Progressive Agenda Punches Down on Middle America

Despite the narrative and all the political ads, Hollywood, Tech Elites, and the wealthy 1% are the only real benefactors of modern “liberal” policies.

President Joe Biden touts his proposal for another $5.5 trillion of welfare spending, saying it’s “an ambitious plan to create jobs, cut taxes, and lower costs for working families — all paid for by making the tax code fairer and making the wealthiest and large corporations pay their fair share.”

The idea that Biden’s policies help ordinary people by digging deeper into the pockets of the wealthy is dubious. As Phil Gramm, former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Mike Solon wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently, Democrats want the wealthiest to be able again to deduct the sky-high taxes levied by the profligate governments they elect in blue states and slough them on to other federal taxpayers and into public debt. If Biden really planned to prevent the best-off taxpayers using sophisticated accounting to avoid liabilities, he’d have proposed restoring the Alternative Minimum Tax rather than lifting the cap from State and Local Tax deductions.

The claim that the president’s plan would increase taxes only on people earning more than $400,000 is false. It is already dipping deeper into the pockets of everyone in this country, right down to those living below the poverty line by handing out unnecessary federal checks, supposedly to stimulate the economy, and by pressing for the biggest increase in government spending in history. Essentially, Biden is just stoking inflation.

Because of these policies, more and more dollars are chasing goods that are in shortening supply in part because there are a record 10 million job vacancies nationwide. Prices are rising faster than wages — 5.4% year over year and more than 6% so far this year — which means that unless you get a 6% pay raise, the value of your take-home check is falling.

As many economists have pointed out, inflation is essentially a tax and one that falls disproportionately on the poor.

Just as abusive Federal taxes take buying power out of everyone’s pocket and put it into the Treasury to pay for pet welfare programs, inflation harms buying power to pay for federal spending.

Inflation is the most regressive tax of all. The “wealthy” 1% spend a smaller proportion of their incomes on food and energy than the poor do. They have capital investments, such as in homes, the prices of which are rocket-boosted by inflation as the value of a dollar collapses.

Inflation is the borrower’s friend because it reduces the value of debt, whether that be the debt piled up in Treasury paper or the mortgage debt of the upper-middle and wealthiest classes.

Inflation doesn’t benefit people who live hand to mouth or those who don’t have investments. Little guys do not own their own homes, or second homes, and spend far more of their income on goods and services needed for day-to-day living. So inflation hits them hardest.

As Biden’s administration let’s inflation rumble, is not on the side of the poor. It is taxing them into further oblivion.

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Wayne Creed

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