February 07, 2021

Is There Any Hope For Staving Off The Next "Stimulus"?

February 07, 2021/ Francis Menton

Of all President Biden’s potential legislative initiatives, the first up in Congress is the latest round of so-called “stimulus” — some $1.9 trillion to be borrowed by the government and promptly wasted.
Somehow, we are supposed to believe that this is a good idea. Over at CNN, they call it the “rescue package,” as if the economy is failing, and the only possible route to salvation is borrowing and then immediately wasting this vast sum.
It goes without saying that all the grandees of the left support the plan. After all, these people have gone to the fanciest schools and have the fanciest advanced degrees. They are the “experts,” to whom we must all defer.
Nothing illustrates the foolishness and ignorance of our so-called “experts” better than this “stimulus” bill.

December 02, 2020

Biden Is All Wrong On Government Spending

December 02, 2020/ Francis Menton

My previous posts on the subject of Biden have mostly dealt with issues of corruption, energy and ”climate,” and to some degree foreign policy. But let’s get to the biggest of all domestic policy issues, which is the overall level of spending and taxation.
As with essentially every issue of public policy, when it comes to overall spending and taxes Biden is just all wrong. There is no nicer way to put it.
Biden has called for massive increases in domestic spending, and also massive increases in taxes. The tax increases he seeks are not remotely sufficient to pay for the increased spending, but would be more than enough to crush the hopes of millions of Americans ever to get a little ahead in life. . . .

November 26, 2020

November 26, 2020/ Francis Menton

It’s Thanksgiving, and therefore it’s appropriate to find something to be thankful for.
This crazy year 2020 makes that task much more difficult than usual. Coronavirus? No thanks. Joe Biden as incoming President? No thanks.
But here’s something that we all ought to be able to agree that we are enormously thankful for: the failure of the Congress to pass the latest $3+ trillion round of Covid-19 “stimulus.”

It was way back on May 15 that the so-called “Heroes Act,” got passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 208 to 199. . . .

November 03, 2020

November 03, 2020/ Francis Menton

Within a few short hours, we will know who our next President will be. Maybe, with any luck, this will be my last chance to be horrified by the prospect of a Biden presidency.
Lately, I’ve been focused, perhaps too much so, on Joe Biden’s manifest corruption, his selling out U.S. foreign policy to our worst geo-political rivals to benefit his family financially. But we mustn’t forget that Biden also represents a prospective public policy catastrophe, nowhere more so than in the arena of energy policy.
If you listened to Biden at the debates, you would have heard him promise that his energy plan for rapid elimination of fossil fuels would bring hundreds of thousands (or maybe it was millions) of new high paying green energy jobs.
Did this sound to you like a good idea?

September 06, 2020

September 06, 2020/ Francis Menton

It was on March 27 this year that the so-called “CARES” Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) became law — a $2.2 trillion federal spending bill, designed to bail absolutely everyone out of any and all downside risk from the economic downturn brought about by government response to the pandemic.
There was virtually no opposition, with the bill passing unanimously in the Senate and by voice vote in the House. Since there was no new tax revenue associated with the bill, it represented approximately a 10% instant increase in the public debt incurred in the 231 years since the founding of the Republic.
Whew! Was there any possible negative consequence to taking on this enormous amount of new debt, mostly just to hand out checks to anybody and everybody, whether they needed the money or not? If so, that subject was barely discussed anywhere.
Hey, this was a “stimulus.” Everybody knows that when the economy is down, it needs a massive federal “stimulus” to get it going again.
Then, almost immediately after the CARES Act became law, the House started working on the next round of so-called “stimulus,” labelling the new effort with the equally idiotic acronym of the “HEROES” Act. . . .

April 23, 2020

April 23, 2020/ Francis Menton

Back on April 2, when the $2+ trillion “CARES” Act had just cleared Congress, I issued a warning to “make no mistake — this is a perilous moment.”
The country had reached seemingly unanimous consensus that all previous budget constraints no longer apply to federal government spending. After all, we are in a crisis. Therefore we must spend “whatever it takes” — a term with no definition and no limits.
With all sensible judgment now thrown to the winds, this would be the perfect time for the well-connected and the corrupt to swoop in to grab the extra tens of billions they have long lusted after.
And of course, this is exactly what has happened. Every thoroughly corrupt left-wing priority — from wind power subsidies to teachers union contracts — has its lobbyists there in Washington trying to get in on the next handout (aka “stimulus”) gravy train.