Let’s begin with a flat-out “there he goes, again” regarding President Biden’s phony assertions today about a $1.4 trillion deficit drop that he claims is the largest one-year decline in history.
Now, I'm going to be careful here, because factually Mr. Biden is correct about the $1.4 trillion. I don't know about American history, but as usual both his statement and the context are completely and fraudulently misleading. Why do I say that? Well, let me refer to the president of the mainstream Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Maya MacGuineas.
She reminds us that the entirety of the decline in the deficit between 2021 and 2022 can be attributed to the expiration of temporary Covid relief, and she adds that the deficit would’ve been almost $400 billion lower had the Biden administration not decided to enact an inflationary, regressive student debt cancellation plan in August.
Also, Ms. MacGuineas says that despite claims of historic deficit reduction, lawmakers and the president have approved nearly $5 trillion of new borrowing over the last two years. She then goes on to suggest that the Federal Reserve is having a hard time getting inflation under control when fiscal policymakers keep making its job even more difficult with additional borrowing.
So, I didn’t hear or read about Mr. Biden discussing the $5 trillion in new borrowing. Nor did I hear him acknowledge that it was Covid spending coming to an end rather than any Biden administration spending or deficit reduction actions.
I must add that many Republicans, such as Jason Smith and Kevin Brady, have argued strongly that when counted properly to take into account numerous gimmicks, the recent fraudulently named IRA super-spending bill could actually spend up to $800 billion in renewable tax credits, not $400 billion. Plus, there’s the phony baloney scoring of Medicare subsidies, totaling nearly $300 billion.
Also, the likes of Ms. MacGuineas and the Penn-Wharton model suggest the proper range for the student loan cancellation, which is the have-nots subsidizing the haves, will be $500 billion to $1 trillion, much more than even the CBO’s $400 billion estimate, which itself is double the White House’s roughly $200 billion.
Go back to March 2021. Say that inflationary spending bill added up to $2 trillion, then add another $1 trillion for the Green New Deal so-called infrastructure bill. Then tack on lord knows what else between the IRA and the student loan cancellations, and I think Ms. MacGuineas’s $5 trillion new borrowing estimate is just about right.
That’s the number to focus on. As usual, President Biden cannot give America a serious, honest estimate of anything — and that is the character flaw I spoke of yesterday. It’s just like him telling us that it’s the American oil companies, the greatest in the world, producing the cleanest energy and employing more than 11 million in high-paying jobs that are really responsible for high energy prices.
“They’re sleeping,” Mr. Biden said. What he did, of course, is impugn one of our greatest, world leading, cutting-edge industries with a flat-out lie. He said he’s done nothing to block fossil fuel production, and yet we have definitively shown he has done everything in his power to block production.
Back on the subject of Mr. Biden’s spending and deficits, let’s not forget that if he had his way, the original “Build Back Better” plan would have been at least $4 trillion in new spending. He just didn’t get it. He also wanted a huge tax hike that would’ve done even more damage to the American economy. That’s what he wanted, but during a brief, shining moment, Senator Manchin stood in the way. So much for brief, shining moments.
One other fiscal point: During today’s press conference, Mr. Biden kept bringing up a Republican plan that would add $3 trillion to the deficit. I don’t know what he's talking about. This is an entirely made-up assertion.
In fact, the minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the House Republicans’ policy guideline titled “Commitment to America” explicitly talks about a strategy to rescind Mr. Biden’s inflationary spending and borrowing, to rescind his war against fossil fuel over-regulation, and to overturn his tax hikes and get rid of the 87,000 new IRS agents. If they had their way, the Republicans would rescind the entire $5 trillion of Biden borrowing. So this $3 trillion fantasy about GOP intentions is just a flat-out lie.
That’s the problem. That is his character flaw. That is why Americans have completely lost confidence in him, and that is why in the midterm elections on November 8, voters will reject the idea that he’s the person to save our sinking ship.
Yes, the cavalry’s coming.
From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.
Larry Kudlow was the Director of the National Economic Council under President Trump from 2018-2021. His Fox Business show "Kudlow" airs at 4 p.m &. and his radio show airs on 770 ABC from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
