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Get in Line, Everybody! It’s Finally Payday! Hooray!!!
Joe Biden has been pretty open about his plans for the economy. Many appear to be clearly destructive to our economy. Why would someone do that, you might wonder. Allow me to explain…
He plans to forgive $50,000 of student debt for everyone. He skipped over the Constitutional grounds for this action, but his intention is to somehow pay off educational debts of those who borrowed money to pay for college, by taking money from those who didn’t go to college (tradesmen, etc.), and from those who paid for their own college through outdated white privilege microaggressions like working and saving. College-educated people tend to vote Democrat? Well, they should be rewarded. And they will be.
Cities have a problem. Democrat policies like greenspace laws and other regulatory schemes that inflate property values to unaffordable levels, lack of support for law enforcement that encourages rioting and violent crime, insane educational policies that lead to dangerous and inept schools, ever-increasing emphasis on racial grievances which create the resentment and jealousies that maintain tension and hatred between neighbors, and so on, and so on – these have made cities less and less desirable places to live. So people are leaving.
Over half of most cities’ budgets are property taxes. In some cases over 70%. Plus local taxes on retail spending, fuel, energy, communications, etc. Many big cities are already deeply in the red, with lots and lots of enormous fixed expenses such as retirement plans and generous health insurance plans for generations of city workers who all retired when they were 52, and tend to live for another 30-40 years on the city’s dime.
It would be very difficult for many of these cities to reduce their expenses, even if they wanted to. And these are expenses that they can’t afford right now. Not even close.
Imagine what happens when their tax base is reduced by, say, 25%. Even 10%. What happens then?
They will be in dire need of a bailout. By an administration that understands city dwellers tend to vote Democrat. And they should be rewarded. They will be.
And who will pay for it? Rural people, who work hard, and can’t afford to live in cities. That doesn’t make much sense, but remember, they tend to vote Republican. So, there you go.
Mr. Biden’s energy plan will increase our energy costs dramatically. Who will pay for that? Democrat voters who take the subway to work? Or Republican voters who drive a pickup truck 45 minutes one way to get from their farm to their factory job six days a week?
It goes on and on. You could come up with plenty of other examples yourself – feel free to add them below if you like.
And I don’t mean to imply that this is some new devious plan. It is often said that anyone who robs Peter to pay Paul can generally count on the vote of Paul.
But remember that the Republican party is largely based on a pretty simple set of principles. A Constitutional Republic, a nation of laws and not of men, property rights, individual rights that are granted by God and not by government, and so on. When people vote for Republicans, that is generally what they’re voting for. That’s not always what they get, mind you. But that’s what they’re voting for.
The Democratic Party is different. Its only underlying principle is the acquisition of power. Its policies conveniently change with the times, but it’s all about power. And if you help them get power, you naturally expect something in return. With no clear underlying principles, it’s all about money and power.
And unlike Republican voters, who don’t always get what they’re voting for; Democrat voters generally do get what they’re voting for.
Don’t believe me? Just watch what’s about to happen over the next four years.
Come January 20, it’s payday.
Published in General
<sarcasm>But it’s worth it because we got rid of Trump</sarcasm>
Peter Schweizer has written extensively about political corruption, including the activities of the Biden crime family.
Red-county Pennsylvania. Red-county Georgia. Red-county Michigan. Red-county Wisconsin. Las Vegas.
Suckers.
I have wondered, for some time, if some part of “defund the police” is an attempt to remove a substantial portion of “city workers” from the public payroll in order to freeze or slow the growth of the retirement-plan boondoggle. “Defund the teachers” is probably a non-starter, but “get rid of the cops” seems tailor-made for the Left. My (admittedly not terribly well-developed or thought through) conspiracy theory isn’t rendered nugatory (at least in my own mind) when I see that Minneapolis is now so bereft of law-enforcement personnel that it’s contracting to bring in officers from other agencies and jurisdictions. I assume that such contracts would work as they usually do in the private sector, and that the benefits that go with the job are the responsibility of the actual employer, and that the contracting entity (in this case the Minneapolis City Council) is responsible only for an hourly wage or annual salary.
About a decade ago some organization took a survey of police officers and asked what made them take the job. Most answered with one word: “Pension”. In my home state, the motto of teachers was “Twenty-seven and out!”
When I was a kid back in the Second Age of Middle Earth the saying was that the public sector couldn’t match private sector wages, but had great benefits. Today, the private sector either can’t or won’t match public sector wages, job security, benefits, pensions, etc. The unfunded liabilities for those benefits are already greater than can be paid, and the private sector is fed up with it. (<– I hope).
They already are…and you should expect it to be part of the next COVID stimulus package (i.e. early February). (HINT: Except for a vocal few, the Senate will be falling all over themselves to help it along. You thought Failure Theater 2013 was expensive, wait until you see this. But I digress.) The newly clean books will validate the means and methods of these irresponsibly led cities and they will be back in the same place in less than a decade.
Good Doctor- some great lines in the post:
“But remember that the Republican party is largely based on a pretty simple set of principles. A Constitutional Republic, a nation of laws and not of men, property rights, individual rights that are granted by God and not by government, and so on. When people vote for Republicans, that is generally what they’re voting for. That’s not always what they get, mind you. But that’s what they’re voting for.
