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Biden Plan Would Sabotage U.S. Economic Competitiveness in One Huge Way, Analysis Finds

That’s not ‘Building Back Better’—it’s shooting ourselves in the foot.  


President Biden has heralded his $4.5+ trillion spending proposals and accompanying tax hikes as an investment in “leading the world versus letting it pass us by.” Yet, paradoxically, a new analysis exposes one huge way Biden’s plans would make the US less competitive on the global stage.

Key to financing the spending plans is a proposed increase in the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 26.5 percent. When factoring in state corporate taxes, the US’s average corporate tax rate would reach a whopping 30.9 percent. And according to a new Tax Foundation analysis, this punitive level of business taxation would be the third-highest corporate tax rate among developed countries, outstripped only by Colombia and Portugal.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE TAX FOUNDATION INFOGRAPHIC

Why is this a problem?

Well, the US would become a less attractive place for business investment, which is bad news for entrepreneurs, workers, and customers alike. Businesses would understandably be less likely to conduct business in the US when they could go to dozens of other developed countries with lower tax rates. As a result, our economic competitiveness would suffer.

“Returning to near the top of the OECD in corporate tax rates would… disincentivize investment and encourage firms to shift profits and locate elsewhere, resulting in fewer job opportunities for Americans and less tax revenue for the U.S. government,” the analysis explains.

Yikes.

Biden claims his tax-and-spend agenda is meant to reassert America’s dominance. But the costly tax hikes the president seeks would set our economic competitiveness back on the global stage. That’s not “Building Back Better”—it’s shooting ourselves in the foot.

COLUMN BY

Brad Polumbo

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

WATCHNew Biden Vax Mandate Doesn’t Make ANY Sense (Here’s Why)

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Does Biden’s $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill Include a Mileage Tax?

Here’s a dismaying prospect: Paying 6, 8, or 10 cents in new taxes for every mile you drive. It may sound small, but at an 8 cent rate, that would be $1,144 in new annual taxes for the average American, who drives about 14,300 miles a year. Yikes!

Some on social media are claiming that this punitive tax scheme has been slipped into President Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending legislation—which, after all, is nearly 3,000 pages and is chock full of unrelated waste and partisan pet projects. But are they right to be concerned about a mileage tax soon becoming reality?

No. At least, not yet.

The infrastructure legislation does not include a mileage tax or another form of driving tax. What it does include is a pilot program to study and test the idea. The legislation authorizes $125 million in taxpayer funding for this test initiative. (A lot of taxpayer money for an experiment, no?)

“People would volunteer to be part of the test,” fact-checkers at local New York news outlet WGRZ-TV report. “The test would require volunteers to record their miles, pay the fees, and then be reimbursed by the government. This pilot program would go through the year 2026 and at that point, if Congress and the president like it, they would have to pass another bill making it into law. This infrastructure bill simply creates the program.”

We can certainly question the wisdom of this endeavor. But rest assured that if the infrastructure legislation ultimately passes—a likely if not certain outcome—you won’t get a new per-mile bill from the IRS. However, this move does represent a shift toward mainstreaming and advancing the idea of a per-mile driving tax.

Such a tax would be highly regressive, meaning that it would disproportionately burden low-income Americans. So, too, the costs would fall harder on rural Americans who drive more than their city-dwelling counterparts. That said, proponents argue it simply funds highway infrastructure by taxing those who use it. They also note that it could replace the gas tax, which currently attempts to do the same yet fails to capture usage by electric vehicles.

Still, the prospect of sizable new taxes levied on working-class Americans solely for the privilege of being allowed to drive your own car isn’t an attractive one. Luckily, we aren’t actually facing this as an immediate reality, even if it is slowly being advanced into the mainstream.

WATCHNew Biden Vax Mandate Doesn’t Make ANY Sense (Here’s Why)

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.

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

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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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch 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

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

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

Federal Government Imposes Up to $14,000 in ‘Hidden Taxes’ on Households Every Year, New Report Reveals

Most Americans pay close attention to how much of their money is taken in taxes each year. But there’s another, less obvious way the federal government imposes financial costs on citizens—and according to a new report, it amounts to trillions annually.

The fiscally-conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) just released its annual “Ten Thousand Commandments” report, which documents the “size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how they affect American consumers, businesses, and the U.S. economy at large.” Report author Clyde Wayne Crews explains how we face a “hidden tax” from the economic burden of our massive regulatory state. After all, tens of thousands of new regulations are imposed every year.

