"You Get What You Pay For"

"You Get What You Pay For"

by Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "The president spoke to the nation last night. The gist of his speech: Team Biden proposes to tax the rich to create a workers’ paradise. Here’s The Hill: "The American Families Plan calls for a $200 billion program offering universal pre-kindergarten for all three- and four-year-olds; $109 billion for tuition-free community college for any American who wants it; $85 billion to increase Pell Grants to benefit low-income and minority students; and more than $4 billion in funding for larger scholarships, certification and support programs for teachers.

The plan would build upon provisions of the American Rescue Plan by extending the Affordable Care Act premiums tax credits indefinitely and make the earned income tax credit expansion for childless workers permanent. It would permanently make the child tax credit fully available to the lowest-income families, while extending other aspects of the expansion of the credit, such as the increase in the credit amount, through 2025.

The proposal also calls for the creation of a national paid family and medical leave program. The $225 billion investment would provide workers up to $4,000 a month if they require leave to care for a new child, care for a seriously ill loved one, deal with an illness or another serious reason."

“You get what you pay for,” economist Milton Friedman used to say. And if these measures pass, there will be a lot more sick people.

Spend, Spend, Spend: Economically, the whole lot of Democratic programs continue in the direction set by Bush, Obama, and Trump. That is, spend, spend, spend… borrow, borrow, borrow… print, print, print – until you go broke.

This “Families” scheme comes less than a month after the “Infrastructure” proposal was announced. Together, the two programs amount to a kind of fiscal genocide… with more than $4 trillion in new and unnecessary spending. And these come on the heels of Donald Trump’s $2.2 trillion CARES Act, December’s $900 billion stimulus package, Biden’s $1.9 trillion American RESCUE Plan. Altogether, that brings the total for the last 13 months to more than $9 trillion – an amount that should annihilate any residual solvency the U.S. has left.

Big Switch: But, there’s more to the story… as always. Match the Families spending up with Biden’s infrastructure proposals, and the hidden political agenda comes into focus. It is designed to reshape U.S. party alignments, giving the Democrats a more permanent grip on power.

Since the days of George Wallace, the Democrats have been losing their working class base. The “cultural” messages of progressive Democrats – racism, LBGT?, secularism, Me Too – have left much of the middle and lower-middle classes puzzled and cold. Hillary Clinton made one of the most tone-deaf political blunders in history by referring to these people as “deplorables.” Over the years, those deplorables have drifted towards the Republicans, who seem to have a better ear for their kind of tune. In that respect, at least, Donald Trump was a prodigy. His policies and proposals made little sense from a “conservative” perspective… But when it came to the cultural notes, he seemed to have perfect pitch.

Yes, Dear Reader, we have seen that since the 1990s, the two parties have switched. Republicans now represent the working class and the hustling, small-business-owning petite bourgeoisie. The Democrats are now the party of the Grand Bourgeoisie – big business, the rich, the elite, the media, the universities, and the government itself (including the Pentagon).

Pack the Court: The trouble with this realignment, from the Democrat’s perspective, is that there are relatively more deplorable voters than elite voters. In a democracy, where each vote is counted equally, this is a recipe for failure. So far, the Democrats have attacked this problem with two initiatives.

First, they sought to tilt the balance of power by “packing” the Supreme Court. From Politico: "The idea of expanding the Supreme Court became a liberal cause celebré [sic] after Republicans confirmed three Supreme Court justices during former President Donald Trump’s term. Markey’s proposal, introduced with Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), would increase the number of justices to 13 from 9." Fortunately, that idea seems to be going nowhere, with several Democratic senators – facing reelection – afraid to touch it.

New State: The other idea was to pack Congress itself, by giving the District of Columbia, aka Washington, statehood. Fox5 has the details: "The House has passed legislation that would grant statehood to Washington, D.C. The 216 to 208 vote followed strict party lines with all Republicans rejecting the statehood bill, known as H.R. 51. The legislation would create the new state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, and would give the District one representative and two senators."

Government is the main industry of the District of Columbia. The three new hacks would be reliable shills for the Deep State, guaranteed votes for its expansion in all directions. This effort, too, is unlikely to pass.

Buying Votes: So… the campaign has moved to the fiscal front. These spending proposals aim to win back working class votes by handing out good-paying jobs in the “infrastructure” boondoggle… along with free schooling and other giveaways in the “families” program. Thus, do they hope to bribe into being a more-or-less permanent electoral majority of “people of color,” reclaimed white, working-class Democrats, and the elite itself. And it might work.

But wait… Are the rich really going to pay for all these giveaways? Aren’t the Democrats now the party of the rich? What gives? More to come…"

- www.rogueeconomics.com