The American people count on politicians to shoot straight and be honest with them. But this year, President Biden’s agenda has been sold to the public with two major lies.
At the beginning of this year, President Biden told the American people that his $2 trillion bailout bill known as the “American Rescue Plan” was desperately needed to crush COVID. Never mind that Congress had recently spent almost $4 trillion less than a year earlier in the name of fighting COVID, he said without his bill, the virus would takeover.
And yet, when we looked into what was actually in the bill, it became clear that the bill had very little to do with fighting COVID. In fact, only 9 percent of the funding in the $2 trillion bill went to public health spending to fight COVID-19. The other 91% of the bill spending went to rewarding Joe Biden’s political allies, like the blue state governors who locked their states down and harmed their economies. That’s why we call it the Biden Bailout Bill.
As Republican Leader of the House Budget Committee, I am prioritizing oversight of this wasteful spending. Local governments have been flooded with more money than they could possibly use, and the Biden administration essentially gave it to them no strings attached. Since this spring I have produced a weekly report called, “What Would You Have Me Cut?,” named after Joe Biden’s question to reporters after he was asked if there was any wasteful spending in his package. What we’ve documented in that report is billions in Washington waste within that $2 trillion bill the President promised was about fighting COVID, including funding for sports stadiums, visitors’ centers, to plant trees, for apartment buildings, golf courses, and government checks to prisoners – just to name a few.
After passing the Biden Bailout Bill, the president moved on to trying to pass his “Build Back Better” plan. Knowing inflation and debt were growing concerns for most Americans, the President told his second lie: that his plan would cost zero dollars, and that the priorities advanced in this plan would go towards fighting inflation.
Recent polling shows that inflation is the top issue of concern among voters. When polled, 43 percent of Americans believe that Joe Biden and the Washington Democrats’ tax and spending bill will only make inflation worse. And who can blame them? Consumer prices are the highest we’ve seen in 40 years, since President Carter! Experts from across the political spectrum predict we are in for several more years of this. Sober economic analysis shows that Democrat overspending has contributed to inflation and, if passed, their proposed multi-trillion-dollar spending bill will only make matters worse.
After the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) produced an analysis for House Democrats of their proposal that showed numerous budget gimmicks, I asked the CBO – Congress’ scorekeeper – to give me an analysis of the true cost of their agenda. What it showed was that the actual spending in this bill was intended to exceed $5 trillion, and the policies enacted would lead to $3 trillion in new debt over the next decade. So much for costing “zero dollars” like the White House claimed. It’s unacceptable for them to lie like this, and this analysis from CBO is what caused Senator Joe Manchin to say he couldn’t support this bill.
Now, Democrats are promising to continue to try to pass this agenda. And, as America is experiencing the greatest number of COVID cases since the start of the pandemic, there is talk of providing even more resources to fight COVID. So, with that in mind, my question is: what lie will be told this time to sell a new agenda? Whatever it is, I’ll be working to fight for hardworking Americans, to stop reckless spending and inflation, and to keep America open.
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