Despite repeated lies by the administration that Build Back Better is fully paid for, Congressional Budget Office Analysis says that it isn’t.
The CBO is a nonpartisan committee.
You can download the complete spreadsheet at the above link.
Front Loaded Shortfalls
Note how the costs and shortfalls are front-loaded.
Through 2026 the shortfall is $791.616 billion. Over 10 years the alleged shortfall is only $367.124 billion.
Fine Print
Page 2 of the spreadsheet contains a footnote stating the shortfall would be less.
CBO expects that the provisions in title VI and title XIII that would increase funding for tax enforcement activities would increase revenues. However, under guidelines agreed to by the legislative and executive branches, that change in revenues is not included in the cost estimate, but it would be reflected in CBO’s baseline budget projections if the legislation was enacted. (For more information on those guidelines, see https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56507.) CBO estimates that as a result of these increases in outlays, revenues would increase by a total of $207 billion over the 2022-2031 period.
If you believe the footnote, the shortfall is only $160 billion over 10 years.
Democrats will allege that’s peanuts but they will not admit the 10-year lie.
10-Year Lie
The 10-year lie is that Progressives say the front-loaded benefits will expire. Meanwhile they pledge to do everything in their power to ensure they don’t.
Nor did the CBO look at ancillary costs such as inflation.
History shows that government entitlement programs only get bigger, they don’t expire.
Please note Wharton Analyzes Biden’s Lies, Concludes Build Back Better Costs Over Twice As Much
The White House cost estimate for Build Back Better is $1.870 trillion. Wharton’s estimate is $4.262 trillion.
Yellen’s Comment
ZeroHedge pointed out Yellen’s comment from yesterday.
Janet Yellen issued a statement saying that “the combination of CBO’s scores over the last week, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates, and Treasury analysis, make it clear that Build Back Better is fully paid for, and in fact will reduce our nation’s debt over time by generating more than $2 trillion through reforms that ask the wealthiest Americans and large corporations to pay their fair share.”
Dear Joe Biden
I repeat my comment from yesterday: Manchin Raises New Inflation Concerns, Dear Joe, Just Kill It
“Inflation is taking a toll,” says Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia. He has the power to kill Build Back Better, and he should.
The bill was written by socialists for socialists. It deserves to die.
Dear Joe, just kill it. Better yet, declare yourself an independent, then caucus with the Republicans.
Thanks for Tuning In!
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Mish
My objections to the bill are twofold. First it
is long on generalities and short on details. Secondly some of the measures I could
agree to but when they take the all-or-nothing approach then the negatives
outweigh the positives. It would have been better to split up bill into parts
which could be understood, discussed and modified if necessary to get
bipartisan support. In the end we would have gotten something worthwhile.
Unfortunately the Democrat strategy is to specifically not to do that and the
Republican strategy is to encourage the Democrats not to do that either. To be
brief, it is Washington politics as usual where gridlock is the ideal.
Fortunately we have a decentralized Federal system where because of Washington
gridlock it falls to legislators in state capitols to experiment and come up
with meaningful reforms.
I think it
is useful to relativize the sums of money we are talking about here to
something easier to understand. For example Americans spend $110 Billion per
year on pet food so it would be better to count the deficit shortfall in years
of pet food. I am not being facetious here. It’s just sometimes hard to
understand just how large our economy actually is and by keeping the sums abstract
you are not really telling what these sums mean in relation to the size of the economy. It’s
just a personal observation and not a condemnation of anyone or any party.
… and who’s enriched by these policies, Mr. Magoo?