More Stimulus? No Thanks

Let’s start with a simple fact: It’s not economic “stimulus” when someone comes along, takes money from your right pocket and puts some of it back in your left pocket (keeping much of it for “other uses”). That’s sleight-of-hand, not stimulus, which is a reason the government can’t stimulate anything other than more government.

That’s more and more true when less and less of the funds go back in your pocket. And make no mistake, President Joe Biden’s plans for a third “stimulus” bill—eclipsing the previous two—isn’t about helping struggling Americans hit hard by the pandemic and the shutdowns. Instead, it’s a massive, pork-laden bill that seeks to keep many of his lavish campaign promises and shore up support among key constituencies.

And nowhere is this more evident than in the area of climate activism.

According to CNBC, “The recovery plan, to be unveiled this week, will likely involve installing thousands of electric vehicle charging stations and building millions of new energy-efficient homes.” (Note to President Biden: Out-of-work Americans can’t afford new electric vehicles.)

Biden’s plan to “Build Back Better” also “supports his broader goal to achieve carbon-free power generation by 2035 and net-zero emissions by 2050”—an impossible goal that, even if it was achievable, would have little effect on global temperatures.

But that’s not all.

The Washington Post reports that it would spend “hundreds of billions of dollars to repair the nation’s roads, bridges, waterways and rails. It also includes funding for retrofitting buildings, safety improvements, schools infrastructure, and low-income and tribal groups, as well as $100 billion for schools and education infrastructure.”

And he plans a slew of massive tax hikes to help pay for it.

He could raise the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, which would destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs, and raise taxes on American individuals. These actions and others would undo key parts of the Tax Reform and Jobs Act of 2017 that combined with deregulation helped launch tangible economic prosperity until the global pandemic.

Each of these initiatives—climate activism, massive “infrastructure” spending and tax hikes—is bad economic policy in and of itself. Together, they’re a trifecta of terrible, guaranteed to overburden our economy and saddle us and future generations with more government, more debt and less opportunity.

History demonstrates that despite the promises of a Green New Deal, new green jobs prove elusive—and the ones that are created are very, very expensive, which requires more government spending of our hard-earned tax dollars that reduces growth and jobs in the process.

Here’s what President Obama said in his 2008 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention: “I’ll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy—wind power, and solar power, and the next generation of biofuels—an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced.”

That never happened.

Obama himself later acknowledged that “Shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.” That went for both the climate jobs (his policies sent solar panel manufacturing to China, for example, and other companies simply misled the government, took the money and declared bankruptcy) and for infrastructure jobs.

The good news is that we know what works. We can truly support more self-sufficiency, dignity, and human flourishing by fully opening the economy up.

Americans aren’t clamoring for a Green New Deal (when they’re told what it will cost), but they sure would like to dine out, see family members again and open up their businesses without the heavy-handed pandemic measures imposed by governments at every level.

It begins with Congress rejecting the third “stimulus” boondoggle. States should also reject some if not all of the latest round of bailout money to keep from unnecessarily expanding government programs and losing some independence to the federal government. And Congress should instead adopt the Texas Model of less spending, lower taxes and more reasonable regulation.

A great next step would be for the Biden administration to lift its “halt” on new oil and gas permits on federal lands and in federal waters.

That action alone would achieve all three of Biden’s stated goals for his “stimulus”: It would reduce emissions by allowing access to cleaner-burning natural gas, it would support many new and existing high-paying jobs for Americans (instead of outsourcing them to other countries, which we’ll be forced to buy our petroleum from), and it would support infrastructure improvement through the taxes producers pay for their use of our roads and bridges.

Another step would be to rein in excessive government spending that is bankrupting our country.

Ultimately, we can regain the prosperity we had before the pandemic—but not with Biden’s progressive plan.

https://thecannononline.com/more-stimulus-no-thanks/