WSJ: Biden’s “Phony” Budget Accounting Fools No One

The WSJ’s “A Jerry-Rigged Budget Framework” again warns Biden’s latest budget bill estimate of $1.75T is "phony [ala Chicago's anti-crime program] but the social & fiscal damage are real.” Capone's accountant was also good at burying his Outfit's real tax, er, income & spending sprees ...

According to the editors, the supposedly pared Biden spending spree is still “an enormous expansion of government with quarter-baked entitlement programs that will retard work & [its] $1,85T in tax increases will distort & limit investment. The $1.75T cost that Democrats have assigned their bill is an illusion. They use phony accounting to finance a few years of new spending with 10 years of tax increases.”

Sounds like the math one of my former clients tried to pull off before going bankrupt. The devil is in the details, which the WSJ does a fine job enumerating. As the editors concluded: “The best we can say about this exercise is that it could have been worse. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema & Joe Manchin managed to purge drug price controls, some tax-rate increases & a renewable energy enforcement measure. Those excisions have progressives upset & there’s still a chance all of this collapses when the [real] fine print arrives [and is properly vetted]. It would be far better for the country if it does.”

Davd Soul