Classic Govt Waste & Joe’s Job Growth

Are Joe’s beloved job growth numbers disingenuously misleading, i.e., driven by printing paper money & Covid scamming via employee retention tax credits? If so, is there any end in sight to the sleight of hand? Short answer: No.

Two WSJ op ed’s suggest its editors are not fooled by the big government smoke & mirrors, starting with Allysia Finely’s “The Welfare-Industrial Complex is Booming.” According to the columnist, “What’s driving American job growth,” at least, in the progressive states, is “government, social assistance & health care” tied to “migrants pouring into big cities” as well as “hundreds of thousands of drug-addled & mentally ill homeless living on the streets … [who] need tending to.” In fact, she says, such spending accounts for 56% of the 2.8 million net new jobs created over the past year & for nearly all again in blue states such as New York & Illinois.” In short, argues Finley, “America’s welfare state has thus become a proverbial Big Dig, and it keeps getting bigger.”

Yet, the news gets worse, if you believe the paper’s editorial board in its unrelated “The Employee Retention Tax Credit Is the Biggest Covid Scam.” That’s because, duh, “The pandemic tax break was billed as costing [American taxpayers] $55 billion” but “The bill so far [is] $230 billion and rising.” In short, conclude the editors, the Covid credit “is turning into a classic case of government waste & fraud.” That’s because “the taxpayer bill will keep growing since employers [were given] until April 2025 to claim the credit on wages paid through 2021” and of course “employers are retroactively cashing in on the pandemic subsidy [that keeps on giving] with the help of firms that take a 20% cut of payments.” Whatever. Put another way, isn’t it also a “classic case” of government incompetence?

Davd Soul