The Dangers of ‘Bipartisan’ Trojan Horses

THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE is trying to rush a new tax bill, preposterously titled, ‘The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act,’ through the House in record time—which should put the subject bill under heightened suspicion.  

When the Heritage Foundation’s Richard Stern and Preston Brashers did just that, they were disappointed by what they learned. The bill, they say, is “disguising welfare expansion, corporate windfalls, and inflationary deficits, all at the expense of the middle class [and] includes weak work requirements, improper payments, and benefits for illegal aliens.” (Brackets added.) No wonder it’s being pushed to passage in ten days, a remarkably short timeframe.

Supposedly, there were middle-class tax cuts and pro-growth reforms, but alas, the bill promises “welfare expansions, corporate windfalls, and inflationary deficits.” What is dubbed ‘middle class tax relief’ is actually 91.5% an expansion of welfare benefits. In fact, the only thing that might benefit an individual taxpayer is a minor cost-of-living adjustment to the child tax credit—probably to $2,100 from $2,000 per child, for returns filed in 2025 and 2026 before sunsetting.  And it doesn’t make what Stern and Brashers believe is an important change to the credit regarding work requirements. They’re right, too.

At present, households with over $2,500 of annual earned income get the ‘additional child credit’ at a rate of $15 for every $100 of earned income after the $2,500. Under the proposed change, the phase-in would rapidly accelerate, so a household with $10,000 in annual income claiming three children would receive a $3,375 credit instead of $1,125. It is a refundable credit, too, meaning that even if a household pays -0- in taxes, the government will refund the credit amount. 

This is in addition to the earned income tax credit, also a refundable credit, a household may be entitled to, here, another $4,500. One might think that if a family has such a low household income, they ought to get the help, but this is on top of all the other welfare benefits they qualify for and receive through federal, state, and local programs, or charitable help for which they are not paying taxes.

There are studies in most cities that show what the equivalent in actual income is when households take advantage of the welfare programs, many of which are extremely robust and generous. In some cities, one might see a $90,000/yr. equivalent. And if a household doesn’t work enough to make $2,500/yr. in 2024, but did in 2023, there is a look-back provision which gives the household at least as much as last year. Working part-time, seasonally, or even every other year guarantees you that much income at taxpayers’ expense. Never mind possible fraud with these credits, which for the EITC ran rampant at 31.6%; for ACC at 15.8% for FY 2022. 

Yet the absolute worst part of the bill is that these credits would go to illegal alien parents for  alien children. No social security numbers are needed, just an identification number. (To put blame fairly, Trump’s inaptly-named Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had the same defect.)

Business provisions of the new bill, Stern and Brashers maintain, aren’t quite as bad as the individual ones, but they’re still pretty bad. They concede that extending expiring provisions in the 2017 reforms for research and development and short-lived capital investment expenses for 2024 and 2025 are sound policy. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act allowed deductions in the year that such specified expenses accrued instead of requiring them to be expenses over years through depreciation or amortization. They point out, correctly, that this encourages investment.

A provision in the new bill would allow retroactive relief for expensing for 2022 and 2023 which does not encourage investment since one cannot retroactively make decisions to invest.

Stern and Brashers digested the findings of the Tax Foundation’s take on the new bill. A modeling analysis suggests there will be no impact on long-term economic growth nor on job creation. At best, it might provide some momentum for a pro-growth policy in 2025, but that’s it.

Furthermore, the Joint Committee on Taxation, which is the official congressional research entity for such matters, agrees: the business provisions wouldn’t have any significant impact on economic growth, even after “tens of billions” of “corporate windfall handouts.”

Finally, Stern and Brashers fault the $155 billion cost over 2024 and 2025, and “gimmicky” means of “paying for” these handouts:

“As with much “bipartisan” legislation, this one falls short on conservative principles. The bill has some small wins but unfortunately will redistribute wealth from hardworking, middle-class families to large, established corporations and to individuals who are barely engaged in work at all.”

