Economist blasts Democrats' $5 trillion package as ‘dangerous’

President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are pushing for a $5 trillion reconciliation package, leading Stephen Moore, co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and an economic contributor to FreedomWorks, to become a staunch opponent.

“We've gone from when I first came to Washington tax and spend right? And then tax and spend was replaced with borrow and spend, which is how we got these massive amounts of debt,” Moore said during an Oct. 4, appearance on the Texas Public Policy Foundation online program, The Advance.

“And now this new what the left calls, modern monetary theory, is basically print money and spend,” he said. “These are getting progressively worse and more dangerous.”

Moore spoke with Texas Public Policy Foundation CEO Kevin Roberts and foundation economist E.J. Antoni on what this massive proposal means to the nation and how it can be stopped.

The foundation describes its mission as to build and promote conservative public policies.

Antoni explained what was under way in Washington.

“We have a couple of different bills that are trying to be forced through Congress right now," he said. "One deals primarily with what is being called infrastructure, but that's really a pretty broad term. We've come to learn there are a whole lot of things that are now being considered infrastructure other than things like roads, bridges, airports. The other bill is a reconciliation bill, and these two together comprise about $6.2 trillion in new spending, an incredible amount to put it in context. If you take every dollar that every state spent in 2019 and then add another 67% on top of that, that's about how much Congress is trying to spend right now.”

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, (R-Texas) from Kingwood who represents Texas’ Second Congressional District, is a staunch opponent of the reconciliation package, as he explained during a Sept. 27 appearance on “Fox News Primetime.”

“I think what this bill really boils down to is straight-up bribery for the progressive agenda, for the progressive activists, and trying to bribe the American people,” Crenshaw said. “I’ll tell you what, because of this bill you might need those bribes because it’s going to kill your jobs and it’s going to kill your wages.”

Crenshaw did not explain how spending billions of dollars on infrastructure will kill jobs and wages.

Moore mentioned many of the victories that conservatives have seen over the last 40 years, starting with the Reagan era, lower tax rates, getting 26 states to join Texas as right to work states, helping small businesses through deregulation and lower tax rates.

“The welfare reforms, workfare reforms, which actually happened under [Republican speaker] Newt Gingrich and a Democratic president Bill Clinton. Those are fabulously successful,” he said. “I could go on and on. We believe that the impact of this will be a just a tidal wave of additional debt, probably doubling the debt over the next 10 years to over 30 trillion dollars. One way of thinking about that is that every child born today in the next 20 years will have a $325,000 share of the national debt. That's like a second mortgage we're passing on to our children.”

Moore said it would be devastating to small businesses.

“We have nearly 30 million small businessmen and women who run great companies of America,” he said.

Antoni explained the debt ceiling process.

“The debt ceiling essentially is the maximum amount that we as a country are allowed to borrow," he said. "Unfortunately, ever since the limit was put in place, all Congress has done is just repeatedly raise it,” he said. “Now, fortunately, in the past, we have had a couple of instances where Congress was willing to compromise and say, 'OK, we'll raise the debt ceiling, but we're going to put a condition on there, namely that we're going to cut the deficit in all these different areas.' And the goal there is to eventually drive the deficit down to zero and to balance the budget, that's always been the goal. Unfortunately, we've never actually quite gotten there.”

Moore said he wants people to be aware of the real danger that is at hand.

“When Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden say this slippery government is not going to cost you anything, it's free, it costs nothing — this is the lunatic idea that the left has embraced,” he said. “These people are serious. They actually believe that we can continue to borrow and spend money and raise taxes to the highest levels in the world, and it will have no negative impact on the economy. The fact that they project that it will actually increase the growth of the economy, which, you know, I always say to my liberal friends, show me where, when, in any country in the history of the world as as more government spending, you know, led to to more prosperity. So we're up against a fearsome foe here.”

Moore said schools are playing a major part in this miseducation of the American people.

“This is in part due to the indoctrination," he said. "I think in our schools, frankly, that we've got now a generation of people who think actually the government really is the solution to our problems. “And I always go back to what Ronald Reagan said, which was really so wise. He said ‘A government that's big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you've got.’ And that is something we should remember as we fight forward on this.”

Moore noted that two Democratic senators, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, won’t support the bill as it currently stands. He said other Democrats from moderate districts and states are not thrilled by this package either.

“What that means, we're all trying to decipher, but that's a good sign,” he said. “We've made some progress there, but this game is not won by any stretch. In fact, on Friday night or some point over the weekend, Speaker Pelosi said she's adjusting the timeline to Halloween. I mean, what a trick-or-treat gift for us as a country of this monstrosity actually gets passed.”

Antoni said he thinks it will be Christmas before anything is decided.

Moore wonders what shape the package will be in when the arm-twisting is done.

“What worries me is that when Joe Manchin says, ‘Well, I can't support a $3.5 trillion bill.' Kevin, what does that mean? Does that mean $2.5 trillion, $3 trillion? You know, we don't exactly know,” Moore said. “I've known Joe Manchin a long time. He's a transactional politician. And I do think in the end of the day, he wants to cut a deal and we could still end up with a really horrible bill.”

Moore said conservative groups like the Texas Public Policy Foundation, FreedomWorks and other organizations have the right idea.

“The right amount of money to spend on this bill is 0.0,” he said. “We don't need $3.5 or $5 trillion dollars of spending right now. The economy is actually doing very well, thanks in no small part to the [COVID-19] vaccine, which has put American businesses and American workers back on the job.”

Moore said there are times when government needs to borrow, including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II after the Great Depression and after the Cold War ended.

“This is the first time where the left has basically said we want a blow-out spending binge right now,” he said. “Even though the economy is extremely healthy, we're at full employment, there is no economic rationale for this. It is about radical redistribution of income and a lurch toward big-government socialism.”

Antoni also touched on a proposal to add additional tax penalties to married people who own businesses. It could increase their taxes by $130,000 annually, he predicted.

That is once again, an attack on the traditional family structure, he said.

Antoni also commented on a proposal for the IRS to have access to all bank accounts with deposits of $600 or more.

“It is absolutely scary what they're looking, what they're looking to do with this bill,” he said. “And again, once you get into the details of it, it seems to just get worse and worse, and that is a perfect example of one of those instances.”

Moore said the public has a right and a duty to join the battle.

“Well, it's going to take thousands and thousands of voices." he said. "I think we need all hands on deck. This is not a fire drill. This is the real thing.” 

Moore said while Biden ran as a reasonable moderate, appealing to centrist voters, that is not how he has governed.

“I'm not exaggerating," he said. "When you compare Obama with what Biden is doing today, Biden is making Barack Obama look like Ronald Reagan in comparison.”