Shame on Democrats for making this week’s misery index spike with their mad-liberal math. They want to spend $5.3 trillion, despite inflation being the electorate’s #1 economic worry. They’re willing to roil financial markets, despite China being at an economic tipping point. They want to replace GDP with a Genuine Progress Indicator, despite the need for economic clarity, and install European-style socialism that’s failed to succeed in this hemisphere.
According to Pew Research, inflation is America’s top economic worry, with 63% saying they are “very concerned” about higher prices, and only 29% “concerned” about unemployment. A $3.5 trillion bill that actually costs $5.3 trillion (source: CRFB) can only stoke inflation. Employers now have 10.1 million unfilled jobs, but Biden sells his Build Back Better plan as an “investment in working America.” He says it adds “zero dollars to the national debt” in spite of no CBO analysis.
The West Australian (Perth) reporters, who broke the Wuhan “bioweapon” story, now say China is going broke because of four bubbles: (1) 1994 tax laws that left local governments reliant on land financing for revenue, (2) soaring costs of housing, education and health entitlements, (3) GHG emissions that exceed the US and EU combined, and (4) current pension liabilities that are half annual GDP. If the two largest economies default or hyper-inflate, then what?
In July, Ilhan Omar (D-MN) introduced H.R. 4894, the Genuine Progress Indicator Act of 2021 to measure the well-being of America, inspired by the OECD’s Better Life Index. GDP is an objective measure of what’s bought and sold, and it’s been around since 1934. GPI is a liberal brain fart that adds the “value” of volunteer work and environmental easements, and subtracts the “costs” of resource depletion and family breakdown. Only a member of The Squad would replace GDP with GPI.
Nancy Pelosi is bullying party centrists to pass the “transformative” Build Back Better bill, and the 82-year-old speaker is in a mad rush to cement her legacy before the GOP sweep in 2022. The “transformation” she has in mind is “a trillion-dollar entitlement for the middle class, untied to work” (source: WSJ). There was no 2020 mandate – her majority is razor-thin – so she will pass the largest spending bill in US history through one-party reconciliation.
At the very least, Democrats invite stagflation, which will penalize investors and savers, and discourage work and entrepreneurship. At the very worst, they are building a financial house of cards that will collapse with China. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) wisely urges a “strategic pause.” He suspects Biden has under-stated the cost by $2 trillion. Centrists doubt “we can afford everything.” If Build Back Better doesn’t scare you, then nothing else will.