No wonder they called the bill a “Trojan horse.”

My Confiscatory Share

EVERY YEAR I LOOK AT THE I.R.S. STATS.  And yes, for people who actually pay taxes, not simply file a return to collect ‘free’ money, it is a very depressing thing. But here we go again with actual I.R.S. figures.

The top 1% of U.S. taxpayers paid nearly half (48%) of total federal income taxes. (Add in state stats, and it’s really horrible.)

The top 10% of U.S. taxpayers paid almost 72% of total federal income taxes. (Add in state stats, and again, it’s really horrible.) Worded a bit differently is the fact that the top 10% of wage earners pay three-quarters of all federal income tax.

The bottom 40% of U.S. income tax filers paid no income tax at all (and some of these alleged ‘taxpayers’ were paid ‘free’ money by other U.S. taxpayers in a wealth redistribution scheme by Congress involving so-called refundable credits such as Earned Income Tax Credit or Additional Child Credit.)

Those earning $30- to $50,000 only pay an effective rate of under two percent. How frigging progressive can you possibly make this folly, anyway?!

These stats have, over the years, made me reevaluate my original belief that the federal income tax was an effective and appropriate means of directing social policy. I now realize the folly of those beliefs. The I.R.S.is understaffed to the point of providing no service and overstaffed to the extent of being an excessively aggressive taxing authority that has been being used as a political weapon in recent decades by the pols who fund it. 

Better is the so-called FAIRtax, which is essentially a national sales tax (more here). Or a flat tax, which is a set percentage of income all people pay equally (more here.) Or a value-added tax, which is a consumption tax leveled at every stage of production of goods (more here) that fully replaces income taxation. Any of these tax methodologies have the benefit of easy or no enforcement mechanisms needed, which means a big savings in its costs to administer. Any of these would be a vast improvement over the current corrupt system, though to my reckoning, the FAIRtax is the best of the lot because instead of taxing the productivity which we want more of, it taxes consumption, but is simpler to administer than the VAT.

I’ll never see the change in my lifetime, but the next generation would be better off.

FY ’24 Budget: A Month Late and $20 Trillion Short

THURSDAY USHERED IN THE 2024 BUDGET SEASON on Capitol Hill: a month late. The illegitimate occupant of the White House, Joey Biden, supplied a $6.9 trillion list of gifts to special interests and bills for taxpayers which, he said, without evidence, would reduce the deficit by $2.8 trillion over a decade. The evidence actually shows the it’s based on unrealistically optimistic economic assumptions and unlikely policy outcomes, per the Concord Coalition.

There is an overwhelming reliance on dramatic tax increases on the upper middle to upper classes which is not likely to win the hearts or minds of G.O.P. lawmakers in the House. Speaker Kevin McCarthy has already nixed it. It is likewise the case that a budget relying solely on spending cuts to reduce the deficit would be D-O-A for Dems in the Senate. This means deficit reduction will be back-burnered.

In a press release, the Concord Coalition stated, “A deficit reduction plan at least twice as large as [Biden] has proposed would be needed to stabilize the debt-to-GDP ratio. It is also noteworthy that even with the deficit reduction assumed in the budget, interest on the debt doubles from $661 billion in 2023 to $1.32 trillion in 2033.” The deficit in 2024 would increase from $1.6 trillion to $1.8 trillion and gross federal debt would rise to a nosebleed height of $51 trillion after a decade. Meanwhile, there is no evidence the Federal Reserve will slow down tightening of the money supply which will result in the continuation of rapid increases in interest rates upon which this debt will have to one day, eventually, be repaid. All this reduces economic growth which means the debt becomes harder to manage. It’s a vicious cycle that lands in the halls of Congress for resolution. 

