Last Call: ‘Very Sobering’ New Data Put Biden on the Spot in Phone Date With Manchin

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Save America. Kill the Bill. That prospect is looking better and better. You recall Friday two game-changing numbers that may well have dealt the Biden plan for big government socialism a one, two death punch.

First, the 6.9% consumer price index showed that inflation is not “transitory” and that we sure don’t need any more government spending. Second, the Congressional Budget Office gave a realistic scoring of the Biden monstrosity by making new entitlements permanent over 10 years or more, rather than the phony gimmick of “sunsetting” after one year to hide the humongous cost.

Speaker Pelosi called the CBO price-out “imaginary.” Chuck Schumer said the numbers are “fake.” Does anybody remember when Vice President Biden told Larry King one night that the CBO scoring is the “gold standard?” Here’s what Mr. Biden said:

“I don’t know one single serious econometric model, from the conservative to the liberals, who would acknowledge anything other than we created a minimum of 1.6 million jobs to — and the estimates from the CBO, which is really a, as you know, the gold standard — no Republican or Democratic questions it…”

Actually the CBO is correctly capturing Mr. Biden’s policy intent, because he’s always talking about his “transformational” plan. Transformation doesn’t mean one year out. It means permanent. That’s what the CBO’s new score captures. So transformationally permanent translates to $5 trillion in more spending and $3 trillion in a larger deficit.

That means there will be huge new government spending to push inflation higher, and it also means the bill’s not paid for. All of which the administration has known all along, just as has Speaker Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Essentially the CBO has outed the whole progressive left budget fiction.

Who knew?

There’s a memo from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to the members of the Senate, and she wrote:

“And, there are policies that the President proposed as permanent and that, to achieve consensus, are now temporary in the legislation.” Let me repeat. She said, “the President proposed as permanent … now temporary.” Well there, Madam Secretary, roger that.

Guess you all did want it to be permanent. Guess Senator Lindsey Graham and Congressman Jason Smith (ranking member of the House Budget Committee) and the CBO kind of called you out on it. No more hiding, ma’am. It’s $5 trillion more in spending, and $3 trillion more in deficits.

Not including, of course, huge tax hikes that will kill businesses and jobs, Green New Deal subsidies that will jack up energy prices and reduce energy supplies, over-regulation for government control of health care, energy, finance, and you name it.

Plus no work requirements for able-bodied welfare recipients. Yet plenty of welfare for illegals coming across the border, and all the rest of the woke nonsense that the country has come to despise.

Now, famed woke-fighter Joe Manchin, in advance of a phone call with President Biden, signaled big concerns about inflation and the cost of the social spending bill. “Inflation is real, it is not transitory. It’s alarming. It’s going up, not down… I know people have been in a hurry… to do something, but basically, I think we’re seeing things unfold that allows us to prepare better.”

The senator of West Virginia added that the new economic data was “very sobering” and then said “we’re going to talk about exactly what happened on Friday, with the CBO score and inflation reports and things of that sort,” he said of his phone call with Mr. Biden. So, Save America. Kill the Bill. That’s my riff.

________

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


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