Who will pay?
We will become thoroughly entrenched in “Modern Monetary Theory” or the really big- no humongous – Big Money Print. Uncle Joe Biden’s Masters , the ChiComs, have printed way over ten times the money of our QE so “why not?” say our betters? Money and lots of it for all the followers of our New Marxist Police State but none of it for you retrograde Kulaks. In fact we have this little re-ed camp waiting for you all paid for by the Big Money Print.
BTW, my daughter just barely avoided getting caught in the web of 10pm curfew checkpoints of our New Police State last night where people were being arrested in droves. Long Live the Biden Police State!
At least some can sleep well at night. Somehow they don’t think it affects them so they worked to get rid of the mean tweeter.
You’re not nuts. There is nothing too crazy to imagine.
Republican leadership should take a lesson from Obama/Pelosi/Reid. For good or ill, no matter how crazy, they delivered for their voters.
Re MMT. …this from Squad member Pramila Jayapal
“We just had Stephanie Kelton, who wrote that wonderful book on MMT, come in and speak to the caucus, because we are trying to explode the debt and deficit myths that exist even within some of our own progressive caucus members. But in the Democratic Party writ large, we are also trying to explode the idea of paying for things. It’s part and parcel of that.”
Let that sink in.
Explode the idea of paying for things.
Yikes!!!
Happy days are here again.
I was always told that the three best reasons for being a teacher were June, July and August.
You don’t understand, federal tax payers are going to send trillions of dollars to cities to make them whole after Covid. It is like a big reset.
Once upon a time it also resulted in a sore Peter.
This is really going to stink. The years we’ve had a Democratic president, looking back over my lifetime, have been some of the most frustrating. Especially the first two years of an administration. But the midterms have usually been a time of triumph. Let’s hope this will follow that pattern. But the acid build up in the stomach getting there is not going to be pleasant.
Yeah. But look at the brighter side. If those dopes had their way we would be facing the second term of a Hillary administration, and one where she would have placed three Supreme Court justices. At least that didn’t come to pass.
Correct, but calling them “dopes” is too kind. We have one in particular who blames Trump supporters for forcing him to vote for Biden. I guess a group of Trump supporters took him at gunpoint to the polls and made him cast the vote. And those sick people will blame Trump for whatever Demo-rats manage to do because, you know, if Trump had resigned, they’d have been able to vote Republican. Delusional, despicable jerks.
I think we will not see the GOPe regain power. Remember that 47% to 49% of the citizens don’t pay Federal taxes so they don’t see themselves being forced to pay for this nonsense. It’s the people who followed the rules, acquired marketable skills through hard work and study, earned enough to have their money confiscated by government to support those who didn’t who will be forced to pay. This will not end well.
I was talking to a bartender today – he’s got a degree in art, works mostly at a tattoo parlor, and does one day of bartending for some extra cash.
He said his entire student loan debt would disappear if this happens, and seemed happy enough about that – until I mentioned that his taxes would also go up in the long run, to pay for it.
Oops.
I agree. Calling them “dopes” is too kind. I try to err on the kinder side. ;) But don’t let that lead you to think I don’t detest them.
Reminded that years ago John Derbyshire always said he told his kids to “get a government job”, although he was clear in not wanting to HAVE to say it. Wonder how that worked out.
Like many other forms of social disease…
Remember Kennedy’s “Ask Not” speech? Well, it has been revised . . .
And the short term too. I read that this loan forgiveness would be treated like income. Ask him what an extra $50,000 of income would do to his tax bill
I thought this was a very perceptive article about the two parties and what is coming.
It gets very close to the economic truths underlying the politics, as close as you can get without learning economics.
There are now 3 parties. One is Democrats, one is Republicans of the GOPe variety, and the third is Trump voters. I have no idea how this will all come out. I don’t think we can go back to 2016. Or even 2000.
Great post!
California is now toying with a mileage tax on cars. Turns out the excessive gas tax was too efficient and everyone bought electric cars! So now that there is no more revenue, they are going to tax on a per-mile basis. Who will be hurt by that the most?
Don’t tell Rob Long that. If we just make good policy arguments, Republicans will win the day, and everything that’s been happening consistently for decades will just change.
You might be getting your Democrats mixed up. I believe Chuck Schumer is ticked off at Joe Biden because Schumer wants the $50,000 figure and Biden only wants to take it up to $10,000.
A lot of people are going to end up worse off because even if they get free stuff, it will soon be gone, and then some. Just like the Dims ALWAYS do.
It’s like with people who have had their rent deferred during covid, but will end up owing it all at once when that deferral expires. Or when their unpaid landlords go under and the place where they live is sold to someone else who kicks them all out.
Meanwhile, whatever extra unemployment they might have received, was spent frivolously.
And so on.
I think there will be a lot of very angry people on the left, fairly soon. The remaining question could be, who they blame for that.
But at least, I own my place. And I even have room to rent out space if I feel like it. If I found people I could trust, which isn’t likely. But it is a final option, if necessary.
Plus as mentioned elsewhere, I’m a good distance from any large city. For people who remained in cities for various reasons, some of which I consider foolish (needing to be near Costco, or “foodie” restaurants, etc), the burning etc may have not yet even really begun.