XPost: alt.politics.trump, talk.politics.guns, alt.politics.economics   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: fjb@nytimes.com   
      
   In article    
    wrote:   
   >   
   > Everybody say, "THANKS DEMOCRATS!" "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES!"   
   >   
      
   IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT   
   • The major Democratic bill on climate change, health care and   
   corporate taxation signed by President Joe Biden was dubbed the   
   Inflation Reduction Act.   
      
   • Despite that optimistic nickname, critics charge the new law   
   doesn’t do much to tackle inflation.   
      
   • Most independent estimates project that the measure will have   
   a very limited impact on inflation. What impact it does have   
   will likely take several years to realize, and that’s probably   
   too long to make a dent in the current 40-year high levels of   
   inflation, experts say.   
      
   When the major Democratic bill on climate change, health care   
   and corporate taxation was being finalized, its Senate backers   
   settled on a title that reflected the reality that inflation was   
   at a 40-year high. They called it the Inflation Reduction Act.   
      
   But as the legislation was being debated — and after it passed   
   on a party-line vote Aug. 7 — Republican critics sought to turn   
   this language against the bill’s supporters. The measure   
   wouldn’t actually do much of anything to curb inflation, they   
   argued.   
      
   Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, who’s running a stronger-than-expected   
   Senate race in the GOP-leaning state of Ohio, sought to   
   neutralize the critics’ rhetoric. In an Aug. 17 tweet, he shared   
   a chart that paired arguments against the bill with his   
   counterarguments.   
      
   "There’s been a lot of misinformation about the Inflation   
   Reduction Act floating around," he tweeted from his official   
   House account. "Now that this historic legislation is now law,   
   let’s get to the bottom of what this bill really does — and   
   doesn’t!"   
      
   One of the statements that Ryan sought to debunk was that the   
   bill "will increase deficit spending." Ryan’s rejoinder: The   
   bill "will pay down the national debt & fight inflation."   
      
      
   Here, we’ll look at both parts of Ryan’s statement. Because   
   these comments are predictions, we won’t rate them on our Truth-   
   O-Meter.   
      
   Will the legislation "pay down the national debt"?   
   There's nothing in the legislation that would do that.   
      
   Understanding why depends on understanding the difference   
   between the debt and the deficit.   
      
   The bill aims to reduce the deficit. The deficit is the annual   
   gap between how much the federal government spends and how much   
   revenue it collects.   
      
   Most estimates project that the Democratic bill’s provisions   
   would reduce the federal deficit by a cumulative $305 billion   
   through 2031. An estimate from the Committee for a Responsible   
   Federal Budget projects that the measure would reduce deficits   
   by $1 trillion over two decades. That number could climb to   
   nearly $2 trillion if the savings on interest are included, the   
   committee said.   
      
   However, these reductions would not be enough to actually "pay   
   down the national debt."   
      
   Debt is the accumulation of all prior deficits, minus any annual   
   surpluses. And the debt would still be rising with this bill’s   
   provisions in play. It would just be rising at a slower pace.   
      
   "By reducing deficits, you slow the growth of the debt and   
   hopefully shrink it as a percentage of gross domestic product,"   
   said Steve Ellis, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "But   
   that still isn’t ‘paying down the national debt.’"   
      
   To pay down the debt in absolute terms would require running   
   federal budget surpluses. All or part of these surpluses would   
   then need to be used to actually pay off bonds held by the   
   public.   
      
   "That would require significant increases in taxes and   
   reductions in spending," said Kyle Pomerleau, a senior fellow at   
   the American Enterprise Institute. And those tax increases and   
   spending cuts are far beyond the scope of what the Democratic   
   bill included, he said.   
      
   Ryan’s office told PolitiFact that because of the deficit   
   reduction, debt would be lower than it would have been without   
   the bill, even if it’s not lower in absolute dollars.   
      
   Will the legislation "fight inflation"?   
   This is far from a certainty.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)