The Concord Coalition made special note of the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. It criticizes Biden for failing to cut Social Security benefits, which it somehow equates with his promise to “stand up for seniors” in his State of the Union address. Breaking news, CC, cutting benefits is not standing up for seniors! Many have called for means-testing benefits, but everythingis means-tested in this country, to the point the redistribution of wealth makes even socialists blush.

Seniors have paid into the system that is meant to work as a social insurance system rather than a welfare benefit for the poor. Who in their right mind would pay into such a system all their lives for nothing? Changing the rules seconds before the finish line is not only unfair, but downright cruel. Changes should be made for those not yet in the workforce, so that they may respond to the changing circumstances accordingly, without being bound by terms they never agreed to. 

Raising the age for benefits is no solution, either, at this point. Some may live long enough to get their ‘contributions’ to the system back, but many won’t. If you don’t live long enough, you’re doubly-screwed: you’re dead and get no benefits. And whether it’s related to Covid-19, life expectancies are down of late, anyway.

The last place you want to cut, in any event, is benefits for a population that is effectively unable to just go out and get a job if conditions change in the economy, like, as now, out-of-control inflation. It’s not simply that it’s a population with sometimes very vulnerable people due to health; it’s also that they aren’t likely to be hired at a certain point. 

As for Medicare, CC credits Biden with trying, but failing—because he is simply redirecting resources and savings from one budget line item to another. Why that is such a problem is opaque. It is a promise society has made to its seniors in exchange for their contributions into the system and into the economy as a whole during their working lives. If it falls short some years, so what? Are you going to deny medical care to seniors because they happened to have been born in a period where many others were, too? That’s a triple-whammy: you’re not getting benefits because you’re not poor enough; you’re not getting health care because you were born at the wrong time, and it doesn’t matter anyway, because one could be dead. 

What a system! What a country! Why don’t we take away welfare benefits if too many were born in someone’s generation? We don’t do that. In fact, we look for new ways to give away medical care to able-bodied non-working people in the peak of their lives. Or, even worse, to illegal aliens, to whom we owe absolutely nothing. And the stealing from Peter to make Paul feel better is wholly unjust and reeks of moral hazard. Ol’ Joey has plenty of new and increased income redistribution schemes in this irresponsible budget. 

A radical approach is needed to budget going forward because the debt and deficit are not sustainable and haven’t been for years. We must ensure the solvency of the nation and not pass along crippling debt to the future generations. This means severely curtailing the role of government, but making cuts in a way that it isn’t too abrupt for the truly vulnerable to adapt to. And never mind the astonishing $886.4 billion for military. The Concord Coalition’s criteria are here. 

Will Standing Prevent Adjudication of Biden’s Unconstitutional Student Loan Scam?

THE WISCONSIN INSTITUTE FOR LAW & LIBERTY asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to issue an injunction against the unconstitutional student loan bailout plan of Joe Biden’s. WILL filed its emergency application (read here) on behalf of the Brown County Taxpayers Association requesting a temporary stay as the matter weaves its way through the lower-level federal courts. Biden’s One-Time Student Loan Debt Relief plan seeks to “cancel” up to $10,000 in student loans ($20,000 for Pell Grant borrowers) for those earning under $125,000 as single tax filers, or $250,000 if filing jointly. This means 92% of households would qualify; the other 8% would become liable for the debt. WILL correctly argues that Biden’s plan, potentially transferring “hundreds of billions, or perhaps over a trillion, dollars in debt,” is a “presidential usurpation of the constitutional spending power, which is reserved exclusively for Congress.” 

The plan does so by transforming a law originally meant to benefit military personnel and first responders who were disadvantaged by their response to a discrete national emergency, known as the HEROES Act (read here), enacted into law after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Biden contends his authority arises from the pandemic, even though loan payments were suspended for all during the emergency, even for those who had no hardship. But Biden’s scam was never enacted by the legislature. Nor was the epidemic an act of terrorism (that we know of) or an act of war. Nor were any, or most students ever declared “heroes” or even “disadvantaged” in any way. Nor does the epidemic even exist, inasmuch as Biden declared the it over weeks ago on “60 Minutes.” Despite lawsuits, the Biden regime has nonetheless “re-declared the emergency,” and already beta tested its software to administer the scam. Some 8 million have signed up as of Monday.

