WSJ: Biden’s $4.6 Trillion Bill, “The Most Dishonest Spending Bill in American History”

Washington Republicans do not have a counter-plan.

America’s hard-working, tax-paying, values-oriented citizens, the backbone of our Republic, do have a counter-plan. This plan is the most powerful and dynamic economic acceleration plan in the world – The Leviticus 25 Plan.

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WSJ: The Real Biden Bill: At Least $4.6 Trillion    

Program by program, here’s how Democrats disguise the real cost of their entitlement blowout.

By The Wall Street Journal Editorial Staff

Updated Nov. 18, 2021 9:50 pm ET   /  https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-real-biden-bill-at-least-4-6-trillion-congressional-budget-office-score-congress-democrats-11637275848

The Congressional Budget Office on Thursday released its “official” cost estimates for the House tax and entitlement bill, but don’t believe it. The CBO gnomes aren’t lying about a 10-year deficit estimate of $367 billion. They’re obliged to score the bill under rules that Democrats have rigged with multiple tricks that disguise the real cost by trillions of dollars.

Democrats phase out the biggest programs in the bill while paying for them with 10 years of tax increases. They phase-in other programs and off-load costs to the states. The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates the House bill would cost nearly $4.6 trillion over 10 years if temporary provisions are made permanent, as most will be.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) pegs the cost at $4.9 trillion if temporary tax credits and programs are made permanent through 2031. This would add $1.5 trillion to deficits over the next five years without additional tax offsets. Let’s take a tour of this budget deception.

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Enhanced child allowances ($3,600 for children under age 6 and $3,000 up to age 17). This is the bill’s most expensive provision at about $130 billion a year, which is why Democrats limit it to one year. Does anyone doubt they’ll extend it in the future?

They may get help from Republicans, who won’t want to be attacked for raising taxes on families. CRFB says making the allowances permanent would cost $1.13 trillion. Based on current law, it would cost $1.5 trillion since the $2,000 tax credit from the 2017 GOP tax reform is set to drop back to $1,000 after 2025. So that’s nearly $1.4 trillion in hidden costs alone.

Earned income tax credit expansion. The bill nearly triples the maximum EITC value for childless adults—but only for one year. Its $15 billion annual cost would be $135 billion if extended over the decade. The kicker: Individuals can qualify based on their previous year’s earnings, so they technically don’t have to work to get it.

ObamaCare premium subsidies. Democrats in March extended eligibility to Americans making more than 400% of the poverty line and capped their premium payments for benchmark plans at 8.5% of income. Subsidies for lower earners were also increased so people making 150% of the poverty line don’t have to pay a penny toward their premiums, compared to 4.1% before the change.

These sweetened subsidies are set to expire after next year, but the bill extends them through 2025 while also allowing lower-income adults in states that opted out of the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion to qualify. CRFB says these subsidies will cost $530 billion if they are made permanent.

A new child-care entitlement. Households making up to 250% of their state’s median income would qualify for child-care vouchers, and their payments would be capped at 7% of income—less for lower earners. The bill appropriates about $100 billion through 2024 to states and “such sums as may be necessary” from 2025 to 2027.

Spending on this entitlement like all others can be expected to increase on autopilot, especially as providers raise prices to capture more subsidies. States will have to pick up 5% of the cost from 2025 to 2027, which somewhat reduces federal spending but could lead to state tax hikes down the road.

Universal pre-K. The bill appropriates about $18 billion to states for universal pre-K through 2024 and then “such sums as may be necessary” through 2027. States would be on the hook for about 5% of the cost starting in 2025 and 37% in 2027.

The pre-K and child care entitlements are estimated to cost only $380 billion because they phase in gradually and expire after six years. But there’s zero chance they will expire in 2027. Once the middle-class gets hooked, the entitlements will be impossible to repeal. CRFB estimates the two programs would cost $800 billion if made permanent.

The current $10,000 limit on the state-and-local tax (SALT) deduction increases to $80,000 through 2030. In 2031 it would return to $10,000. Penn Wharton says this gimmick would lead to $65 billion in additional tax revenue through 2031 though it would cost about $300 billion through 2025. Confused?

