I want to begin with some untruth-telling by the Biden White House. Then, we’ll be joined by John Roberts to talk about some election issues in just a moment, and Jonathan Turley about why Democrats don’t want to let Republicans on the ballot, but first up, once again, Team Biden shows they are completely incapable of telling the truth about the economy or economic policy.
Celebrating a $34 trillion debt milestone, Joe Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre decided to blather on in the White House press room about — wait for it, hang on — oh, yeah! — how the Trump tax cuts have caused the debt to rise to a new record.
Of course, she offers up not a single number in support of this untruth. Just the old authoritarian idea that if you say something often enough, people will believe it. Well, as every Bidenomics poll shows, nobody is believing them. Here’s what Jean-Pierre said:
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: There’s a trickle-down debt. If you think about it, Republican tax cuts are responsible about 90% of it, of the increase in the debt as a share of the economy over the last two decades. You’ve heard the president speak to this of what he has done to certainly lower the debt. He signed a legislation to lower the deficit by $1 trillion. Then his agenda would cut the deficit another $2.5 trillion by making the wealthy pay their fair share.
MEDIAN SALE PRICE FOR US HOMES SAW BIGGEST JUMP IN OVER A YEAR
Now, this “Big Lie” should’ve been put to rest last November if not way before, when economists from Harvard, Princeton, the University of Chicago and the U.S. Treasury reported in a new National Bureau of Economic Research paper after examining 12,000 corporate tax returns before and after the 2017 Trump tax cut bill that slashed the tax from 35% to 21%, created bonus depreciation for business investment, and incentivized repatriation for foreign income to the U.S. In fact, business investment capital increased 7.4% over the long run, leading to higher real worker wages and increased worker productivity.
The study also found that after an initial decline in corporate tax revenues in the first few years, those were fully offset by revenue gains over the 10-year budget window. Numerous other studies have confirmed this blue-ribbon report. Former Obama adviser, my friend Jason Furman, called the NBER study “the most convincing estimates of the response of investment to corporate tax changes that I have ever seen.” Thank you, Jason.
By the way, when Gallup last year asked people whether the amount of federal income tax they pay is too high, too low, or just right, only 3% said that taxes are too low. Sixty percent say their income taxes are too high. There’s a mighty big deficit and debt problem, but it comes from spending too much, not taxing too little.
Biden argues that his policies have cut budget deficit, an assertion that earned him a Bottomless Pinocchio from the Washington Post, and the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office show a $2.7 trillion budget deficit by 2033 — the end of the most recent 10-year window.
Cumulatively, Bidenomics will generate $20 trillion in additional deficits during the period. As a share of the economy, deficits will run 6.9% of GDP. The 30-year average is 3.6%. Publicly held debt will rise to $46 trillion over 10 years and budget spending outlays will average 24% of GDP compared to a 50-year average of only 20%.
Thank you, Bidenomics. On top of all that, the National Association of Manufacturers has estimated that under Joe Biden, federal regulations have exploded to an estimated $3 trillion, falling disproportionally on small businesses and, according to the highly accurate I&I/TIPP poll, only 34% of Americans say they’re better off than four years ago.
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Even among self-identified Democrats, only half are willing to claim they’re better off under a Democratic president. One key reason for this pessimism is Joe Biden’s crisis of plunging affordability, where real average weekly earnings over the past three years has fallen from $399 to $380, a drop of $19 or 4.7%.
Inflation is slower, but prices are still significantly higher for essentials like groceries, gasoline and electricity. During the Trump tax years, after policies of lower taxes and deregulation, middle class family incomes went up over $6,000. During the Biden years, typical family incomes have dropped $4,000. Remember Reagan vs. Carter in 1980? Are you better off than you were four years ago? I am just saying, it could be a repeat. That is my riff.