Republicans Not Riding to the Rescue on Biden’s Fiscal Insanity

Really, you’re either for big spending or you’re not. You’re either for higher inflation or you’re not.

AP/Susan Walsh
President Biden speaks virtually during an event at the White House complex July 25, 2022. AP/Susan Walsh

So, we know that the Biden Democrats’ attempts to radically transform the American economy, and culture for that matter, has led to sky-high inflation, economic contraction, and overall demoralization in just 18 months. The radical progressive experiment has once again failed.

Show me a poll, any poll, and I’ll show you widespread voter revolt against the Biden policies.

Of course, there is bipartisan agreement that free-spending fiscal policies, along with massive money printing and over-regulation — what Steve Forbes calls “modern socialism through the regulatory state” — is responsible for the sad decline of what was a healthy economy just 18 months ago.

And, if President Biden had his way, he would’ve added $5 trillion in social spending and “Green New Deal” madness. He also would’ve increased taxes by $3.5 trillion, having proposed 36 tax hikes — 11 tax hikes on fossil fuel companies alone — in his FY ’23 budget.

Hats off to Senators Manchin and Sinema and the Supreme Court for at least slowing, if not stopping, the Bidens’ fiscal insanity and their radical climate activism. 

There’s even a sit-in going on in Senator Schumer’s office, of radical greenies protesting that the senator and the president have not yet adopted so-called emergency measures that would unconstitutionally ignore the Supreme Court and turn the U.S. into a totalitarian green state.

This story gets sicker and sicker. It’s a battle between the left, the far-left, and the completely over-the-edge, interplanetary left. Yet are Republicans really riding to the rescue? Especially Senate Republicans?

I’ve spoken out against this completely unnecessary, big-spending, $250 billion corporate welfare, industrial-planning, out-China China subsidy boondoggle allegedly for the semiconductor industry, but with new Solyndra-like slush funds for the energy, commerce, and transportation departments. That’s $250 billion over five years, according to estimates.

That’s not as big as the $1.9 trillion in March 2021, but with a 9.1 percent inflation rate that’s a pretty big number.

The first vote got 16 GOP senators on board the Schumer Snookered Express.

Did anybody read Kim Strassel’s great column, “The GOP’s self-defeating spending habit”? If not, you should dial it up and have a look at it. 

It’s exactly in sync with what I’ve been saying. The WSJ editorial page in general has raised these issues. Remember last year the trillion-dollar infrastructure boondoggle bill that was a lot more “Green New Deal” than infrastructure, and, in fact, has already been overturned by the Bidens’ reversal of President Trump’s rapid permitting policies?

Ms. Strassel reminds us that a couple of years ago, Republicans blew through discretionary spending caps and the Senate restarted earmarks. So, I can’t help but wonder whether the GOP attack on inflationary Democratic spending is going to hold up in the November elections.

The House Republicans are far more disciplined in their opposition to these crazy spending bills. They’re going to retake the House. I was just thinking, though, in some of these very close Senate races, like Arizona with Democrat Mark Kelly, or New Hampshire with Maggie Hassan, or Georgia with Raphael Warnock, to name a few races, when the GOP candidate slams the Dems for inflationary spending that has led to recession, wouldn’t the Dems just say: “Well, you joined us for these big spending bills”?

In other words, are the GOP senators advocating the fiscal high ground anymore? Will these big spending votes be self-defeating?

Really, you’re either for big spending or you’re not. You’re either for higher inflation or you’re not. Where’s the domestic spending freeze we need? Or the across-the-board deregulation of energy and all industries? Or a long-term extension of the successful Trump tax cuts?

I’m not hearing these supply-side solutions. I’m hearing more big spending. This is not good.

So, I would say to my good friends in the GOP Senate conference: Isn’t it time for some self-examination? That is, an improvement in your policies, your votes, and your messaging?

There are only about three months to go before the midterm elections. To my good friends in the Republican Party, what exactly do you stand for?

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.


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