The report estimates the economic costs of federal regulation at an astounding $1.9 trillion annually.

To put that abstract sum in context, it’s nearly as much as the federal government collects in income and corporate taxes in a year. And a country that produced $1.9 trillion in output would be the 8th largest economy in the world (excluding the US). $1.9 trillion is more in economic output than Brazil or Italy produce in an entire calendar year.

Much of this $1.9 trillion in “hidden taxes” is ultimately borne by everyday Americans. To understand why, simply remember that regulations increase the costs associated with production. An unnecessary environmental regulation, for example, may force companies to take more cost-intensive steps during the production process. Ultimately, this leads to higher prices at the check-out line.

The CEI report explains that if we assume the costs all ultimately fall on consumers, then it equates to up to $14,368 in annual costs per US household.

This is a huge hit to the wallet. $14,368 in annual regulatory costs amounts to roughly 23 percent of the average household’s spending budget. It’s more than the typical household spends on food, transportation, healthcare, or anything except housing.

Oh, and don’t forget the $88 billion in taxpayer money spent by federal agencies each year just to administer, implement, and police these regulations.

The takeaway here is broader than just the financial impact of federal regulation, as significant as that may be. It’s yet another reminder that, as economist Frédéric Bastiat famously identified, the costs of government go beyond the obvious, what is “seen,” and extend to the “unseen.”

Of course, when it comes to the ever-expanding federal government, the most obvious cost is what the politicians in Washington, DC take from us in taxes every year. But this new report further proves that the unseen, hidden costs of the federal government’s growing involvement in economic life are even more drastic than what comes directly out of our paychecks.

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

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

The Democrat-CCP continues to impose more crushing debt on the American people, kill businesses, lockdown whole cities throw millions of out work.

China is taking over. Note what’s important and prioritized in their strategy for world domination – debt and spending. Balanced against the value of its commercial assets, the federal government had a combined total of $103.7 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded obligations.

COVID was an act of war  by China– launched during a US presidential election exploited and weaponized by the party of treason.

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

By Mark Tapscott, The Epoch Times, April 19, 2021:

America’s national debt now exceeds $123 trillion, according to a new report, or more than four times the official figure of $28 trillion, as calculated by the U.S. Treasury Department at the end of March.

Federal spending related to the CCP virus pandemic and economic lockdown added nearly $10 trillion to the total in 2020, according to the latest edition of the “Financial State of the Union 2021” report, compiled and published annually by Chicago-based nonprofit Truth in Accounting (TIA).

But spending amid the pandemic represents only a small portion of the total difference between the official government figure and TIA’s calculation.

“Our measure of the government’s financial condition includes reported federal assets and liabilities, as well as promised, but not funded, Social Security and Medicare benefits,” the report stated.

“Elected and non-elected officials have made repeated financial decisions that have left the federal government with a debt burden of $123.11 trillion, including unfunded Social Security and Medicare promises.”

The TIA report includes in its total debt calculation $55.12 trillion in unfunded Medicare benefits and $41.20 trillion in unfunded Social Security benefits.

Treasury officials don’t include unfunded benefits because they claim recipients have no right to future payments, only to those under current entitlement laws.

The total debt, according to the report, “equates to a $796,000 burden for every federal taxpayer. Because the federal government would need such a vast amount of money from taxpayers to cover this debt, it received an ‘F’ grade for its financial condition.”

Unlike many state governments, the federal government doesn’t maintain a cash reserve to deal with spending necessitated by unexpected crises such as a virus pandemic.

“The coronavirus pandemic and related stimulus packages have caused some of the deterioration because the government had to borrow money to weather the pandemic. If the federal government was properly prepared for a crisis with a true rainy-day fund, it would not have had to borrow money,” TIA stated.

Defense and veterans’ benefits accounted for the largest share of federal spending in 2020 at 23 percent, followed by health and human services with 19 percent, Social Security with 16 percent, interest on the debt at 5 percent, and 2 percent on education. Fully a third (35 percent) of the spending went to what TIA described as “Other.”

Responses

Spokesmen for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), respectively the chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Budget Committee, didn’t respond to The Epoch Times request for comment.

Similarly, a spokesman for House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), didn’t respond.

Mondays are typically “travel days” for senators returning from their states and representatives from the districts.

A spokesman for Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), the budget panel’s ranking minority member, referred to a March 31 statement in which Smith criticized news spending proposals from President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats.

