SPENDING STAMPEDE
social spending... He claims the proposed infrastructure spending should theoretically update roads, bridges, and (hopefully) our electrical grid. Are we confused yet? Deese told Fox, “We need to update what we mean by infrastructure for the 21st century” because affordable housing is infrastructure (it’s construction, he says). Elderly care is infrastructure because it addresses the infrastructure of care. And what you’re reading now is an infrastructure of content. I’m not doubting that those are both worthy causes – they are. But considering we are already running a debt-to-GDP ratio of 102%, we cannot afford these ambitious undertakings. Meanwhile, Biden’s agenda is about to get even more outsized... In the coming months, the White House promises to introduce spending to the tune of trillions of more dollars for more social programs including childcare and health care initiatives. Again – noble, worthy causes. But can we afford them? (Hint: we can’t.) So, what’s the deal with all this policy ? Is Bernie Sanders in the White House? Wasn’t Biden just supposed to be the “nice guy”? The calm, casual alternative to the “Trump circus”? If so, why are we about to experience the most radical changes to our country’s economic system since FDR? Unless, of course, that was the goal all along?
THE GHOST OF FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT President Biden sees a small window of opportunity here, and he’s taking it . He’s warned us that “We’re at war with COVID-19,” and stimulus is how we will fight the invisible viral army. But the battle’s winding down... It’s almost V-Day. Why all the spending now? Unless this is a “crisis” that Biden and company do not want to squander for political gain? The pandemic provides an opportunity for a spending spree and a chance to realign this country’s economic order that echoes the 1930s-Roosevelt era. And Biden himself is channeling FDR. Before introducing his infrastructure plan, he reportedly summoned a group of academic historians to the White House to ask how history might perceive him if he moved quickly on these mass spending programs. Predictably, the liberal academics promised that history would love him for it. Well, that depends on who writes the history . One learns as a small child in American schools that FDR was our savior, right along with JFK and Abraham Lincoln. Had it not been for him and his New Deal, our country never would have emerged from the mires of the Great Depression. But then there’s the truth... Economists and historians know that the positive, lasting effects of FDR’s economic legacy are debatable. Eight years into his
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April 2021
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