Democrats Desperate to Counter the Obvious
Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel
Colorado Springs, CO
Originally sent to subscribers 05/01/23
In the old, old days bronc riding was different. There weren’t any chutes so broncs were roped, tied, blindfolded, saddled -- can you imagine how much fun it was passing the cinch under a horse tied on the ground -- likely with the head pulled back tight to the horn to prevent leverage on the ground or biting. Sometimes one cowboy bit down on the bronc’s ear to distract him. Can you imagine PETA seeing that today?
That hogtying is kind of what the Democrats have had to do to the Republicans’ debt limit bill to make twisted interpretations of it.
You see, the headline read, “GOP Embraces Boosting Taxes on Clean Energy.” Then, “Republicans finally found a tax increase they can support,” (Wall Street Journal, 05/01/23).
Tax increase? The story goes on to explain that the Republican party has been known for decades to hold that “net tax increases are unacceptable.” The story goes on to claim that the debt limit bill advanced by the House would “raise taxes by more than $300 billion over a decade…”
So how do they manage to conjure those claims out of that bill?
Well, the bill would repeal clean-energy tax credits passed last year, “shrinking tax breaks for wind energy, solar power, hydrogen and electric vehicles, effectively raising taxes on some manufacturers, car buyers and others.”
Now get this. The story claims that “Republicans see such clean-energy subsidies as more like spending rather than tax reductions…”
So that’s how they figure it. Not handing out subsidies is a “tax increase,” according to the Democrats, as opposed to the Republicans viewing it as “cutting spending.”
Regardless of their D.C. definitions, subsidies for someone always means bad news for taxpayers. It’s similar to a proposed appropriations bill increasing spending by 15 percent. When they cut the increase to 10 percent in conference, they claim they cut spending by a third. Remember, lots of politicians are lawyers who understand the power of language and defining -- or re-defining.
Democrats view the subsidies as crucial to their climate change and “tax cheating. That is, when people choose not to buy something, the Dems’ next move is bribing people to buy it. Meanwhile, don’t look over here, subsidies aren’t real money when they are granted from government funds in a leftist “good cause.”
One group claimed that the bill would include these misnamed “tax increases” totaling $515 billion over ten years, before counting in the tax credits for electric vehicles, which hadn’t been figured in yet.
So, let’s get this straight. They are counting tax credits as negative revenue to the government for clean energy purchases which haven’t been made and may never be, are fixing to add in electric vehicle purchases which are virtually certain not to be made at their projected levels and defining the increased government revenue from non-subsidies as “tax increases” favored by the Republican party.
That reminds us of the left’s attempts to tax unrealized gains on assets never sold. Talk about taxing everything that moves. Their money needs are so great they want to tax things that never happened. Anything that cuts government revenue is bad to the left because they always need more money for more government.
As for tax cheating, that’s another case of the left picking a fight that no one can accurately prove or quantify, just like “climate change.” No one can predict very well how much money the tax code might be leaving on the table. The only certain thing is that the Democrats will overestimate how much revenue is not collected because they do not trust either business people or their fellow citizens. They only believe in the efficiency of their government union workers, who aren’t “biased.”
By the way, it’s worth noting from agriculture’s viewpoint, that one provision that was removed from the debt limit bill in order to secure enough votes, was a cut in ethanol subsidies.
The story we mentioned ends with a note that illustrates how difficult it is to “drain the swamp.” It said the Democrats have traditionally used tax credits to advance their policies that can’t be passed through Congress as spending programs and Republicans could point to the same tax credits and claim they backed tax cuts.
Two things were announced the beginning of the week. Responding to the right, the House bill and some of the left decrying President Biden’s refusal to even meet with Republican leaders on the debt ceiling issue, he announced he would meet, with House and Senate leadership only, on May 9.
Then Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the debt ceiling might be reached by June 1. We’ve mentioned before that the current administration and Congress has so avidly attacked and implemented disincentives for economic growth that government revenue has lately not been meeting projections. Once again, real world results have shown that tax cuts and regulation roll backs increase government revenue, while the expanded regulation, higher inflation from over-spending and demonizing of business has started cutting growth and reducing government revenue.
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