Under current law, the $10,000 SALT cap is set to expire in 2025 with most of the 2017 GOP tax cuts. So raising the cap to $80,000 would add to the deficit through 2025 but subtract from it through 2031. This gimmick will make it harder to extend the other expiring provisions of the 2017 tax reform, such as bonus depreciation for business. CRFB says that if the 2017 tax reforms are extended separately, any savings on paper would be erased and replaced with an additional $340 billion in costs.

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In sum, the House bill will cost $2 trillion to $3 trillion more than CBO is estimating because Democrats have camouflaged the costs. Penn Wharton estimates the bill’s tax increases and other revenue will yield about $1.8 trillion, but this doesn’t account for how the tax hikes will change the incentives to work and invest.

Keep in mind that CBO this summer projected that annual deficits will already exceed $1 trillion on average through 2030, causing U.S. debt to swell by $12.8 trillion—and that’s before the infrastructure bill or this House bill. When the spending all kicks in, and the rich are all taxed out, the middle class will be hit with a huge tax increase. This is the most dishonest spending bill in American history.

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The Leviticus 25 Plan expands U.S. citizens’ freedoms in allocating resources in ways that best meet their needs and desires. It provides massive debt elimination at the family level, while massively reducing dependence on government.

The Leviticus 25 Plan shrinks government and generates $383 billion budget surpluses during each of its first five years of activation. And it pays for itself entirely over the following 10-15 years.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2022 (3884 downloads)

Q1 2021: “Richest Americans have never owned a greater share of US household income than they do, largely thanks to the Fed”

Household Net Worth Hits Record $142 Trillion, Up $31 Trillion Since COVID, But There Is A Catch…

“The biggest wealth redistribution in history continues..”. 

ZeroHedge, Sep 23, 2021 – Excerpts:

Indeed, the latest data as of Q1 shows that the top 1% accounts for over $41.5 trillion of total household net worth, with the number rising to over $90 trillion for just the top 10%. Meanwhile, the bottom half of the US population has virtually no assets at all. On a percentage basis, just the Top 1% now own a record 32.1% share of total US net worth, or $45.6 trillion. In other words, the richest Americans have never owned a greater share of US household income than they do, largely thanks to the Fed. Meanwhile, the bottom 50% own just 2% of all net worth, or a paltry $2.8 trillion. They do own most of the debt though…

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And the saddest chart of all: the wealth of the bottom 50% is virtually unchanged since 2006, while the net worth of the Top 1% has risen by 132% from $17.9 trillion to $41.5 trillion.

Bottom line: the data underscore how the government’s fiscal scramble to speed up the “economic recovery” paired with the Fed’s continued ultra easy monetary policy have helped to protect and grow the wealth of the richest Americans: those who own assets, and who have seen their net worth hit an all time high… unlike the bottom 50% of Americans who mostly “own” debt. 

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The Fed’s massive liquidity transfusions into the Wall Street financial sector during the great financial crisis (2007-2010) ‘lined the pockets’ and… ‘lathered up’ the top officers and Board of Director members of Wall Street’s financial sector, including: Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, State Street, Wells Fargo, AIG, Merrill Lynch, along with multi-national foreign banking interests like Deutsche Bank, UBS AG, BNP Paribas, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse, and numerous others.

The average working class American received ‘crumbs’ during the big scramble to rescue the financial system.

Again, “… the wealth of the bottom 50% is virtually unchanged since 2006, while the net worth of the Top 1% has risen by 132% from $17.9 trillion to $41.5 trillion.”

It is time to ‘re-balance’ the system and grant the same opportunity for direct liquidity extensions to U.S. citizens that was so generously provided by the Fed to Wall Street’s financial sector over a decade ago.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2022 (3880 downloads)

Fraser Institute: Economic Freedom Most Important Factor Among Nations…

2015 Fraser Institute study highlights the vital benefits of economic freedom.

New study: Economic freedom makes you happier than age, employment, income     

By Jason Russell – Wall Street Examiner, Aug 5, 2015 – Excerpts:

Government size, property rights and trade are among factors used to determine a country’s economic freedom.

Countries with more economic freedom have happier people, according to a study published Tuesday by the Fraser Institute.

Economic freedom determines how much control someone feels they have over their life, which can affect happiness levels.

The happiness benefit is seen even when other factors that might increase happiness and also are prevalent in economically-free countries are held equal. These include higher levels of health, income, trust and employment. Economic freedom actually makes people happier than their income, age, political system or job status, the study says.

