Well a lot went on over the last week. Where to begin? Let’s start in Virginia.
Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 10 points just a year ago there. And the Dems have pretty much controlled the state for a number of years. The irony is that most of Virginia is pretty red, but Northern Virginia (the suburbs around Washington DC), vote overwhelmingly Democrat, and that’s swung the state to the left for quite some time now.
But not last Tuesday. Republican candidate for governor, Glenn Youngkin, beat Democrat Terry McAuliffe, despite the fact that he was significantly outspent. And the Republican candidates for lieutenant governor and Attorney General also won, and Republicans took back the House of Delegates (which is like the House of Representatives.)
Just as important, was the race for governor in New Jersey. Although the Democrat incumbent, governor Phil Murphy, won the race, it was only by one point, while Biden had carried it by 16 points just a year ago.
So what do these races mean? That the Democrats are in big trouble. Some of their difficulty is baked in. When one party wins the presidency, the other almost always does better in the next election cycle. But in my opinion, it’s far more than that this time.
The things they’ve been doing since they took power, are just bad for the country. The border is a mess. Their terrible energy policies have resulted in skyrocketing prices at the pump. The Afghanistan pullout was a disaster. Their so-called COVID Relief Bill only spent 9% on COVID relief. And now they’re trying to ram through more reckless spending than we’ve seen in our nation’s history.
Let’s talk about that now. It’s a one-two punch that’s going to cost over $5 trillion. Step one was passage of the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill late last Friday night in the House (I voted against it.) Yes, I’m for improving the infrastructure, as are most of my Republican colleagues in the House. But there’s a reason that 11 of the 12 Republicans from Ohio in the House voted against the bill (the one exception being Anthony Gonzalez who announced recently that he’s leaving Congress after this term.) In fact, there are multiple reasons. Less than half of the $1.2 trillion goes to things we normally associate with infrastructure – like roads and bridges. Tens of billions of dollars in the bill go to Solyndra-type slush funds. The bill failed to reform the current bureaucratic process that results in projects being delayed for an average of six years. But most importantly, and why 200 Republicans in the House voted no, and only 13 voted yes, was because Pelosi, Schumer and Biden tied the infrastructure bill and the upcoming “human infrastructure” bill, or “social spending“ bill, or “reconciliation” bill, or whatever you want to call it, inextricably together. And that bill, is truly terrible.
Click for larger image.
Here’s why. The second step, or second of a one-two punch, is the most expensive, and certainly the worst, bill, probably in the history of our country. First of all, it’s price tag is truly staggering. On top of the 1.2 trillion dollar so-called infrastructure bill, it’s probably another $4 trillion. Because of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema’s vocal opposition, they’ve supposedly got it down to $1.75 trillion. But they’ve done that with smoke and mirrors – gimmicks.
Principally, what they’ve done is this. The Congressional Budget Office determines how much things are going to cost (scores them) over a 10 year period. What the devious Democrats have done is to say instead of figuring the cost over 10 years, they’ll change it to over two years, or three years, as if these things, like universal pre-K, or free college, will magically go away, and then there will be no cost after the first two or three years. Well, we all know that these things, once passed, almost never go away. And the Democrats would scream bloody murder if any attempt would be made to end any of these programs (which of course won’t stop Republicans from at least trying to get rid of them – like Obamacare.) So what they’re really trying to do is deceive the public from the true cost of their spending spree.
I could go on, but respecting your time, I’ll stop there. The bottom line is, Democrats think they know how to spend your money better than you do. You’ll get to weigh in on that at the ballot box, about a year from now.
Remember next November.