Two Game-Changing Numbers Could Yet Kill the Biden Budget Bill and Save America

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Two important numbers are just out today that I think virtually guarantee a “pause” in the big government socialist spending, taxing, and regulating bill proposed by President Biden. They virtually guarantee a pause. And a pause into next year gets us closer to killing the bill all together.

Now the first number: A huge 0.8 percent jump in the CPI for November. It is leading to a 6.8 percent increase over the past year. That’s the biggest gain in 39 years. As Senator Joe Manchin has said many times, there is simply no point in going forward with a big social spending bill while inflation is so hot.

Now, I have backed the Mountain State master of the Senate for the last six months on this inflationary point, and I still support him on this critique. So has the Republican Party, as far as I can tell. He understands that inflation is hot because we’re spending too much money.

Mr. Manchin’s staff has calculated that — in constant dollars, not including the Biden budget — the Federal government has spent over the past year roughly $5.4 trillion, plus $1.2 trillion on infrastructure. You read me right. That adds up to $6.6 trillion.

Now get this. For all of World War II, plus the Marshall plan to rehabilitate Europe, we spent $4.7 trillion. Got it? We are now spending today on social welfare programs, without workfare, without means testing, without strict eligibility, vastly more than we spent for the entire World War II — a war that literally saved freedom and democracy.

And this $6 trillion dollar number, which has been financed indirectly by massive federal reserve money creation is the source of the near 7 percent inflation. Stop the spending. End quantitative easing bond buying. Get ready for some modest Federal Reserve interest rate hikes. Then maybe in a year, inflation will begin to calm down. Maybe.

Here’s the second big number that I believe will save America and kill the bill: The Congressional Budget Office has priced out the true cost of the Biden budget. The CBO took out the one year or three year ‘Sunset’ gimmicks and instituted permanent 10-year spending estimates.

Why permanent? Because that’s been on the left-wing, progressive agenda for years, and as President Biden always says, this bill will be “transformational.” That means permanent — if he gets his way.

Now the CBO scoring shows that the bill will actually cost $4.9 trillion dollars over 10 years, increase deficits by $3 trillion, and increase interest on the debt by $266 billion. That would actually bring the topline costs to $5.1 trillion.

In other words the CBO just blew up the Biden budget fiction that it would only cost around $2 trillion and only increase deficits by $365 billion. Or the fiction that it is fully paid for. So let me repeat: two numbers today: The spike in the consumer price index and a spike in CBO scoring of Mr. Biden’s “woke” budget.

So I am predicting that this is going to sink any vote this year. And there will be a pause until February of next year, which itself could spill over into next year’s Spring or Summer, and that moves us toward next year’s midterm elections.

Poll after poll shows that inflation is public enemy number one and that massive federal spending is a close second. Not to put too fine a point on it, the two are really inseparable. The fact is that the public is sick of left-wing, “woke” policies. That’s why I believe we’re going to save America and kill the bill.

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


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