“Clearly, living in an economically free society has an important impact on the average citizen,” said Fred McMahon, the Fraser Institute’s Research Chair in Economic Freedom. “Past research concluded that economic freedom spurs prosperity, income, employment and better public institutions.”

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The Leviticus 25 Plan is America’s premier economic acceleration plan, and the only plan in America with the power to relight the fires of economic freedom.

The Leviticus 25 Plan restores economic liberty for all Americans, breaks the government dependency cycle for struggling U.S. citizens, eliminates massive debt burdens – public and private, and generates $383 billion government budget surpluses for each of its first five years of activation. It pays for itself entirely over a 10-15 year period.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2022 (3874 downloads)

Europe’s Dead-End ‘Cradle-to-Grave’ Welfare System vs The Leviticus 25 Plan

Governments love to ‘grow’ their social welfare entitlement programs. Europe is a prime example, and America is hot on their tail…

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WSJ: The Entitlements of U.S. Decline

Biden says his plans will make America great again. Ask Europe how that has turned out.

Oct 6, 2021 |  Excerpts:

… Europe’s little-discussed secret is that its cradle-to-grave welfare states are financed by the middle class via value-added and payroll taxes. The combined employer-employee social security tax rate is 36% in Spain, 40% in Italy and 65% in France. Value-added taxes in most European economies are around 20%. There simply aren’t enough rich to finance their entitlements.

Democrats in Washington know this, which is why they are resorting to budget gimmicks to disguise $5 trillion in spending into the 10-year budget window. They plan to pay for a few years of spending with 10 years of tax increases on businesses and affluent individuals, but this still only gets them $2.1 trillion in estimated new revenue.

Europe’s vast entitlements also mean less money for security and the military. Only nine or so European countries meet their NATO pledge to spend 2% or more of GDP on defense, and only Greece spends more than 3% as the U.S. does. Germany spends a paltry 1.56%.

The U.S. was able to defeat the Soviet empire in the 1980s because a booming economy spun off enough revenue to rebuild the military. Mr. Biden is proposing to shrink defense in real terms, and his welfare-spending wedge will grow rapidly. There will be no Reagan-like military buildup as China rises.

The irony is that some European governments have tried to reform their tax and welfare systems to become more competitive. Germany and Sweden over two decades reformed their welfare and labor policies. Their labor participation and GDP growth have exceeded the rest of Europe’s. Germany’s labor participation rose to 61.3% in 2019 from 58.1% in 2000.

During the 1970s and 80s, Sweden’s tax burden rose to the world’s highest as its welfare system became much more generous. The result: Swedes’ after-tax real incomes stagnated while government debt ballooned. From 1976 to 1995, GDP growth in Sweden was about half the average of developed countries and a third lower than Europe’s large economies.

Sweden’s decline prompted tax and spending reforms in the early 1990s that increased labor productivity, private job growth and incomes. The rate of disposable income growth increased four-fold from 1996 to 2011. Sweden’s average GDP growth from 2010 to 2019 (2.6%) has far surpassed that of most European countries.

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America’s current economic trajectory, according to the GAO, is “unsustainable.”

America needs a plan that will shrink the size of government, shrink entitlement spending, re-incentivize work and productivity, eliminate ground-level debt, generate annual state and federal budget surpluses, and restore financial security for hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing American families.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. Citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2022 (3873 downloads)

WSJ: The “Jerry-Rigged Budget Framework” Illusion.

Our Washington politicians are ‘blowing up’ federal budget deficits – to the ultimate detriment of economic liberty in America and the ultimate impairment of economic growth and prosperity.

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A Jerry-Rigged Budget ‘Framework’ – WSJ

Oct. 28, 2021 – Excerpts:

… The jerry-rigged [$1.75 trillion budget] plan is an enormous expansion of government with quarter-baked entitlement programs that will retard work and $1.85 trillion in tax increases that will distort and limit investment. The $1.75 trillion cost that Democrats have assigned their bill is an illusion. They use phony accounting to finance a few years of new spending with 10 years of tax increases.

For example, the plan extends the $3,600 child tax credit for one year at a cost of $110 billion. But Democrats will inevitably extend the credit next year. If Republicans oppose this or try to scale the credit back, they will be attacked for raising taxes on middle-class families. The true 10-year cost is about $1.1 trillion.