“What Constitutional power does Biden have to take John Q. Public’s money and pay Jane Q. Public’s school loans?” BCTA President Rich Heidel said in a WILL press release. “Why not her mortgage, why not her car loan? How did the college-educated caste become the lucky ones? When and how does this stop? This nonsense not only defies the US Constitution – it defies common sense,” he added.

This follows a dismissal for lack of standing at District Court, but remains on appeal at the 7th Circuit. Taxpayer-standing is notoriously challenging to find.

Biden Buys Himself Some Votes In Case 2024 Cannot Be Rigged.

IT’S BEEN RUMORED FOR SOME TIME that the C.C.P. puppet who claimed to want to live in the White House instead of his own Delaware basement, Joey Biden, would be ‘cancelling’ student loan debts because, because, because…Trump, I guess, and why not? It couldn’t possibly be a cynical attempt at vote-buying, could it? Naw, Joey’d never do that!!! But today, he did just that. Really? Because he was adamant about the disallowance of dischargeability of student loan debt in bankruptcy as a senator. Was he wrong then? Or now? This brand new minimum government expenditure of $298 billion is on top of almost $32 billion of the $1.6 trillion in outstanding federal student debt (over $6,000 per borrower) that Joey has already canceled!

Biden’s plan, being implemented through an executive order, is to cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loans for those who went to college on Pell Grants, and $10,000 for those who didn’t. It’s another huge handout to special interest groups for political reasons, and this one will cost at least $300 billion. If a loan balance is less than these amounts, the loan will be completely wiped out. The only limit is the student cannot currently be earning over $125,000 per year if single, or $250,000 if married. The income limits are astonishing inasmuch as $125,000 is a damn good income; one is hardly needy in most jurisdictions if they make that much. The  same for $250,000; only two-fold. And then there is the fact that most things tied to income, like tax credits, for instance, are hardly ever twice as much for married people, on the assumption married people can live cheaper than two single people.  

Another goody is a cap on remaining monthly payments, which cannot exceed five percent of one’s monthly income. And finally, the C.C.P. puppet again delayed required student loan payments — this time through Dec. 31, 2022, conveniently right after the midterm elections. Naturally, defaulted federal student loans have ceased being collected as they have since the Covid guideline were enacted. 

Almost 8 million borrowers, and about 19% of households are already pre-qualified for the goody bag, and heaven knows how many will have ample time to reverse-engineer their incomes to between now and the end date of the program. Some actually took out loans in anticipation of the C.C.P. puppet’s move to cancel. The average borrower holds $37,667 in student loan debt, and owe an average of $460 a month to repay them. It takes 20 years to pay off these loans, on average. (Most of us did it, though.)

So, does Joey have the inherent authority to promulgate his plan through an executive order? He didn’t think so himself not long ago, but has since rationalized it as a Covid-19-related emergency. I call bullsh^t on that.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Joey did not such authority last year. She believed, correctly, I think, that it would need to be an act of Congress, not of the executive branch. “People think that the president of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness, he does not,” Pelosi said in July last year. “He can postpone, he can delay, but he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.” By contrast, though, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) believed Joey could do it “with the flick of a pen.” Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) thinks Joey can do it and should cancel all student debt. Even among Dems, there’s disagreement.

Forbes has observed that some special interest groups who lobbied hard for this massive giveaway package thought that the Higher Education Act of 1965 gave Joey clear legal authority to cancel this debt. Others, including many legal scholars, do not believe Joey has such unlimited and unilateral authority under the statute. While there is no literal limiting principle in the statute, it is highly unlikely Congress would have been so obtuse as to completely abdicate or delegate its spending power to another branch of government. Over 80 lawmakers, mostly Democrats and members of the so-called “Squad,” have urged Joey to publicly cite the authority he is using here. Apparently, they believe that will legitimize the wealth-redistribution scheme. At best, the legality of this scheme is dubious.

