On Twitter, President Biden claimed that “My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars…And it adds zero dollars to the national debt.”
But even liberal media admit that this claim was false. “Estimates show the Democrats’ social spending bill adds up to $4.7 trillion, making it harder to cut it down,” reports the New York Times. And it would increase the national debt, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, by “as much as $4.3 trillion of more debt over the next decade.” While the White House gave his legislation a price tag of $3.5 trillion, it actually contains at least “$5.0 trillion to $5.5 trillion worth of policies.” Economists at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School say it would increase taxes by $2.4 trillion, far less than its cost.
Hot Air says that the bill contains a “whole lotta pain” for taxpayers, as well as politically extreme provisions:
Illegal aliens will be having a field day. Not only will they continue to be allowed to flood into the country largely unimpeded thanks to the Biden border crisis, but they will be immediately eligible for free college enrollment, student loans, and the child tax credit, effectively giving them a permanent guaranteed basic income…Keep one hand on your wallet because the bill imposes $2 trillion in tax hikes that will impact those making under $400,000 per year. Wait… didn’t Biden specifically promise that this wasn’t going to happen?
The Republican Study Committee describes how the bill will cost thousands of Americans their jobs in sectors such as energy and daycare, while subjecting small businesses to crippling fines, providing welfare and entitlements for illegal immigrants, and penalizing marriage. “The bill blocks the ability of many faith–based providers from participating in the childcare system and will lead to many of their closures.” It “requires pre–K staff to have a college degree.” It is biased in favor of left-wing unions, “subjecting employers to penalties that exempt union bosses and officials,” even as it “would subsidize union dues”. It “drives up costs on Americans’ utility bills” and impose “a tax on natural gas up to $1,500 per ton that could cost the American economy up to $9.1 billion and cost 90,000 Americans their jobs.” It “grants amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants” and grants them “welfare and other entitlements.” It “penalizes marriage: The bill would permanently double the EITC’s marriage penalty on childless worker benefits.”
President Biden has also proposed a record $6 trillion budget that “would push federal spending to its highest sustained levels since World War II” as a share of our economy, according to the New York Times. If adopted by Congress, it will result in skyrocketing levels of national debt, and persistently huge budget deficits. The Biden administration itself “forecasts deficits at more than $1 trillion for at least the next decade” if his budget plan is adopted, notes CNN.
Biden has also proposed a $2.5 trillion infrastructure plan that will harm infrastructure, subsidize obsolete technologies, drive thousands of American jobs overseas, and encourage cost overruns.
By driving up the national debt to dangerous levels, the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion package is likely to shrink the size of our economy. “The existence of the debt saps the rest of the economy,” says the University of Pennsylvania’s Efraim Berkovich. “When the government is running budget deficits, the money that could have gone to productive investment is redirected.…You’re taking away from the capital that we need to grow our economy in the future.”
Past increases in spending by the Biden administration backfired and shrank our economy by reducing employment. Economists had expected that the economy would add over a million jobs in April 2021, because it had been growing rapidly since fall 2020. But after Congress passed Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” in early March, employment grew by far less than expected, resulting in a shortfall of 700,000 jobs.