The agreement drops the House’s proposed Medicare vision and dental expansion. But it preserves a new hearing benefit, which the White House claims will cost a mere $34 billion and start in 2024. The annual cost of the hearing benefit once fully phased-in is some $16 billion. Congress will invariably make it permanent. True cost: $160 billion

Democrats also plan to extend ObamaCare subsidies through 2025 for higher earners and broaden them to low-income folks in states that rejected the Medicaid expansion. The White House says this will cost $130 billion, but the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that providing coverage to these folks would cost north of $500 billion over a decade.

These programs are merely illustrative of how Democrats are desperately trying to squeeze a menagerie of spending into their negotiated $1.75 trillion top-line cost, with the real cost likely to be closer to $4 trillion.

At the same time Democrats are inflating the revenue estimates to pay for it. They claim $145 billion in phantom savings from repealing a controversial Trump Medicare drug rebate rule that was unlikely to take effect.

They also claim $400 billion in revenues from $80 billion in IRS “investments”—a 66% budget increase—including to hire more auditors to harass taxpayers. CBO has estimated this would only yield $200 billion in revenue for a net $120 billion.

The $1.85 trillion in tax increases include a 15% minimum tax on book income of large corporations, which will become Swiss cheese after Democrats add carve-outs for progressive interests. Corporations will also be taxed 1% on stock buybacks (which is another way of taxing shareholder dividends). Instead of buying back their shares, companies may hold more earnings in cash or channel them into unproductive investments.

Despite its anti-corporate advertising, the bill represents the biggest expansion of corporate welfare in history. Much of the $555 billion for climate spending will go to businesses for investing in renewables, nuclear, hydrogen, carbon capture, electric vehicles, batteries and transmission lines. This is on top of tens of billions in green-energy handouts in the Senate infrastructure bill.

And don’t believe Mr. Biden’s malarkey that taxes won’t go up for non-millionaires. Small business owners will get slammed by a 3.8% Medicare surcharge on active-investment income. A 5% surtax on income over $10 million and 8% above $25 million will hit the ephemeral rich who experience a windfall, say, after cashing in stock compensation after decades of work.

These surtaxes will raise the top marginal personal income tax rate to 45% or so and around 60% in New York and California, which would be higher than in European welfare states. The top rate in the U.K. is 45%, Italy 47.2%, Germany 47.5% and France is 55.4%. Congrats, Mr. President, you’ve won the tax race to the top.

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Washington politicians have a one-track mind to ‘grow government.’

Washington-based Democrats (high-intensity), Washington-based Republicans (medium-intensity).

America’s hard-working, tax-paying, God-fearing citizens now have a plan to shrink government, and return to a citizen-driven free-market economy and a citizen-centered healthcare system.

The Leviticus 25 Plan is a dynamic economic initiative providing direct liquidity benefits for American families, while at the same time scaling back the role of government in managing and controlling the affairs of citizens.  It is a comprehensive plan with long-term economic and social benefits for citizens and government.

The inspiration for this plan is based upon Biblical principles set forth in the Book of Leviticus, principles tendering direct economic liberties to the people.

The Leviticus 25 Plan – An Economic Acceleration Plan for America

$90,000 per U.S. citizen – Leviticus 25 Plan 2022 (3867 downloads)

M. Stanton Evans: Liberty and Economic Freedom.

M. Stanton Evans, Sep 11, 1960:

That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force;

That liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

That the purpose of government is to protect those freedoms through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice;

That when government ventures beyond these rightful functions, it accumulates power, which tends to diminish order and liberty;

That the Constitution of the United States is the best arrangement yet devised for empowering government to fulfill its proper role, while restraining it from the concentration and abuse of power;

That the genius of the Constitution—the division of powers—is summed up in the clause that reserves primacy to the several states, or to the people, in those spheres not specifically delegated to the Federal government;

That the market economy, allocating resources by the free play of supply and demand, is the single economic system compatible with the requirements of personal freedom and constitutional government, and that it is at the same time the most productive supplier of human needs;

That when government interferes with the work of the market economy, it tends to reduce the moral and physical strength of the nation; that when it takes from one man to bestow on another, it diminishes the incentive of the first, the integrity of the second, and the moral autonomy of both;

That we will be free only so long as the national sovereignty of the United States is secure; that history shows periods of freedom are rare, and can exist only when free citizens concertedly defend their rights against all enemies;

That the forces of international Communism are, at present, the greatest single threat to these liberties;