Americans don’t need President Joe Biden to redefine terms for us.
When it comes to a recession, you’ll know it when you feel it. We’re feeling it right now. Food is more expensive, rent is increasing, and paychecks don’t go as far as they used to. Still, the Biden administration is celebrating an 81-cent decline in gas prices. That’s not much to celebrate when gas is still $4.06 a gallon and still nearly $5 in the Western states. A year ago, the national average was $3.18.
One may wonder why all the word gymnastics. Then we saw the details of the Left’s latest gimmick to solve the problem.
The Inflation Reduction Act does not actually reduce inflation, but instead, it emphasizes everything that caused inflation in the first place. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), whose support was essential without any Republican senators willing to cross over, claimed the legislation doesn’t raise taxes. He’s either gaslighting the people, or he’s the one who got conned into supporting this legislation in return for a secret deal on reforming the National Environmental Policy Act.
NEPA is a bureaucratic roadblock to construction projects and undoubtedly needs reform. Often taking years to complete, NEPA reviews have become massive barriers to infrastructure projects. They have become a tool used for blocking development. NEPA not only adds time to projects, but it adds to the costs as well. Just a few months ago, Congress passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill, which the president touted as a “once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure.” With its $1.2 trillion price tag, one would think that legislation will mean better roads and bridges.
Months later, however, the administration has actually made it harder to build bridges, roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure by issuing revised NEPA rules for permitting major construction projects. At the same time, they rolled back Trump administration reforms that streamlined the timelines for review. These incongruous actions did not go unnoticed, particularly by Manchin, who purportedly struck a deal for NEPA reform that might reinstitute Trump-era reforms.
While the parameters of this secret deal are still unknown, I have a hard time believing the trade-offs will be worth it.
While Manchin still insists the new bill does not raise taxes, the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation found that the opposite is true. Democrats argue that the higher taxes will be paid by corporations, but we all know who eventually bears the brunt of these corporate taxes. It’s the workers, customers, and shareholders, which includes anyone with a retirement account or 401(k) investments in corporations.
So, for everyone keeping scorecards, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion deal to build more infrastructure. The administration then made rules that made it harder and more expensive to build said infrastructure. So Congress and the administration have once again struck a deal to increase taxes in order to reinstitute reforms that the Trump administration put in place that streamlined the process to build infrastructure.
It’s hard to believe our government can be so chaotic.
But as the public struggles under the weight of inflation on pocketbooks, it’s clear that Democrats have no real plan to alleviate the pressure.
The House is poised to pass the Inflation Reduction Act on Friday. Put another way, the November midterm elections cannot arrive quickly enough.
Ben Carson is the founder and chairman of the American Cornerstone Institute and was the 17th secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