Unfortunately, but typically, the G.O.P. mucked up the works last April when five Senate Republicans conceded by implication that Joey had the authority to suspend, defer, or cancel student debt by filing a bill known as the Stop Reckless Student Loan Actions Act of 2022. Essentially, the bill would instill some limiting principles to the statue, such as limiting periods of forbearance to 90 days, or only for people below 400% of the poverty line.  

How will Joey’s latest vote-buying stunt affect our struggling economy? Those same lobbyists Forbes cited say it would boost the economy by forgiving $50k for all, it would supposedly generate $108 billion a year for a decade in GDP, while also generating 1.5 million new jobs annually. That doesn’t include all the smart things these borrowers would presumably buy or invest in, like homes, families, retirement plans, or businesses. 

The non-partisan, non-profit organization Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget disagrees. It will, they say, have a minimal effect on the economy. They further add that it would be an extremely poor ‘stimulus.’ This is because student loans are paid back based on income, and therefore has a minimal effect on cash flow. Further, the student debtors are less likely to spend, making relief poorly targeted. Also, the stimulative value is minimized due to the (then) current state of the macroeconomy’s supply and demand constraints, which are now even more limited. Inflation, not a concern at the time of the Committee’s study, is now a very real one and many think Joey’s scheme will exacerbate it. And finally, these cancellations really don’t target borrowers who are struggling financially and actually benefit a wealthier population of society. It is a regressive wealth transfer.

Additionally, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget recently found that Joey’s scheme would consume 10 years of deficit reduction contained in the recently passed Democratic climate and health care bill — erroneously dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act — and wipe out any disinflationary benefits within it. Meanwhile, the National Taxpayers Union Foundation noted that Joey wasn’t “cancelling” debt, he was making everyone else pay for it. How much? They estimate $2,085.59 per taxpayer. That doesn’t sound very stimulative, does it?

The Federalist summed up Joey’s stunt as “an unjust, cynical abuse of power…not to mention a moral hazard, counterproductive, and fundamentally immoral,” quoting the Constitution, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” I agree with the article’s author that the term ‘canceled debt’ is offensive because it was loan, knowingly and willingly undertaken to receive a good or service in advance of paying for it. It’s worth a read, here. A senior writer for National Review senior writer tweeted: “It sends other people’s cash to the group with the lowest unemployment rate and the brightest prospects.” That’s a pretty good synopsis of the idiocy of the scheme, too.

Long term effects don’t fare any better. Part of the cost of higher education is due to the fact that the federal government subsidizes it. The underlying affordability problem isn’t addressed here at all. Furthermore, future borrowers will anticipate the same consideration in the future and expect cancellation of their debts, too. The moral hazard here cannot be over-amplified.

Hopefully, someone will have the cajones to sue the Biden regime, so this  dangerous precedent isn’t established and used going forward for broad executive budgets powers in violation of the U.S. Constitution. 

When the C.B.O. Pours Cold Water on a Bill, Congress Might Want to Consider it All Wet.

THE INAPTLY TITLED “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” (successor to the also inaptly named Build Back Better Act of 2021) does nothing it purports to. Yet, the illegitimate occupant of the White House, Joey Biden, and his congressional pals have been pushing it hard. And late on Sunday, after the odd practice of Vote-a-Rama, the bill passed along party lines, with Kamala Harris, the poser V.P., casting the deciding vote. The bill’s summary claims “there are no new taxes on families making $400,000 or less and no new taxes on small businesses,” and that it only “clos[es] tax loopholes and enforc[es] the tax code.” Nope.

