This Is a Pandemic of Fiscal Profligacy
The comments below are an edited and abridged synopsis of an article by Veronique de Rugy
“Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the guy who—after jumping from the 50th floor of a skyscraper—is asked how he’s doing as he falls past the 20th floor. ‘So far, so good!’ he replies. That blissfully unaware individual headed toward his doom is, my fellow Americans, us.”
It’s because of increasingly extremist policymaking like the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion American Rescue plan, which has little to do with rescuing and much to do with using Covid to move the US closer to a progressive paradise.
The latest $1.9 trillion addition to the federal debt is best described as a left-wing slush fund: Extra-generous child allowances and child-care subsidies, 4-figure cheques sent to people financially unaffected by the pandemic, more Obamacare subsidies, bailouts for union pensions and airlines, and even more largesse for state and local governments that don’t need/don’t deserve it.
This is $1.9 trillion of debt-financed federal spending on top of four previous Covid-related bailouts, amounting to almost $6 trillion in federal spending over the course of a calendar year.
People should care about what this means for the US, because the expansion or creation of programs under the guise of pandemic relief will likely become permanent.
Worse, some of these Democratic ideas are getting tacit support from Republicans who are producing their own technocratic variations.
Few Americans seem to care that the US is closing in on $30 trillion in debt, the symptom of insane spending. It has become fashionable to claim that anyone can borrow without fear of a debt crisis, or of any consequences. One reason for this is that there have been warnings about the mounting debt and the potential implications for years. But then there’s that fellow who jumped from the skyscraper, breezing past the 20th floor with a smile on his way to going splat.
More debt today means more taxes tomorrow. And if interest rates take off, and thus the cost of financing all that debt… well, it won’t be pretty.