Nothing.

In fiscal 2020, Congress approved $40,740,000 for these surveillance systems. This fiscal year, it approved nothing. Biden wants to make sure it approves nothing again.

“Mobile Video Surveillance System” is the next item. “This investment consists of sensor equipment mounted on a telescoping mast of a light-duty pickup truck,” the proposal says. “MVSS can be rapidly deployed to provide the best visual range for surveillance of several miles and provide situational awareness to the USBP.”

In fiscal 2020, Congress approved $14,800,000 for these systems. This year, it approved nothing. Biden wants nothing again.

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Democrat Autocrats Prep Massive Infrastructure Bill, Plan to Push Through Before Most Can Read It

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The one-party totalitarians are now pushing to pass bills that haven’t even been written or finished, a bill that will certainly bankrupt and ruin this nation.

One Payoff in the Infrastructure Deal Is So Blatantly Corrupt That You Almost Have to Respect the Hustle

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Schumer wants to rush the bill through so he can move on to Bernie Sanders’s $3.5 trillion budget resolution that he will then sprint through on a party-line vote. He wants to pass both before the Senate’s August recess. Amendments will often be offered and voted on while the nation sleeps to meet this artificial deadline that is convenient for the political class but not for informing the public. Both parties operate this way now. But it isn’t the right way to run a democracy, and no wonder Americans hold Congress in such low regard (WSJ).

From Ben Shapiro: Total number of people in Congress who will read this before voting: (Twitter).

Dan McLaughlin: At this stage, even the staffers may not read the thing (Twitter).

Another story notes

“The new $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill contains billions of dollars to upgrade border crossings — but no money at all for the southern border wall, which President Joe Biden abandoned, despite an ongoing surge of illegal migration (Breitbart).

Democrat Joe Manchin hasn’t said if he’ll vote to approve (Washington Times).

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

SHOCKING: U.S.FALLS FAR SHORT Of Second-Quarter GDP Growth Projections

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The American economy was literally shut down. We should be breaking all records and forecasts. But the Democrats have imposed economy and freedom killing restrictions on us all. Communist China, who dropped the COVID bio-weapon , is doing gangbusters. Thanks to the Democrats.

We’ve been overthrown.

U.S. Falls Far Short Of Second-Quarter GDP Growth Projections

The American economy missed second-quarter GDP growth projections by a significant margin.

By Daily Wire, July 29, 2021:

According to data released by the Department of Commerce on Thursday, the annualized GDP growth rate rose to 6.5% between April and June of this year. Although improving from 6.3% in the first quarter of 2021, the metric fell short of the 8.4% Dow Jones estimate.

According to a press release from the Bureau of Economic Analysis:

The second-quarter increase in real GDP reflected increases in consumer spending, business investment, exports, and state and local government spending that were partly offset by decreases in inventory investment, housing investment, and federal government spending. Imports, a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, increased.

The increase in consumer spending reflected increases in services (led by food services and accommodations) and goods (led by other nondurable goods, notably pharmaceutical products).

The increase in business investment reflected increases in equipment (led by transportation equipment) and intellectual property products (led by research and development). 

CNBC notes that investment and savings rates dropped in the second quarter:

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Wall Street Journal: States Run by Democrats Struggling to Recover

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This is the main export of the Democrat party – misery and unhappiness.

WSJ: States Run by Democrats Struggling to Recover

From the story: Unemployment was lowest in Nebraska (2.5%), Utah (2.7%), South Dakota (2.9%), New Hampshire (2.9%), Idaho (3%), Vermont (3.1%), Alabama (3.3%), Montana (3.7%) and Oklahoma (3.7%). All are governed by Republicans, except Vermont, which has a GOP Governor and Democratic Legislature. By contrast, the states with the highest unemployment are all run by Democrats: Connecticut (7.9%), New Mexico (7.9%), Nevada (7.8%), California (7.7%), Hawaii (7.7%), New York (7.7%), New Jersey (7.3%) and Illinois (7.2%). Mere coincidence?

WSJ

RELATED ARTICLE: States That Voted Biden Lost Twice as Many Jobs Amid Pandemic

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Disney is Moving 2,000 Jobs From California to Florida—Here’s Why

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One of the great things about America’s 50-state federal system is that people can vote with their feet in response to different policies. In that sense, California just lost yet another foot-vote referendum.

“The Walt Disney Company is the latest business to plan to move some operations out of California in favor of a lower-taxed state,” Fox Business reports. “Disney will move about 2,000 jobs from its California headquarters to a new campus in Florida.”

In a letter to employees, Disney executive Josh D’Amaro explained that the decision to relocate the jobs is in part due to “Florida’s business-friendly climate.”

“Florida is known for its rich culture of hospitality and active lifestyle as well as a lower cost of living with no state income tax,” D’Amaro also wrote.

While this decision was reportedly made before COVID-19, Disney did criticize the heavy-handed way California’s state government approached the pandemic, with its executives blasting the state’s shutdowns as “arbitrary.”

