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Op-Ed:
Biden’s outrageous budget a chance for GOP to regain spending
credibility
[The Center Square] Daniel Savickas |
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
For 10 years, advocates
for expanding Medicaid to cover able-bodied adults have told North
Carolinians to just look around the country. When so many other states
have taken the plunge, there’s no need to guess what’s around the
corner. |
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 Last week, President Biden
released his presidential budget. The plan calls for $6 trillion in spending in
just the next year. For perspective, the current federal budget for this fiscal
year is roughly $4.8 trillion. The Biden plan is a staggering 20% increase. It
also proposes spending an average of 24.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) over
the next 10 years. The historic record for the U.S. is 24.4%, which was set in
2009, during a deep recession. The Biden administration would have the nation
set profligate spending records consistently.
Since World War II, however, federal tax receipts have only
averaged 17.9% per year. This has remained fairly consistent despite greatly
fluctuating tax rates. While Biden may claim that tax hikes will ameliorate the
debt and deficit considerations of this budget, history says quite the opposite.
Trillion-dollar deficits will be the new norm – with or without sweeping changes
to the tax code.
The Biden budget also includes ambitious policy proposals on infrastructure,
family planning, jobs, and social welfare. Anywhere there has not been a role
for the federal government, this budget re-imagines one. With this budget, Biden
is declaring that the era of big government has only just begun.
Because of its lofty goals and spending targets, Congress will likely overhaul
this budget in favor of its own. While members of the legislative branch may not
take this budget proposal seriously, the American people owe it to themselves
and to future generations to take it very seriously. This is the clearest
glimpse into Biden’s vision for the proper role of government and spending
desires. In due time, it will become the dominant vision within the Democrat
Party.
This budget is a gift for congressional Republicans. This is a golden
opportunity for Republicans to expose the dangers of Biden’s agenda. Both
parties have generally accepted that running the debt to record levels is bad,
but neither has had the will to contain that spending. This budget throws any
caution to the wind. There has also been a common view that tax hikes do not
spur economic growth – and even hinder it. Yet, the Biden plan introduces
sweeping tax hikes coming out of a global pandemic that decimated the economy.
It also ignores some of the austerity measures accepted by even the Obama
administration. This is more radical than anything we’ve seen for quite some
time.
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While this gift may be neatly wrapped and served up
on a silver platter, it will require some work first. Republicans
have to present a credible alternative. It is one thing to decry
wasteful spending, and an entirely different thing to actually work
out solutions to avoid it. This is especially true after so much of
the party remained quiet as Biden’s Republican predecessor, former
President Donald Trump, paved the way for record deficits himself.
This is a chance to regain needed credibility on spending.
They have done it before. Congressional
Republicans, once upon a time, worked with the aforementioned
Democratic President Clinton to balance the budget. Under the Biden
plan, debt would exceed GDP in the not-too-distant future. This
would greatly heighten the risk of default and trigger economic
panic not only at home, but across the globe. This is a national and
global security risk. If the rhetoric on this is to be taken
seriously, it needs to be backed up with the same sort of action we
saw over two decades ago.
Republicans can also stand on the successful record of tax cuts and
de-regulation over the last four years to set a viable course
counter to the Biden plan. Investment and wages rose in light of tax
cuts and the rollback of burdensome regulations. Just prior to the
onset of the pandemic, unemployment numbers were amongst the lowest
in years. This success from our recent past can easily be a part of
the nation’s future again soon.
For all this to come to fruition, it will require more than gripes
aired on cable news. Republican lawmakers need to be willing to work
with their counterparts across the aisle to constructively make this
case, rather than mindlessly tearing down what’s already been put
forth – as bad as it may be. The country is at a crossroads. It’s
vital for the nation going forward that we pick the path of fiscal
responsibility instead of that of profligacy. The vision for the
latter has just been set forth. It’s now time to present one for the
former.
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