The Democrats have hit upon a simple way to end inflation. Why not give every American a $100 check every month to offset the inflation that their policies caused in the first place?
Better yet, Congress could give kids another $100 a month so that a family of three or four would be eligible for up to $300 a month in “Biden Bucks.”
Of course, what all that deficit spending will do to the inflation rate can only be guessed at. But when you have the power to print cash, it doesn’t matter, does it? If inflation gets too bad, you can always print up more “Biden Bucks.”
Eventually, they’d have to denude the Enchanted Forest of trees to print all that cash, but there are plenty more where those came from.
American consumers could see increased costs of $2,000 this year due to the recent surge in gas prices — and that’s on top of an extra $1,000 in grocery store costs due to the steepest rise in inflation since 1982. Already, consumers are reporting they are cutting back on spending or driving less, with most blaming sticker shock at the pump.
The gas stimulus would “provide middle-class Americans with monthly payments to ease the financial burden of this global crisis,” Thompson said in a statement about the proposal, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has pushed gas prices higher.
Currently, millions of Americans would qualify for the payments based on current gas prices, which averaged $4.24 a gallon on March 22, according to AAA.
Called the Gas Rebate Act, the bill is being proposed by Democratic Reps. Mike Thompson of California, John Larson of Connecticut, and Lauren Underwood of Illinois. No word on how the Biden Bucks would be paid for, but if history is any guide — and when it comes to federal spending, it usually is — Congress will sorta, kinda, mostly forget that little detail when it comes to passing the bill.
A second proposal from Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, would provide a quarterly rebate to consumers based on a tax levied on oil and gas companies.
The Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax would charge a per barrel tax equal to 50% of the difference between the current price of a barrel of oil and its pre-pandemic average price between 2015 to 2019, according to a statement from the lawmakers.
The two lawmakers calculated that if the per barrel price sits at $120, the tax would raise about $45 billion a year — providing single filers with $240 annually and joint filers with $360 each year.
In 1980, Congress tried another “Windfall Profits Tax.” It defined “windfall profit” as the “excess of the removal price of a barrel of crude oil (amount for which barrel is sold) over the sum of the base price adjusted for inflation and the amount of the severance tax adjustment. Specifies that the windfall profit on any barrel of crude oil may not exceed 90 percent of the net income attributable to such barrel.”
The complexity of the oil industry — a complexity that no Democratic politician understands — can’t be reduced to gibbering bureaucratic blather in order to find a unique way of taxing profits.
If anyone thinks a “Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax” would bring in $45 billion, I have a fine, beautiful, bridge over the Chicago River I’d like to sell you.
It won’t be necessary, after all. Biden Bucks will be spent on something else in the government that will be equally wasteful, equally stupid, and equally expensive.
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