Among the many economic oddities of the Biden-era has been the administration’s redefining what the term “paid for” means with no pushback whatsoever.
That a spending bill supposedly won’t add to the deficit is being reworded as the bill “costing nothing.” Of course, this assault on the English language would be like me ordering a $10 lunch, and then saying it didn’t cost anything because I paid cash instead of credit.
Setting aside the administration’s deliberately misleading terminology to avoid sticker shock, the Congressional Budget Office blew up the entire “no deficit” premise in scoring the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better bill that just passed the House 220-213.
According to CNBC:
The $1.75 trillion bill would increase the budget deficit by $367 billion over the years 2022 to 2031, according to the CBO. The topline figure does not include estimates for revenue raised by increased IRS enforcement of tax laws.
The Treasury Department has contended the provision will generate another $400 billion and pay for the plan. The CBO estimated it would lead to only $127 billion more in net revenue, which would leave the bill’s spending roughly $250 billion short of being fully offset.
While the bill comes with an official price tag of $1.75 trillion, independent analysts have estimated the true cost closer to $5 trillion if temporary programs and tax credits are extended through 2031 (and as we all know, there’s no such thing as a “temporary government program”). A separate analysis found that contrary to Biden’s “no new taxes below $400k” pledge, 30% of middle class families will see tax increases.
Jen Psaki has argued that the bill will cost nothing, and when questioned on that, she simply replied “because it won’t.” In other words, they’re not even putting in an effort to fool us (though naturally the media has uncritically repeated those claims).
Biden has been claiming that the spending bill “doesn’t cost anything” since it was a $3.5 trillion bill before being slimmed down, while Pelosi said it would cost “zero dollars.” Meanwhile, VP Kamala Harris somehow believes that spending trillions of dollars will help fight inflation.
And for all these obviously dubious (and now confirmed false) claims, the fact checkers have been asleep at the wheel.
Where is the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler, who was happy to fact check comments from Donald Trump that every sane person recognized as hyperbole or sarcasm?
Where is CNN’s Daniel Dale, who hilariously claimed that Joe Biden is “generally factual,” but conceded that “it’s our job to correct the record when the president is incorrect.”
Where is PolitiFact’s worst fact checker ever, Tom Kertscher, who recently attempted to fact check a opinion statement from Dan Bongino, and somehow couldn’t even manage to do that properly yet suddenly has no interest in “fact checking” when it’s an obvious falsehood from Biden. Kertscher is a notable case, as he’s attempted to fact check us a number of times, and I can’t recall a single time he was right, as we’ve documented in prior articles:
- Politifact Botches Another Fact Check on New York vs. Florida Coronavirus Deaths
- Politifact Tries and Fails Fact Checking Claim That California Has Six Extra Representatives Due to Illegals
- PolitiFact Botches Fact Check on Maxine Waters Inciting Violence
- PolitiFact’s Worst Fact Checker Plays Defense for VP Harris – Fails Miserably
- Facebook is Censoring Conservatives – Again
- PolitiFact’s Worst Fact Checker Tries (and Fails) at Explaining Bidenflation
Whatever it is that the “fact checkers” do, it has surprisingly little to do with checking facts.
Matt Palumbo is the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
