What a difference two years can make. Hyperbole should be saved for when it’s needed most, and today has never been more timely. This current Congress will go down as the worst ever. It was assembled by the thinnest of margins. A tie in the Senate, and a mere nine-seat advantage in the House. That is far from a resounding mandate, so one would think this would have been a period of slow change and gradual progress. That couldn’t be further from the truth. They’ve become masters at manipulating the budget reconciliation process. This allowed the Democrats to press forward with a spending tsunami that will absolutely destroy the American economy for years to come.
First, the spending. There hasn’t been a notable achievement that is actually based on true legislation. Most everything passed has simply been spending bills. The most notable achievement that one could try and say was an actual changing of the law was the gun bill. But, even that bill was chock-full of grants that will be distributed to local governments based on promises to enact certain policy changes. The rest was entirely spending.
The semiconductor bill gave billions of dollars to some of the country’s most profitable corporations. The likely illegal student loan reimbursements will send cash bailouts to those who need it least. The Ukraine aid packages send billions of American tax dollars overseas never to be seen again. The first infrastructure package is nothing more than a classic D.C. spending bill loaded with pork projects for Senators and Representatives to funnel money back into the pockets of their donors. Cronyism at its core. The most recent ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ actually adds hundreds of billions to the budget deficit by spending money all over the economy. In short, nothing passed has actually been laws that make the lives of Americans safer, healthier, or wealthier. Nothing passed helps make the lives of hardworking Americans better. It just adds to the stress they’re currently dealing with.
This Congress has spent nearly four trillion dollars in eighteen months time. They’ve spent more in this Congress than most every Congress combined! And, we haven’t even been in any sort of an emergency. No bank needed bailouts like we did in 2008. No major city had to be rebuilt like Manhattan after 9/11. No American war was beginning like Iraq/Afghanistan in 2003. And, no economic shocks from a health emergency like Covid in March of 2020. This was four trillion dollars spent while Americans were being told the economy was strong, Covid was over, we were moving on from the Afghanistan war, and American corporations were healthy.
Americans have also seen inflation skyrocket in the same time frame. The rate of inflation has gone from low 2% before this Congress took power to 9% as of a few weeks ago. A tremendous rise in such a short period of time. The scariest part is the Fed has only just recently begun hiking rates to try and quell the rise. And, most of the aforementioned spending has recently been earmarked, therefore, trillions of dollars haven’t even found their way into the American economy yet. In short, it’s practically impossible to say with a straight face that inflation is behind us. Yet, that’s exactly what the Congress is trying to sell.
There was absolutely no reason to justify any of the spending from Congress in the past eighteen months. The only reason it happened was because the Democrats assumed power, and they wanted to ensure they passed whatever bills they could while they controlled D.C. during this short period of time. Inflation be damned. Future of Americans? Who cares. Worry about the negative consequences of their actions? Not a chance. They’ll simply blame it on the Republicans and the media will go along with it.
We will be dealing with the pain of this spending spree for years, if not the rest of this decade. The scariest part of all is that even when Republicans take back Congress next year, there is hardly anything they can do about it. These weren’t laws that the courts could overturn, or a new Congress could repeal. This was spending. Earmarked spending that is awaiting distribution into bank accounts all across the country. The train has left the station, and there’s no way America will resolve her inflation crisis any time soon because of it. We shot ourselves in the foot by locking down and turning off the economy. We had a chance to lessen the economic repercussions by electing leaders who carried out the will of the people. Instead, our elected officials betrayed us. They refused to pivot despite all the warning signs. They drove the economy right off the cliff, and the 2020s will go down as some of the most economically difficult times we’ve ever experienced. The saddest part of all is that it could have been entirely avoided. Unlike the 1930s and the 1970s, this wasn’t caused from powers outside our control. This was caused by our own leaders who were sent to D.C. to help us.
Phil Your Day 