Some Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee didn’t see it that way. “Rather than reduce inflation, it puts inflation on steroids,” it concluded. A read of the bill (here) shows it to be basically a fantasyland “Green New Deal” bill  funded with oodles of new energy taxes more than anything else. Nor did the Tax Foundation agree with the bill’s summary. (Report here.) It was wholly unimpressed, and found the bill “may actually worsen inflation by constraining the productive capacity of the economy.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the new law would have “a negligible effect” if any on inflation, especially short- but also long-term, though it did observe it might reduce the deficit by $102 billion over the ten-year 2022-2031 period, just mostly in the later years. (Report here.) One would certainly hope the deficit is reduced based on the marked tax increases contained in the bill.

Furthermore, an analysis by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation confirmed that, in fact, nearly all Americans, from low income to wealthy, would experience federal tax hikes in 2023. For incomes between $50,000-$75,000, tax revenue would go up by $1.9 billion; and between $100,000-$200,000, taxes will go up by $10.8 billion. On average, rates would increase from 20.3-20.6% in 2023. The respected Wall Street Journal agrees, saying the bill is “a tax increase on nearly every American,” and that if you “[r]aise the corporate tax rate…you’re cutting wages and salaries for workers.”

Among those on the list of tax increases is one for $6.5 billion, according to the C.B.O., from American oil and natural gas development which will increase household energy bills by an estimated 17%. Another increases a per-barrel tax on petroleum products by 16.4 cents which will be passed along to consumers. The excise tax of coal will more than double, yielding an approximate $1.2 billion that will get passed through to consumers in the form of higher electricity bills. Perhaps worst of all, the oil tax increase will be pegged to inflation, so the more inflation, the higher the tax. Given the purported intent is to lower inflation, one might think it wise to omit this big gem, estimated to raise $12 billion in new taxes.

Then there is the 15% alternative minimum tax on corporations reporting $1 billion in profits for the past three years. Close to that, it’s easy to see that these companies will either reduce costs, probably through payroll, or pass along the tax to its customers. It means higher prices, fewer jobs, and lower wages. It will raise over $313 billion in new taxes. A Tax Foundation report found a $15% book tax would reduce the GDP by 0.1% and eliminate 27,000. Perhaps that doesn’t sound existentially bad, but in the context of a recession and high inflation, this is exactly the type of effect we do not need in the economy, especially when almost half of the tax will be borne by the manufacturing industry at a time when consumer confidence is low and supply-chain disruptions high.There will also be a large tax hike, to the tune of $52 billion, on passthrough businesses that are declaring losses from wages, rent, new equipment, inventory, and interest payments. (More here.) 

Perhaps most startling for ordinary Americans will be the tax effect on pensions, 401(k)s, and IRAs (accounting for 37% of outstanding $22.8 trillion in U.S. corporate stock), as well as 529 education savings accounts, health savings accounts, and other brokerage accounts. It is bad news for some 58% or over 60 million American workers. Corporate buybacks of shares will now be taxed. It is a means for stabilizing and strengthening overall net worth, especially for retirement. It will be a competitive disadvantage with China, which has no such tax. There’s also a federal excise tax on American pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Among more concerning provisions is the $80 billion is funding for the I.R.S. to hire up to 87,000 more agents to perform an additional 1.2 million annual audits, which would tend to suggest the intent is to raise more revenue, like $124 billion, from new taxes. The bill allocates 14 times more funds for enforcement than for service, like answering the phone, which the I.R.S. does only 10-20% of the time.

With all the new spending, the national debt at $30,589.976,882,498 (or $91,869 per person), and Biden’s giveaway of yet another $5.5 billion in aid and weapons to Ukraine, the goal here obviously has nothing to do with inflation. Who knew Biden would lie about not raising taxes on taxpayers earning under $400,000?

Biden Gave Away Your Hard-Earned $$ to Give to Your Neighbor’s Kid. (Hope You Like the Neighbor’s Kid!)

