Joe Biden’s Economic Fantasy World - WSJ Opinion
The Biden bill is paid for by the largest tax increase in history. You are entitled to argue that is a cost worth paying, but you can’t argue it costs nothing.
It’s also fantasy to believe that taxing productivity comes at no cost. The dollars that the federal government collects and redistributes may have been more effectively funneled into the economy by those who are paying. Companies pay employers, buy raw materials, and boost their stock prices, all to the benefit of the collective economy. Americans with disposable income do the same thing through discretionary spending.
Far too many of the tax dollars proposed to be levied will end up propping up unviable green energy businesses that will go to zero.
Head Start has been around since 1965, with little evidence that kids who went through the program performed better academically. So how is universal Pre-K going to fix that?
Less than 30% of students in community college complete their program of study. How is that percentage going to go up when they don’t have any skin in the game?
Paid Family Leave is a problem already solved in the private market through increased paid time off or short term disability plans.
Utility companies and states are already diversifying their power supply base, to include renewables. Why do they need an additional tax or bonus check for continuing to do the work they’re already doing?
- We authorized $6T in the past year and have inflation near 5%, why is spending another $3.5T a good idea? Oh, and some of that money won’t be spent until 2028 as it is.
On, and on, and on…
Which brings us to the other fiction the president and his friends have been aggressively promoting of late: the idea that the bill is good because the rich deserve to pay more. “I’m sick and tired of the super-wealthy and corporations not paying their fair share in taxes,” Mr. Biden wrote on Twitter last week. But this favored Democratic talking point, whether articulated from a White House podium, or daubed in blood-red ink on a fancy dress, is bathed in mendacity. Corporate taxes end up being paid by much of the population. Individual income taxes have already become more progressive. According to the Tax Foundation, in 2018, the top 1% of American taxpayers paid more than 40% of all federal income taxes. That is up from 33% two decades ago. The bottom 50% paid less than the top 3%.
The lopsided distribution of taxes is unsustainable.