An unrepentant old-school liberal, Joe Biden would crush the economy with three trillion dollars worth of new taxes and five trillion dollars in new spending.
A new study released on Monday by the Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) argues that this is a good thing.
According to The Hill:
“At the end of the day, they actually decrease debt because they do have significant revenue raisers,” Richard Prisinzano, director of policy analysis for PWBM, said in an interview with The Hill. “And the economy is more productive. As we put in things like education and infrastructure, workers become more productive, and that gives a boost to the economy.”
If the U.S Treasury had one dollar for every dollar we spent that was promised to increase productivity but was just, you know, spent, then the Treasury would be sitting on a $26 trillion surplus instead of a $26 trillion deficit.
Approximately, of course.
What Team Biden and the PWBM conveniently ignore is that our nation’s decades-long history of annual increases for per-federal spending on education per pupil has actually had zero impact on student test scores.
Or as Lindsey Burke wrote last year for The Daily Signal:
Federal “Highly Qualified Teacher” mandates. Adequate Yearly Progress requirements. Smaller learning communities. Improving Teacher Quality State Grants. Reading First. Early Reading First. The dozens of other federal programs authorized via No Child Left Behind. School Improvement Grants. Race to the Top. Common Core.
All of that has been just since 2000. Over those past two decades, while federal policymakers were busy enacting new federal laws, creating mandates for local school leaders, and increasing the Department of Education’s budget from $38 billion in 2000 (unadjusted for inflation) to roughly $70 billion today, the math and reading performance of American high school students remained completely flat. That is to say, stagnant.
But Biden — the man who helped waste a trillion dollars “overseeing” Barack Obama’s stimulus package — is going to do better.
Somehow, someway that no one can define, this time federal spending on education will lead to massive productivity increases our economy needs.
Don’t buy it.
This Obama-Biden Administration Failure Killed More Americans Than COVID-19
A hypothetical Biden administration says it will devote more money to infrastructure (as President Donald Trump already has), but no doubt Biden’s spending would be in line with Green New Deal priorities he endorsed to win the hearts and minds of his party’s radical watermelon wing.
California has followed a similar path over the last two decades, neglecting necessary infrastructure spending on roads, power generation, and water projects. Instead, they’ve spent billions on “green” energy sources and the infamous high-speed train to nowhere.
As a result, California’s once-fertile interior enjoys near-permanent drought conditions, the state’s highways are among the nation’s worst, and millions of residents can’t get enough electricity to run the A/C on the hottest days when they need it most.
Biden would bring California’s mislaid priorities to the nation at large.
Thanks, but no.
The Biden campaign also promises to raise $3,000,000,000,000 in new revenues entirely by hiking taxes on people making more than $400,000 per year, and on corporations.
The rich have accountants and connections in Washington. Corporations have even better accountants and even more connections. If anyone believes they’ll actually end up paying $3 trillion more (no one actually believes this), they’re on better drugs than I can get here in Colorado.
We must apply VodkaPundit’s Clinton Rule of Thumb for Tax Hikes, which states: “Any tax increase will generate at best only two-thirds of the expected revenue.”
My rule of thumb was created in honor of Bill Clinton’s first-term tax hike that failed to bring in the promised riches — and that was enacted during one of the hottest growth economies we’d ever experienced.
A huge tax hike while the nation is still reeling (for no good reason) from the Wuhan Virus is putting out fire with gasoline.
But it’s worse than all that.
Biden would impose crushing new taxes while re-regulating the economy back to dismal Obama-era growth levels. If that. The Green New Deal would take an even larger toll on growth.
If I had to bet, in Biden’s case, VodkaPundit’s Clinton Rule of Thumb for Tax Hikes would be far too optimistic.
Coming out of this Wuhan Virus Recession and getting this economy back on sound footing requires that we double down on Trump’s tax and regulatory cuts.
That means four more years of Donald Trump, and not one minute of Joe Biden and his tax, spend, and regulate agenda.
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