Disney becomes just the latest in a long series of businesses abandoning California for greener pastures. The California Policy Center has documented an extensive list of celebrities and enterprises to leave the state due to its high taxes and unfriendly business climate. This includes major corporations like Hewlett Packard, Oracle, Palantir, Dole Food, Nestle, Toyota, and many others, moving thousands of jobs out of California. Notable celebrities and entrepreneurs including Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and Ben Shapiro have all left the state in recent years as well.

In fact, California’s population declined in 2020 for the first time in years. The 2,000 Disney employees relocated to Florida will likely meet many other ex-Californians there.

There’s simply no denying the fact that wealth, businesses, and people are pouring out of California. And there’s not much mystery around what’s motivating the exodus, either. California has the 8th-highest state and local tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation. And it’s ranked as having the 49th-worst—yes, seriously—business tax climate. The results are predictable.

And the foot-voting verdict is clear. When given the option, people overwhelmingly choose economic freedom over big-government stagnation.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

TYRANNICAL: Democrats To Ram $3.5T Biden Agenda Through Senate Without Bipartisan Support As Inflation Skyrockets

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Legal plunder. This is communism.

Democrats To Ram $3.5T Biden Agenda Through Senate Without Bipartisan Support As Inflation Skyrockets

By: Ryan Saavedra • Daily Wire Jul 13, 2021 •

Senate Democrats will reportedly ram through a $3.5 trillion spending bill that will “enact the full array of President Joe Biden’s social welfare” agenda without any bipartisan support in a Senate that is split 50-50.

“The proposal sets an overall limit of $3.5 trillion for the spate of Democratic policy ambitions that won’t make it into a bipartisan infrastructure deal, if Congress can reach one,” Politico reported. “Formal text of the Senate’s budget resolution has yet to be released. If that measure can clear both chambers with lockstep party support, it will unleash the power to circumvent a GOP filibuster using budget reconciliation, the same move that Democrats used to pass the president’s $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package in March.

The move comes as Biden has continued to see his approval ratings slide, especially among Democrats, who want him to be more radical in ramming through his agenda. The news comes as inflation has skyrocketed in recent months, driven in large part by the massive government spending from the Biden administration.

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Report: True National Debt Exceeds $123 Trillion, or Nearly $800,000 per Taxpayer

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VIDEO: Protect Yourself — Economic Illiterates in D.C. Destroying Your Financial Future

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Any American with a brain can see inflation is slamming all of us and from every angle. It’s not just the price of gasoline. Inflation is affecting food, cars, TVs, transportation – every aspect of the U.S. economy – thanks to the “geniuses” in Washington D.C. They have launched an all-out attack on our free market system designed to ultimately cause it (and our financial lives) to collapse! You must protect yourself! Graham Ledger speaks with the CEO of Beverly Hills Precious Metals Exchange, Andrew Sorchini, about why gold and silver is the best way to insulate our micro-economies from the finical disaster that will occur in our lifetimes.

Call 866-346-5325 and tell them that Graham Ledger, The Ledger Report sent you.

©The Ledger Report. All rights reserved.

At Least 1.8 Million People Refused to Return to Work Because of Generous Welfare Benefits, Poll Shows

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The real number is probably even larger.

Here are FEE, we predicted from the beginning of the pandemic that Congress’s decision to create an unemployment benefits system paying most individuals more on welfare than they earned by working would backfire. We weren’t the only ones. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office similarly cautioned that this move would cause unemployment and hurt the economy.

The system has offered many unemployed households the equivalent of $25/hour in benefits for staying home. It was always obviously illogical, based on the work disincentive it creates. However, in the year and a half since, there has been an enormous, concentrated, politically motivated effort to deny that the excessively generous welfare benefits are playing any role at all in joblessness.

A new poll makes this continued denial impossible.

For context, we currently have 1.2 unemployed people for every unfilled job opening. Small businesses are also reporting massive shortages of willing workers, even as they raise wages.

So, Morning Consult surveyed unemployed Americans and asked them why they turned down job offers. About 13 percent openly admitted their reason for not returning to work was “I receive enough money from unemployment insurance without having to work.” If this representative sample is extrapolated across the entire unemployed population, that equates to 1.8 million Americans who admitted to declining to go back to work because they could earn more on welfare.

Meanwhile, another 12.1 percent said that they were not offered enough money to return to work. This subjective determination is likely also influenced by the generous benefits as a fall-back option.

Click here for a graph from Axios showing the full results.

Here we have solid confirmation that millions of people have remained unemployed because of the federal government’s reckless expansion of the welfare state. This is, on its face, even more vindication for the many conservative-leaning states that canceled the benefits early. And it offers even more compelling weight to the argument that the federal welfare expansion ought to be allowed to lapse in September as scheduled. (There will undoubtedly be a push to extend it; the “temporary” program has already been extended several times.)

But the Morning Consult poll results are also, most likely, a wild underestimate.

Just think about it: Would you admit, if a pollster called you up, that you’re lazily staying on benefits because it pays more than working? Probably not. There’s a very real phenomenon in polling results where people, quite naturally, skew toward offering answers that are more flattering to them than the unadulterated truth. We can’t know the full extent, but I think it’s safe to assume that the real figure is much higher than 1.8 million.

Of course, we never should have needed poll results to tell us that disincentivizing work would lead to fewer people working. That’s what basic economics taught us all along.

COLUMN BY

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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