Last night the Spender in Chief a.k.a. Healer Joe (we are healed now, right?) laid out in broad strokes an agenda to spend $1.8 trillion on what he’s calling the American Families Plan.  He wrapped it in terms that sound soothing – “making care affordable, free education, universal pre-school” and “investing in the care workforce.”

It doesn’t stop there.  Additional proposals include “free” community college (i.e. paid for by someone else), eliminating the cap for Obamacare subsidies and making permanent the temporary expansion of the child tax credit in the most recent COVID package.

We’ve taken a bite from the apple and it’s rotten to the core.  Here’s why:

  • It is not the job of taxpayers to pay for the choice of others to have kids.  Want to have kids?  Great.  You pay to send them to preschool.
  • Don’t agree?  Fine.  We already have a program where taxpayers pay for your kids to go to preschool.  It’s called Head Start.  Why do we need a new program?  Is Head Start a failure?  Why throw good money after bad?
  • Want to end poverty?  We do too.  Therein lies the justification for WIC, food stamps, welfare checks and child-care subsidies.  Why do we need new programs?  Were these programs failures?  Why will new programs be any better?
  • How did all those federal housing programs work out?  Mention “the projects” and watch people cringe.
  • How’s all of this going to be funded?  After all free ain’t free.  Beneficiaries of the welfare state will further suck on the teat of the taxpayer.  That’ll work, right?  Nope.  Increasing already usurious taxes (e.g. income, sales, payroll, gift, estate) won’t be enough so The Fed will ride to the rescue.  Their balance sheet will continue to balloon as they stick their collective heads in the sand and call inflation “transitory.”

What’s the real goal here?  Is Big Government genuinely interested in providing the “safety net” they espouse?  Hardly.

To be blunt and at the risk of sounding like we’re making a political attack the Democrats hate work.  There’s dignity, independence and self-respect that comes from earning money.  They’d rather see us as dependents of the state on the receiving end of handouts.

The more programs are expanded the more personal responsibility is eroded.  No need to face the challenges of earning a living and/or raising a family.  Let Big Government do it for you.  No need to save for retirement.  Social Security is there for you (as long as you ignore how incredibly underfunded it is).

They’re like a drug dealer.  Get you hooked and then tell you the true cost once it’s too late.

Finally before taking out the digital torches and pitchforks and flaming us with unreasonable one-sided hate speech it’s important to recognize the Republicans are not much better.  Low interest rates and non-stimulating stimulus checks are a Trump holdover.

The problem Americans are stuck with is whether Democrat or Republican we’re still a cancerous nation.  We can argue that one party is better/worse than the other but whether we end up with one type of tumor vs. another we’re still diseased and dying.