Taxing and Spending is What Democrats Do
Hakeem Jeffries (a face of Democrat spending) 2021 official portrait (Pubic Domain)
The party brands were in full display during the 43-day government shutdown. The dispute was over spending, naturally, and the Democrats wanted to keep doing it.
Note that the subsidies were intended to get us through the pandemic, and were always expected to expire. But in a bait-and-switch, the Democrats insisted on extending them or making them permanent. The cost of doing that, over ten years is estimated at $383 billion, and we all know how estimates work out.
Besides that, the continued infusion of taxpayer money into the insurance industry is a guarantee that costs will continue to go up.
The Republicans simply understood that we ought to be cutting expenses and not piling them on. With less government money, the cost of healthcare will be forced downward.
AUDIO: Random Samplings of a Logical Mind
Extending the subsidies would have been a major victory for the insurance industry.
One can only imagine the lobbying that’s been going on, and how much money the insurance lobby might have spent to buy a few votes. It was close, but the calmer heads prevailed. Now, think about this: In my personal situation, I have my insurance set except for Part D, which is the pharmaceuticals. For 2025, I paid $537.60 for my plan, and I didn’t use any prescriptions. Whatever the reason for that, my $537.60 was pure profit for Aetna. (I eat a lot of broccoli and raw microwaved spinach.)
For 2026, if I stay with that plan, the cost will double, and at this point I still have no prescriptions to pay for. That means Aetna would clear more than $1,000 in pure profit from me. And I can’t simply refuse to buy a prescription plan because I would be charged an extra 10 percent for life if I ever tried to buy a plan at some future time.
Other people, especially young adults who are generally healthy, may have seen a similar effect. They may have used way less of the insurance coverage than they paid for, again enriching the insurance companies. That’s what the Obamacare mandates were supposed to do – bring healthy people in to pay for the less healthy, usually older folks.
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Note that the insurance companies have the money to hire celebrity spokesmen like Coach Nick Saban, and to animate geckos, ducks, pigs, emus, and such to create elaborately produced TV commercials. Insurance is a boring product, and they do this to make it interesting and to stand out. It works, apparently.
Then, there’s the fact that Democrats are always ready to tax and spend.
It’s their brand. It’s what they do. Their main existential crisis is Climate Change, which is essentially a license to tax, spend, and redistribute money. Climate Change has always been the best permanent reason to spend copious amounts of money for virtually no ROI, and the COVID-19 pandemic was the temporary excuse.
The Republicans’ favorite existential crisis is the $38,000,000,000,000 National Debt, which provides no opportunities for spending more; it calls for spending less, which is not how you get reelected. And it’s not as much fun as handing free stuff out like Zohran Mamdani wants to do.
Yep, the Obamacare mess is a form of socialism. It was named officially the “Affordable Care Act.” Laugh out loud all you want. Democrats love names like that. Another unintentionally hilarious name for a bill is the “Inflation Reduction Act.” Perhaps the Democrats think you won’t notice how that turned out.
Video: Hakeem Jeffries tells CBS News that “the money existed” for the subsidies, but does it?
The mess we’re in with high consumer prices is because of Biden-era spending.
When government uses a crisis – such as the pandemic – to flood billions or trillions into the economy as stimulus, all that money devalues the dollars in your bank account. So, prices go up across the board and they rarely go down. Consumer have to wait years for salaries to catch up, and Congress keep spending in the meantime.
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Let’s turn to Google AI for a quick list of what Congress spent during the four years that Joe Biden and his autopen were in power.
- American Rescue Plan Act of 2021: This was a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package designed to provide broad relief from the COVID-19 pandemic. Its provisions included $1,400 stimulus checks for individuals, an expansion of unemployment benefits, an expanded child tax credit, assistance for renters and homeowners, and funding for vaccine distribution, schools, and state and local governments.
- Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act): Signed in November 2021, this legislation is a once-in-a-generation investment of more than $1 trillion into the nation’s “hard” infrastructure, with approximately $550 billion in new federal investments. Key areas of spending include roads and bridges, public transit and rail, airports and ports, the electric grid, and clean drinking water and high-speed internet infrastructure.
- CHIPS and Science Act of 2022: Signed in August 2022, this act is valued at roughly $280 billion to strengthen American manufacturing and technology capabilities. It includes over $50 billion in grants and tax credits to incentivize domestic semiconductor (computer chip) manufacturing, as well as funding for scientific research and workforce development.
- Inflation Reduction Act of 2022: Passed using the reconciliation process, this legislation represents the largest-ever investment in clean energy and climate action. It directs hundreds of billions toward climate and energy programs through tax credits and incentives, extends Affordable Care Act subsidies, and allows Medicare to negotiate some prescription drug prices. It also aims to reduce the deficit through a 15% corporate minimum tax and enhanced IRS enforcement.
All this spending was just fine for somebody, but as a whole, it gave us Bidenflation. We’re still in it. Consider this: In Trump’s first term, we had virtually no inflation. In Biden’s term, we had massive inflation. In Trump’s second term, we have some inflation but not as much as Biden had.
How do we get back to virtually no inflation?
Republicans have to stop the Democrats from spending. They will not stop on their own. Lots of Republicans bloviate about the National Debt, but you almost never hear a Democrat mention it. They seem to think it’s not a problem. In New York, we’re about to see that point-of-view be put to a massive test. In reality, free stuff really costs a lot, and with no profit motive, it usually is not of high quality. That’s called socialism.
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The Democrats, though, are good at using emotion rather than facts. Their argument on extending the Obamacare subsidies or making them permanent was that people are going to be priced out of health insurance. They’re right about that, and the argument may resonate. But Obamacare, which was supposed to make health insurance affordable, did quite the opposite.
If the Democrats had won the shutdown battle and extended the subsidies, healthcare costs and insurance for it would have shot up again. Just like tuition when the government took over student loans. More government infusion of money, and you’ll get higher prices. It never fails.
But that’s a rational, fact-based argument, and the Democrats will usually stick with emotion, and blame people who are successful. Republicans ought to come up with a plan for healthcare that involves far less government. That’s a tall order, and it will take both parties to actually accomplish anything. That’s why we probably never will.
Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter. Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us. Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoolley.
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Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.
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