While We Are All Watching Afghanistan…

On Tuesday while everyone was focused on Afghanistan, the House of Representatives approved $3.5 trillion budget resolution and advanced a bipartisan infrastructure bill. So what is in the bill?

Yesterday The New York Post reported on some aspects of the bill.

The article reports:

House Democrats are now writing their version of the $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” bill, detailing all the wish-list items they mean to ram through with zero Republican votes — including a host of economy-killing tax hikes.

No matter that the Trump-era tax cuts were bringing the best working-class wage gains in years before COVID hit: Dems mean to reverse them all and then some.

The Senate blueprint for the bill, for example, moves the corporate income-tax rate to 28 percent from the 21 percent level set by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It also follows President Joe Biden’s call to double the federal capital-gains tax.

Both moves would slow the kind of business investment that allows for new jobs and rising wages.

President Trump’s economic policies were the reason the economy grew so well during the early years of his presidency and recovered so quickly from the Covid pandemic. Reversing those policies will have an adverse impact on the American economy.

Unincorporated businesses will be hit by increases in the top personal-income-tax rate. Some Democrats are calling for steep hikes in that area. They are obviously unaware that this will cause many small business to close (or they don’t care). Since the small business is the backbone of the American economy, one wonders why the Democrats would want to tax them out of existence. This is also one way to eliminate the middle class.

The article concludes:

The House might also take up Sen. Liz Warren’s push for a special 7 percent surtax on corporate profits above $100 million or embrace new “green” taxes on the fuels that still provide nearly all of America’s power.

All to help fund a host of new or enlarged social programs that would vastly increase the ranks of Dem-supporting government-employee unions, as well as green-energy spending that would likely reward Democrat-friendly companies.

We are not looking at tax policies that will help grow the American economy. We are looking at tax policies that will help grow dependency on government.

Why Were They Trying To Pass This In The Dead Of Night?

Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about a vote in the Senate Wednesday night.

The article reports:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blocked an attempt by Senate Democrats to push through a federal election overhaul bill early Wednesday morning.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) brought the For The People Act, a bill critics say amounts to a federal takeover of elections, to the floor around 3:30 a.m. after the Senate had concluded 15 hours of amendment votes on a $3.5 trillion budget resolution. In the dead of night, Schumer sought to pass the federal overhaul of elections by unanimous consent, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Only one objection by a senator was required to stop the process. In a roughly 15-minute back-and-forth, Cruz tanked Schumer’s attempt to force the election bill through the Senate. Cruz blasted the bill in remarks on the Senate floor:

This bill would constitute a federal government takeover of elections. It would constitute a massive power grab by Democrats. It would disenfranchise millions of Americans and it would do precisely the opposite of its nominal title, ‘For The People.’ It is, instead, for the politicians because it entrenches politicians and ensures that the people cannot vote them out of office. It would strike down virtually every reasonable voter integrity law in the country, including voter I.D. laws supported by the overwhelming majority of this country, including prohibitions on ballot harvesting, again widely supported by people in this country. It would mandate that felons be allowed to vote, and it would automatically register millions of illegal aliens to vote. It would profoundly undermine democracy in this country, and for that reason I object.

The article notes:

Schumer’s failure to force the For The People Act through the Senate so far amounts to a failure for Texas Democrats who spent weeks pushing for the legislation, as well. On returning to Texas this week, state Rep. James Talarico touted his work in D.C. and said he is “confident” that the Texas Democrats’ lobbying would force Congress to pass the federal election bill.

“I’m home! Our quorum break shined a national spotlight on the TX voter suppression bill and pushed Congress closer to passing a federal voting rights act to override it. I’m confident they will,” Talarico said on Twitter.

Just for the record, our Founding Fathers purposely put election law in the hands of the individual states. The federalization of our elections is unconstitutional. Unfortunately the Democrats seem to have no problem shredding the Constitution. When President Biden extended the eviction moratorium, he admitted that it was probably unconstitutional for him to do that, but he figured it would take a while for the courts to sort that out. If the Democrats can pass the For The People Act, the damage may be done before anyone rules that it is unconstitutional. There is a reason it was brought up at 3:30 in the morning–the Democrats thought they could sneak it through before anyone noticed.

It has been said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. What happened Wednesday night is an example of that. Thank God for Ted Cruz.

 

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.