“Washington Democrats are embracing an historically disturbing appetite for spending. They just passed a nearly $2 Trillion bailout bill. President Biden is now proposing they turn right back around and cut a check for another $2 trillion to spend on a massive grab bag of policies all tied together with talking points,” Smith wrote.

“All the while, the President reportedly has yet another $2 trillion spending proposal in his back pocket awaiting its own news cycle.”

Consultants Agree

Campaign strategists and nonprofit activists interviewed by The Epoch Times about the TIA report expressed agreement that debt requires serious attention to get it under control.

Jim Manley, former communications director to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said “at some point, both parties are going to have to have a serious negotiation regarding the need to get our fiscal house in better order, and that includes both taxes and spending, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon because our politics are just too toxic.”

But, Manley said, “in the meantime interest rates are low and the economy is digging itself out of the hole the pandemic caused, but there is no reason for Democrats to be at all concerned about the Republicans’ new-found focus on cutting spending after everything the last administration did.”

He was referring, he said, to 2017 tax reform legislation enacted by Republican majorities in the House and Senate and signed into law by President Donald Trump.

Another Democratic campaign strategist, Kevin B. Chavous, told The Epoch Times: “This has been an issue that both parties have simply failed to address. It will not be fixed, though, by doing the same things.”

Chavous said he expects “the infrastructure bill will create jobs and grow the economy by investing in modern technology and cleaner energy sources. Things like a nationalized electric grid and expanded broadband access will make Americans more productive and more competitive in the years to come. It is an expense we have to make sooner than later.”

Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) President David Williams pointed to the need to cut federal spending. “A debt of $123 trillion should be a wake-up call for the country. The bill is coming due very soon, which could have dire consequences for taxpayers and the country.”

Williams said Biden and congressional leaders “are seemingly oblivious to the stark fiscal crisis happening right under their noses. Worse yet, if they are aware of the deep financial issues, they are clearly not doing anything to fix the problem. Instead of finding ways to spend more money, Congress and the president need to find ways to cut spending.”

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) President Tom Schatz noted that President Thomas Jefferson said the nation’s representatives shouldn’t accumulate debts that can’t be paid in their own time, and while this has been problematic for years, it has never been this significant.

Schatz said he believes “members of Congress have an obligation to attempt to bring spending under control and ensure that present and future taxpayers are not forced to fund any federal program that is duplicative, wasteful, and inefficient.”

When The Epoch Times asked TIA President Sheila Weinberg if it’s reasonable to depend upon future economic growth to solve the debt problem, she said no, and noted that the Treasury Department agrees.

“The authors of the Financial Report of the U.S. Government have deemed that under current law and policy, a massive implied increase in the ratio of reported debt to GDP—e.g. future debt will be growing faster than GDP—is simply unsustainable,” she said.

“In other words, under current law and policy, we can’t grow our way out of this, especially considering Medicare grows faster than inflation.”

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GOP Blocks $2,000 Stimulus Payments, House To Hold Roll Call Vote On Proposal Monday


“Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests while sending the bare minimum to the American people who need it. It was not their fault.”  – President Donald J. Trump


House Republicans blocked legislation Thursday that would have sent $2,000 in direct payments to Americans, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.
House Democratic and Republican leaders met early Thursday morning in a pro forma session and held a unanimous consent vote on the direct payments proposal, according to CNBC. Republican leadership voted the measure down, which required all lawmakers present to unanimously vote in favor for it to pass.
“Today, on Christmas Eve morning, House Republicans cruelly deprived the American people of the $2,000 that the President agreed to support,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “If the President is serious about the $2,000 direct payments, he must call on House Republicans to end their obstruction.”


Pelosi said during a press conference that the House would hold a recorded roll call vote on the measure Monday, Fox News correspondent Chad Pergram reported. If succesful, the measure would alter the the omnibus bill Congress passed Monday night by changing stimulus checks sent to Americans from $600 to $2,000.
Virginia Republican Rep. Rob Wittman attempted to get the House to vote on reconsidering the much-criticized foreign aid included in the omnibus bill, according to CNBC. Democrats blocked that proposal.
“Speaker Pelosi tried to use the American people as leverage to make coronavirus relief contingent on government funding – which includes billions of foreign aid at a time when there are urgent needs at home,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a statement Wednesday night.
The coronavirus stimulus relief bill hangs in the balance after President Donald Trump announced Tuesday he wouldn’t sign the bill Congress passed. Trump criticized both the $600 direct payment, saying they were too small, and the foreign aid, saying it was wasteful.
“Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests while sending the bare minimum to the American people who need it. It was not their fault,” Trump said.
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