THE ILLEGITIMATE PUPPET-IN-CHIEF occupying the Oval Office  Treasury, Slow Joe Biden, just bought himself 200,000 votes with taxpayer money. He must be fearful his reelection bid is as compromised as he is because some in the G.O.P. caught onto Dem’s tricks at drop boxes, so he needs alternate vote sources. How easy it is to be generous with other people’s money!

On Thursday, Slow Joe’s Education Department agreed to “cancel” the student loans of 200,000 or so students who sued the government because they apparently felt they had been “misled” by schools they had enrolled in and agreed to pay. The case is Sweet v. Cardona, and the settlement (not judgment after adjudication) shells out a whopping $6 billion. This pays the loans off in full and adds extra to the pay outs for credit ‘repair.’

Let’s just assume without deciding that, in fact, these students were “mislead.” There has been no adjudication of that alleged fact, but if there were, why on Earth should taxpayers have to make these students whole? All they did is guarantee the student loans, so that if the students defaulted, the educational institute would get paid. (This is an excellent argument that this shouldn’t be so, but for now, it is.) 

Arguably, the students would default regardless, never pay off their loans, and walk away with the education for nothing (for what it may or may not be worth), and the taxpayer would be on the hook, so what’s the big deal? The big deal is, other students have felt “mislead” by not getting jobs they hoped for or other perks from their education, but paid off their loans as they were obliged to do. The big deal, then, is a moral hazard. 

There is also the big deal of slippery slopes. If the argument can be made for federally guaranteed student loans, then why not for federally funded housing, health care, or other government benefits? If you don’t like the results from your federally-funded “gender reassignment” surgery, then sue, and get transitioned back to your sex at birth for free. Why not? Taxpayers don’t have better things to pay for, do they? What really sucks is that taxpayers cannot sue the government for committing them to these obligations they don’t wish to undertake — they would undoubtedly lack standing even if Biden’s stunt were unconstitutional.

The Devil is in the Location-Tracking Details.

ALTHOUGH IT’S RECEIVED LITTLE PRESS, a deputy U.S. Marshal in Texas, Adrian O. Pena, was recently indicted for having allegedly used something called LBS platform by Securus Technologies to track people he knew personally back in 2016-17 rather than using the tool as intended — to aid law enforcement in official business. 

The tool relied on cellphone pings to track and on data LBS purchased directly from telecommunications firms, which gave latitude-longitude coordinates of a phone’s location.

Today, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, law enforcement has better technology that uses GPS or WiFi locations. (This technology, which is accurate enough for law enforcement, was also what “2000 Mules” used to investigate, and many believe, prove election fraud in 2020.) 

According to Motherboard, federal agencies, including the I.R.S. and Customs and Border Protection, receive information by private vendors who collect location data from apps people run on phones. No warrant is sought nor received, but law enforcement gets what it needs, and in Pena’s case, what he wanted.

It’s a wonder Pena’s indictment took so long to issue, but perhaps the rationale is to keep it, like a daemon, running only in the background so as to not attract attention to it. Besides, Securus has abandoned the technology. And, who really needs to know the I.R.S. has weaponized data collected from the private sector for unrelated purposes?

The fact that the I.R.S. has been buying up massive amounts of ammo has been more widely reported. Are I.R.S. agents expected to become a paramilitary force, or are they simply planning to use the ammo for their own enforcement purposes?  Or is the I.R.S. acting ultra vires, and buying up the ammo to keep it out of Americans’ hands? If gun buy-backs don’t work, how about ammo buy-outs? Does it even matter? Aren’t any of those possibilities rather unthinkable? Especially since the agency had a bad rap for failing to follow proper firearm procedures?

Isn’t the devil in the details? When it’s the government, it’s angels singing. When it’s the private sector, it’s devils cavorting.

Who Wants to Pay for Useless Liberal Arts Degrees in ‘Inclusive Interracial Gender-fluid Basket Weaving for SPED Students’ Seeking ‘Equity?’

