XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.society.liberalism, alt.politics.democrats.d   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: yak@inbox.com   
      
   On 12/16/21 10:50 AM, BeamMeUpScotty wrote:   
   > On 12/16/21 3:23 AM, Biden Morons wrote:   
   >> The House-passed Build Back Better legislation has always relied on   
   >> gimmicks to hide its true cost.   
   >>   
   >> Lawmakers attempted to squeeze $5 trillion in 10-year benefits into   
   >> a $2.4 trillion score by using fake expiration dates, such as   
   >> assuming that the expanded child tax credit ends after one year,   
   >> health insurance expansions end after 4 years, and child care and   
   >> pre-school subsidies end after 6 years.   
   >>   
   >> By matching the fake $2.4 trillion score with $2.2 trillion in new   
   >> taxes and health offsets, President Biden claims that Build Back   
   >> Better is paid for (which is false even under the original CBO   
   >> score).   
   >>   
   >> Last Friday, CBO confirmed in a letter to Congressional Republicans   
   >> that removing the expiration dates and making the new provisions   
   >> permanent would raise the 10-year shortfall to $2.8 trillion —   
   >> making Build Back Better the most expensive permanent expansion of   
   >> government in five decades.   
   >>   
   >> Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) — whose vote is surely needed to pass BBB   
   >> — has condemned the “shell games, budget gimmicks that make   
   the real   
   >> cost of the so-called $1.75 trillion bill estimated to be almost   
   >> twice that amount, if the full time is run out, if you extended it   
   >> permanently.”   
   >>   
   >> The Democratic blowback was fierce. White House Press Secretary Jen   
   >> Psaki called the letter “a fake CBO score that is not based on the   
   >> actual bill that anybody is voting on.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi   
   >> and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer both pledged that any   
   >> future extensions of BBB would be paid for in new taxes or spending   
   >> cuts, with Schumer calling the CBO report a “fake score based on   
   >> mistruths.”   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> Look no further than last week. The day before CBO released the   
   >> permanent score of Build Back Better, Sen. Schumer, Rep. Pelosi, and   
   >> Congressional Democrats voted to delay or cancel the $80 billion in   
   >> automatic spending cuts that had been required to offset a portion   
   >> of the American Rescue Plan that had been signed in March. Canceling   
   >> these automatic cuts has become so routine that most of the media   
   >> did not even cover it.   
   >>   
   >> In fact, this practice goes back for decades. The 2001 tax cuts were   
   >> enacted under reconciliation rules that required expirations after   
   >> 10 years. A bipartisan majority later made the law permanent for   
   >> nearly all taxpayers without offsets.   
   >>   
   >> Also, for nearly two decades, each December would see Congress   
   >> cancel a group of automatic Medicare provider cuts and small tax   
   >> increases — until in 2015, when they dropped the charade and made   
   >> the cancellations permanent.   
   >>   
   >> In 2009, President Obama signed the “PAYGO” law to ensure that   
   all   
   >> tax cuts and entitlement expansions be fully offset, or face   
   >> automatic sequestration savings later. Yet Congress has subsequently   
   >> canceled every PAYGO sequestration, in a matter so routine that the   
   >> law is not even discussed in most legislative negotiations.   
   >>   
   >> We can keep going. The 2011 Budget Control Act capped future   
   >> discretionary spending increases and required modest automatic   
   >> entitlement cuts. Those caps were gradually raised beginning the   
   >> following year, and by 2020 Congressional spenders were busting the   
   >> caps by $168 billion annually and canceling the automatic   
   >> entitlement cuts.   
   >>   
   >> Former President Barack Obama’s “Pay-As-You-Go” law from   
   2009 is now   
   >> irrelevant thanks to Congress.   
   >>   
   >> Current law limits highway and transit spending levels to dedicated   
   >> revenues such as from the gas tax. Congress regularly breaks these   
   >> spending limits, which has led to $230 billion in general fund   
   >> bailouts of the highway and transit trust funds since 2008,   
   >> including a $90 billion bailout buried quietly in the recent   
   >> infrastructure bill.   
   >>   
   >> Much of the family provisions of the 2017 tax cuts are set to expire   
   >> at the end of 2025, but neither party has indicated any interest in   
   >> allowing the tax cuts to expire for non-wealthy taxpayers.   
   >>   
   >> Four broad trends emerge from these examples:   
   >>   
   >> First, that automatic savings or policy expirations scheduled for   
   >> the future are almost always cancelled.   
   >> Second, these cancellations occur regardless of whether offsets are   
   >> identified, with the more expensive extensions never paid for.   
   >> Third, these cancellation votes are almost always bipartisan — even   
   >> when the original law had been partisan — because neither party   
   >> wants to remove an existing benefit.   
   >> Fourth, these cancellation votes are so routine and non-   
   >> controversial that the press rarely even covers them.   
   >> So when the White House and Congressional leaders claim that they   
   >> would allow the expiration of new benefits related to the child tax   
   >> credit, earned income tax credit, health insurance, child care, and   
   >> pre-school unless lawmakers can come up with $3 trillion in new   
   >> taxes or spending cuts, they are taking us for fools.   
   >>   
   >> After all, if $3 trillion in additional savings were politically   
   >> feasible, then Congress would have included them in the current BBB   
   >> legislation in order to make permanent the new benefits. Instead,   
   >> lawmakers tell us that additional new taxes that could not pass the   
   >> laugh test today will suddenly become feasible next year when the   
   >> benefit expirations begin.   
   >>   
   >> Then again, President Biden has also bizarrely claimed that BBB   
   >> would “cost zero dollars,” which suggests he may again invent   
   new   
   >> accounting to hide these future costs.   
   >>   
   >> The White House has made clear that it intends for all of BBB’s new   
   >> benefits to be permanent, at a cost of $5 trillion over the decade.   
   >> Yet the House has identified only $2 trillion in pay-fors, and that   
   >> figure is likely to fall once the Senate marks up the bill. Counting   
   >> on lawmakers to enact new middle-class benefits and then allow those   
   >> benefits to quickly expire flies in the face of history and basic   
   >> politics.   
   >>   
   >> Voters should expect Build Back Better to ultimately add $3 trillion   
   >> in debt over the decade, and that’s not “fake.”   
   >>   
      
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