The Damage Done And The Damage To Come

The Epoch Times reported the following today:

The Senate on Tuesday morning passed the $1.2 trillion White House-backed infrastructure bill after weeks of debate, although it’s not clear whether the bill will advance in the Democrat-controlled House.

The measure, called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, was hashed out by a bipartisan group of senators and President Joe Biden’s administration. The bill, which passed 69-30, will include $550 billion in new federal spending over five years.

The 2,700-page-long bill invests $110 billion toward roads, bridges, and major projects; provides some $66 billion to passenger and freight rail; $65 billion to rebuild the electric grid; $65 billion to expand broadband internet lines; $55 billion for water pipes including replacing lead pipes; and more.

“It has taken quite a long time, and there have been detours and everything else, but this will do a whole lot of good for America, and the Senate can be proud it has passed this,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said about the bill.

While some have described the bill as “bipartisan,” several prominent Republicans have vocally opposed it and claimed it would hand a victory to Democrats in Congress ahead of a fraught 2022 midterm election season. Former President Donald Trump again pilloried Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who voted in favor of the measure, for giving the bill his blessing while publicly questioning the Kentucky Republican’s leadership capacity.

On Sunday The Conservative Treehouse reported:

Good grief these UniParty Senators are infuriating.  During this interview with Maria Bartiromo, North Dakota Senator Kevin Cramer (U-DC) actually has the nerve to brag about $450 billion in infrastructure spending amid a phase-one bill that has $1.2 trillion in total.  What’s the other $800 billion dollars being spent on doofus?

Another of Cramer’s advocacy points is how the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports the bill; as if that’s a good thing.  Making matters worse, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer devised a process pledging that this part of the infrastructure bill (phase-1) will only advance if it is married to the House party-line legislation (phase-2) that will spend as much as $3.5 trillion MORE on climate change action, paid leave policies, health care expansion, and other progressive agenda items.

The insufferable republicans that support the phase-one bill (The DeceptiCon crew) are, by direct consequence, advancing the $3.5 trillion phase-two bill that is entirely a Democrat spending spree on the Green New Deal and other insane initiatives. Acckkkk… we desperately need a second party in DC.

The passage of this bill is expected to pave the way for the reconciliation passage of the $3.5 trillion Democrat budget resolution.

Yesterday Red State Observer reported:

The framework for a $3.5 trillion Democrat budget resolution includes plans to provide amnesty to millions of illegal aliens living in the United States via the filibuster-proof reconciliation process.

On Monday, Senate Democrats unveiled the budget framework, which includes a series of instructions for various Senate committees to craft specific plans. As such, the framework instructs the Senate Judiciary Committee to spend $107 billion in American taxpayer money on amnesty for illegal aliens.

The language of the framework is vague, asking the Judiciary Committee members to give “lawful permanent status for qualified immigrants.” Those who would qualify for such an amnesty remain unclear.

The cost of the amnesty to taxpayers is just slightly lower than Senate Budget Committee chairman Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) amnesty plan, which was projected to cost $150 billion.

Any amnesty plan crafted by Democrats is expected to give green cards, which lead to naturalized American citizenship, millions of illegal aliens eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), those working on U. S. farms, and those considered “essential” workers.

This bill is not a step forward for Americans. It is a giant step into more government control of our lives and spending that will create massive inflation.

The Democrats Are Still Going After Single-Family Housing

Just the News reported yesterday that the budget bill the Democrats in the House of Representatives are currently drafting may include the Democrat’s plan to “eliminate exclusionary zoning” for single-family homes in America’s cities. This is the bill that the Democrats plan on passing in the Senate by using the reconciliation process, meaning that the Republicans have no way to stop it.

The article reports:

A portion of President Biden’s $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan offers grants to cities that “take concrete steps” to end “exclusionary zoning” for single-family homes.

Under a section titled “Eliminate exclusionary zoning and harmful land use policies,” Biden’s jobs plan argues that “for decades, exclusionary zoning laws — like minimum lot sizes, mandatory parking requirements, and prohibitions on multifamily housing — have inflated housing and construction costs and locked families out of areas with more opportunities.”

According to the White House fact sheet on the plan, which has not been formally drafted into legislation yet, Biden is “calling on Congress to enact an innovative, new competitive grant program that awards flexible and attractive funding to jurisdictions that take concrete steps to eliminate such needless barriers to producing affordable housing.”

The article notes:

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure agreement that a bipartisan group of senators reached with the White House does not mention exclusionary zoning. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Democrats would seek to pass the parts of Biden’s jobs plan and $1.8 trillion American Families Plan that are left out of the bipartisan framework on infrastructure.

Michigan Democrat Sen. Debbie Stabenow, chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, said the Democrat-led Congress should enact Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda instead of only focusing on the bipartisan agreement on physical infrastructure spending.

“It’s not just a slogan, we want to come out of this stronger than ever, and the bipartisan effort on infrastructure is one piece of that,” said Stabenow, a member of the Senate Budget Committee. “But we need to do the rest of what needs to be done in the jobs plan and the family plan to really meet the needs of our economy and our families.”

It should be noted that the tax and spend programs that the Democrats are trying to pass will ultimately hurt American families. As inflation increase, the spending power of every American decreases. As the price of a gallon of gasoline increase, it is essentially a tax increase on every American. The current policies being supported by the Democrat party will negatively impact the American economy and all Americans.

Pushing Something Through When You Don’t Have The Votes

Yesterday Just the News reported that on Tuesday night the Democrats passed a gradual $15 minimum wage hike in a committee vote.

The article reports:

The increase from $7.25 an hour was part of the House Education and Labor Committee’s budget reconciliation markup for President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan. In the legislation, the minimum wage would reach $15 in 2025.

The language of the Raise the Wage Act was incorporated into the $170 billion COVID-19 stimulus funding legislation for public schools during the virtual committee markup that began late in the afternoon on Tuesday. The vote on the legislation was 27-21 along party lines. 

The Democrats admit that the only way to get this through in by the budget reconciliation process:

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders told reporters on Wednesday that Democrats are including the gradual $15 minimum wage hike in Biden’s stimulus plan because they do not have 60 votes in the Senate to pass it.

“We’re not going to get the 60 votes we need and the only way we’re going to do it with 50 votes is through reconciliation,” he said.

The use of budget reconciliation allows Democrats to pass Biden’s stimulus plan without GOP votes in the Senate. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently projected that a gradual $15 minimum wage in Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief package would result in 1.4 million workers losing their jobs.

Has it occurred to the Democrats that if the measure won’t pass it might be because  it is a bad idea?