As the Biden White House and Congress’ radical progressives continue their efforts to reach an agreement with Capitol Hill moderates and conservatives on their proposed $1.75 trillion social spending bill, it’s becoming more apparent than ever that their pie-in-the-sky agenda is anything but fiscally responsible.
And that’s putting it very gently, believe you me.
On Thursday, the White House released its final version of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” spending plan, which includes billions in funding for universal preschool, child care, public housing and climate initiatives and pins it all on the wealthy to — say it with me now — “pay their fair share.”
Of course, for this to even begin to make sense, one would certainly hope that the wealthy are made to pay enough of their “fair share” to make the ends of the trillion-dollar-plus spending package meet, right?
Apparently, that is expecting too much.
According to an analysis from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, the White House has overshot its estimate for how much the plan’s tax increases will offset the ambitious spending initiatives by about $468 billion.
“At 9AM this morning, the White House released a set of revenue options for budget reconciliation that the White House estimated to total $1,995 billion over 10 years,” a summary of the school’s budget model released on Thursday reads.
“PWBM’s estimate of the same package is $1,527 billion, a difference of $468 billion,” it states.
The White House’s preliminary estimated revenue effects of selected provisions in its budget reconciliation package estimate a total of $1,995B over 10 years. This is $468B more than our #PWBM‘s estimate of revenues, which amount to $1,527B.
Read more: https://t.co/8cFzFK6iPD pic.twitter.com/Exc3UYXQ42
— Penn Wharton Budget Model (@BudgetModel) October 29, 2021
(2/2) Notable differences in revenue estimates include the 15% minimum tax on book income and increased IRS funding by $80B over the next 10 years. The White House estimated $325B and $400B, respectively, while $PWBM only estimates $195B and 190B in revenues, respectively. pic.twitter.com/8eXL3jHJe9
— Penn Wharton Budget Model (@BudgetModel) October 28, 2021
The most substantial discrepancy between the White House’s plan and the Penn Wharton Budget Model’s projection is the revenue that would be brought in by increasing funding to the Internal Revenue Service. While the Biden administration projected this would bring in $400 billion, PWBM estimated $190 billion.
A 15 percent minimum corporate tax on companies that report earnings of over $1 billion, meanwhile, was estimated to bring in only $195 billion, although the White House’s figure projected $325 billion.
This is exactly the kind of thing that Dave Ramsey is always warning us regular folks about doing with our own budgets — yet we’ve gotten so used to our own federal government’s wildly excessive and irresponsible funding that when we see these facts and figures, our eyes glaze over.
It’s likely not a coincidence that as our culture has moved so far away from any cohesive sense of personal responsibility, we’re lost most of our interest in fiscal responsibility on both a personal and state level.
Our nation is sinking into crippling debt, and yet younger Americans still clamor for high-priced social spending with the misguided assumption that because our nation is the wealthiest in history, surely money is growing on trees that are kept in some massive proverbial orchard, access to which has been cruelly cut off to more deserving and sympathetic people.
“Tax the rich” looks great when it’s pithily conveyed in tweets — or on the back of high-dollar Met gala gowns — but even if such a scheme were so simple, the figures still have to line up on paper.
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Yet we live in a world where large-scale riots that destroy millions of dollars of private property, often owned by minorities, is seen as racial justice, being forgiven for debt you agreed to pay to go to a fancy university is seen as a human right, and forcing taxpayers of conscious to pay for abortions is seen as a matter of women’s health.
Is it any wonder that it is so controversial to pass legislation that simply lines up with mathematical reality in such a twisted world?
We are terrible stewards of the material blessings our nation has generated, just as we are terrible stewards of the reasoning and philosophy that led to the foundation of our nation in the first place.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
