+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I ask again where are the interviews of rescued Americans from Afghanistan?
You would think even the New York Times would be curious.
I guess you can express bias by ignoring. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Keep it up Doofus!
Democrats Invite More Inflation—and Political Disaster Joe Manchin is right. Lawmakers should pivot to a responsible spending bill with sustainable financing. By Ben Ritz
With inflation rising to its highest levels in over 30 years, Democrats must make sure they don’t exacerbate the problem. But the Build Back Better bill currently being considered by Congress would pour roughly $200 billion of fuel on the fire in its first year alone. Even worse, the bill threatens to turn potentially transformative policies into something temporary that angers voters and returns Republicans to power. To save President Biden’s progressive legacy, Democrats must focus on a few core priorities that can be delivered in a sustainable way.
Unlike the economies of 2009 or 2020, today’s economy won’t benefit from deficit-financed stimulus. Unemployment is nearing pre-pandemic levels, while inflation has skyrocketed to 6.2%, double or triple what most economists think optimal.
The American Rescue Plan Act, or ARP, which Mr. Biden signed in March, deserves the credit and some of the blame for this situation. An ambitious bill earlier this year was necessary to shepherd the economy through the remainder of the Covid-19 pandemic, but it spent more money in a short period than was necessary or desirable (as several economists warned it would).
Lawmakers and the administration concluded they would rather risk overshooting the recovery than undershooting, and that may have been reasonable. The ARP wasn’t the only cause of inflation, as the excess demand it caused crashed into Covid-related supply-chain bottlenecks.
But given that markets and forecasters alike significantly underestimated the post-ARP inflation rate, some humility is warranted. Even adherents of Modern Monetary Theory have argued the right response to higher inflation is lower deficits. Accordingly, Democrats shouldn’t pass new legislation that adds to deficits at least until the economy cools off.
Unfortunately, the current BBB bill does exactly that. Even if the Congressional Budget Office officially scores the bill as being deficit-neutral over 10 years (which a recent analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget suggests is unlikely), it will likely add up to $200 billion to next year’s deficit because lawmakers front-loaded spending while back-loading revenues.
Most major social spending programs, including child care and healthcare subsidies, would be enacted for six years or less in the House bill. Their costs will be offset in future years only if these programs are allowed to expire while tax changes continue raising new revenue. If every policy in the bill eventually becomes permanent, the CRFB estimates it would add at least $2 trillion to deficits over the next decade. Structuring the bill around these “shell games and budget gimmicks,” as Sen. Joe Manchin recently called them, fails to address the concerns he and other moderates have about spending and inflation.
Some economists argue that the BBB bill will actually combat inflation. Child-care subsidies and other social supports, for instance, might make it easier for more parents to return to the labor force. Although that’s true to some extent, it’s unlikely to override the effect of pumping $200 billion of new deficit-financed stimulus into the economy each year. Importantly, the 17 Nobel laureates who signed a much-touted letter saying BBB would “reduce long-term inflationary pressure” did so at a time when they thought the bill would be fully paid for by higher taxes on the wealthy.
If Congress continues to stoke inflation with higher deficits, it may force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates higher or faster than markets expect. Raising rates would almost certainly subdue inflation, but it would create another problem for lawmakers: rising interest costs. Because the national debt grew so much during the pandemic, every percentage point rise in interest rates will add more than $100 billion to interest payments each year. This will compound deficits that are already set to rise as spending on healthcare and retirement programs grows faster than the revenue needed to finance them.
That’s a political nightmare for Democrats. Although polls have regularly found that a majority of voters support the individual policies in the BBB bill, these same polls often show voters are even more concerned about rising inflation and budget deficits. The popularity of the bill’s policies on paper won’t help Democrats politically if their macroeconomic effects are even more unpopular.
Should Republicans gain the Senate and House next year in a backlash against inflation and deficits, the first thing likely to go are the programs that the Democrats set to self-destruct automatically. That is a grim scenario for those of us who hoped the Biden presidency could bring durable and sustainable public investments in areas long neglected by the government.
But the solution isn’t to abandon the president’s agenda. There’s still time for Democrats to give priority to a few key programs in a focused and sustainably financed “kids and climate” bill, as the moderate New Democrat Coalition and many others have long advocated doing.
Sen. Manchin and House moderates do their progressive colleagues a favor by demanding a bill that is fully funded without gimmicks. Pivoting to such a bill would shield Democrats from inflation risks and allow them to make permanent progressive policies that otherwise might vanish.
Mr. Ritz is director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s Center for Funding America’s Future. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ There's Nothing Moderate About Biden's Marxist OCC Pick
By Gabriella Hoffman +++ Sent to me by a very dear friend and fellow memo reader. You decide if this link reveals a man more evil than Soros.
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