Flying the Politically Correct Skies
The Wall Street Journal cites Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews on Biden’s federal budget:
Wayne Crews of the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes that the release of President Joe Biden’s “biggest-ever” federal budget “is a good time to reflect upon the implications of the fiscal and regulatory tentacles of today’s federal government.” Mr. Crews assigns bipartisan blame:
It’s also a good time to rebuke Republicans’ own proposal to cut a deal to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure in a political environment of overspending—the already enacted American Rescue Plan, and the “Jobs” and “Families” follow-up plans, even as recovery, economically and health-wise, is already well underway.
One finds nothing much “American” about such national top-down spending and regulatory schemes. In nominal terms, America progressed from the Framers until Ronald Reagan before experiencing a $1 trillion budget. George W. Bush gave us our first $2 trillion and $3 trillion budget; Trump ushered in $4 trillion. That’ll double to $8 [trillion] under Biden by 2031.
Even after adjusting for inflation, federal spending has more than doubled since Reagan days, and now President Biden is promising a spending surge like no other. Mr. Crews hopes for “stirrings of a movement to not just allow but expect Americans” to be able to “help themselves, their families, and provide for their own secure retirements and health care, and to pass down intergenerational wealth instead of intergenerational federal debt.”