THE ILLEGITIMATE C.C.P. puppet-in-chief occupying the White House, Joe Biden, is showing his inner-socialist again. Amidst ongoing demands by “Squad” members to “erase” or “cancel” student loan debt incurred by those seeking degrees beyond high school, Biden has foolishly capitulated like a doddering old man coddling his spoilt grandchildren. He hasn’t quite finished, yet.

What Biden did on Wednesday is, once again, place a moratorium on federal student loan collection, which has so far allowed about 36 million to delay payments totaling over $1.37 trillion, ostensibly because of ‘hardship’ due to the pandemic. It’s hard to figure much hardship when lower income people, which students typically are, received multiple “stimmie checks” for simply staying home.

The student loan payment moratorium was set to expire in January, but is now extended through May 1, 2022. Amounts will be subject to zero-percent interest. It’s hard to argue with that, but there are those who’d love to attach a ‘negative interest’ rate, i.e., pay people to take out ‘loans’ for free money that never have to be paid back but pay them a stipend. Obviously, these are not brainiacs, though I’d wager there are a few Econ majors who slipped in through the cracks.

The Squad-types have demanded it all magically disappear, and Biden has promised to study the issue. He has previously indicated he’s for forgiving $10,000 in student debt but wants Congress to draft something to that effect for him to sign.

In another Biden regime socialist stunt, the regime’s Treasury Department is backing a plan by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) that will use $1 billion in federal tax dollars to pay for delinquent mortgages in California. Californians apparently didn’t get enough stimmie checks. Some 20- to 40,000 Californians could benefit from Newsom’s lucrative haul of up to $80,000 (!) for all of these constituents. Bear in mind, the unemployed received ‘enhanced’ unemployment benefits paying them to stay home, stimmie checks, and a mortgage payment moratorium, plus other goodies.

It’s Biden’s offensive and cynical political abuse of American taxpayers to pay off constituencies of local Neo-socialist pols in Democrat districts prior to midterms.

Congress Goes Fishing

THE HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE has been pestering (and suing, read here) 45th President Donald Trump for his tax returns since 2019, and they’re getting closer to achieving that goal. That committee, chaired by Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), claims the tax returns will help the House to better understand the Presidential Audit Program, described in some detail here.

The Trump-appointed federal district court judge, Trevor McFadden, ruled in the committee’s favor on Tuesday, but cautioned them that: “Anyone can see that publishing confidential tax information of a political rival is the type of move that will return to the plague the inventor.” He added that the committee should be able to accomplish their mission without publishing the returns. “It might not be right or wise to publish the returns, but it is the Chairman’s right to do so,” he added, somewhat gratuitously. There is, he observed, a long string of cases where the Supreme Court gave “great deference to facially valid congressional inquiries.” His 45-page ruling can be read here. By Tuesday night, Trump’s attorneys said they will appeal. The ruling was stayed as a matter of course for 14 days to appeal.

The Presidential Audit Program involves mandatory auditing of all presidential tax returns since Richard Nixon. By examining all, it is claimed, the I.R.S. avoids the appearance of being politically motivated. Fair enough, but Congress shouldn’t be demanding to see Trump’s returns, and not, say, Clinton’s, Obama’s, or Biden’s, by using an obvious pretext of studying whether there are sufficient safeguards against political interference in the program. They are doing what they purport to want to prevent. There are less intrusive, controversial, and contentious ways to obtain enough information for legislative purposes.

Although the committee is clearly engaged in politics, it’s doubtful the judge was. He must, of course, follow the law, and deference is generally given other branches of government. Further, the press reported Judge McFadden had inquired as to whether Jan. 6th protesters were being treated fairly by prosecutors, suggesting they may not be. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office would have more credibility if it was even-handed in its concern about riots and mobs in the city,” he noted.

Indeed. It’s all politics…