Mr. Jack Bernard recently took to task Rev. David Epps and, by extension, all conservatives for his criticisms of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and instead sang the praises of a bill whose very name is a lie intended to deceive the gullible into actually believing what our government says.
Mr. Bernard was downright giddy about the prospect of the IRS gaining 87,000 more agents to go after those evil rich people, especially the Christian ones. In this sense, Mr. Bernard represents well the current Democratic Party whose fundamental animus is based on envy, class hatred, and resentment.
Let’s start with the reality of this terrible bill. First, the ostensible purpose of this act was to reduce inflation. It’s right in the name, right? But, the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model concurred with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in finding that the “impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero.”
Moreover, the CBO predicts that taxes on households making less than $400,000 will rise by $20 billion over the next 10 years, once again showing that our president and his mendacious party lied when they promised, over and over again, to not raise taxes on that income group.
Oh, and those extra agents at the IRS will not just be going after Mr. Bernard’s despised fat cats, but instead the Joint Tax Foundation predicts that 78-90% of the additional funds raised will come from households making under $200,000 per year.
To recap: the Inflation Reduction Act will not reduce inflation, will increase taxes on the middle class, and squeeze them for more tax dollars by roughly doubling the size of the IRS.
Does Mr. Bernard still support the IRA now that these facts have come to light?
And, just to put a stake in the heart of any idea that the Democrats are serious about fighting inflation, we have the student loan forgiveness debacle, which is clearly unconstitutional, but more importantly, is likely to increase inflationary pressures, according to Larry Summers, former Obama Treasury Secretary.
Whatever extra funds are going to be raised from the IRA (roughly $400 billion), will now be frittered away on this exercise in egregious irresponsibility. Current estimates are that this program will cost $500 billion and may go up to $1 trillion, though the White House claims they’re not really sure what the final cost will be. Nice.
For those on the Left who seem to intentionally ignore the basic laws of economics, when you increase the money supply by forgiving debt, decrease economic output by raising taxes on businesses (which Mr. Bernard also praises the IRA for doing), and double-down on the same behavior that helped cause this inflation in the first place (i.e., blindly injecting trillions of dollars into the economy by printing money), you are going to get MORE inflation, not less. And the ones to suffer the most are the poor. Remember them?
I guess the primary benefit of the IRA for folks like Mr. Bernard is that it makes them feel good about themselves; it’s one giant exercise in virtue signaling. If millions of middle class folks have to pay more taxes, cope with an avalanche of IRS audits, and struggle to pay their bills, who cares? Especially when the more affluent can now more easily afford a Tesla!
Remind me again which party is looking out for the interests of the poor and middle class?
Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.
Folks – let’s take off the partisan hats here and just focus on some basic economics. Anytime you increase corporate tax rates – where do you think that money comes from? Taxes are an expense – and if you’re a corporation and your expenses go up, you have to adjust in order to maintain a profit (which is the purpose of a for-profit corporation – to make a profit). How do you adjust? You either increase revenues or cut costs. Those are the only 2 ways to make up for higher expenses. There’s no other way. How do you increase revenue? By selling at a higher price. Who pays the higher price? The consumer. So tell me how an increase in corporate taxes will not trickle down to the consumer paying more? That’s the way business works. The other way – you can cut costs. How do you cut costs? You make a cheaper product (which is detrimental in most cases) or you cut fixed costs – overhead, labor, etc. If you cut labor, who suffers? The labor force.
When the government takes money that’s being used elsewhere on a company’s balance sheet – the money to replace it has to come from somewhere. If you cannot understand this simple concept, then you either have never had to run a business or make a profit, or you’re just economically illiterate. More government taxation leads to a larger bloated government – which means more money in the govt’s hands and less in all of ours. You might be celebrating it now – your party is in power and holds all the keys to the House, Senate, and White House. What happens when Republicans (who someday will) hold all those keys? You all seem to think Conservatives are the worst people alive – what makes you think they won’t come for you when you’re in the minority? Why do you want a central government with unlimited power over your lives?
Okay, I’ll try to keep it in simple terms. The corporate tax rate in the U.S. fell from a high of 53% in 1942 over the years to a maximum of 38% in 1993. It remained at 38% (although the big boys were reduced to 35%) … until 2018 when a flat tax rate of 21% began. This was a big loss in revenue especially for anyone carrying large debt (think the US) while expecting other incomes to eventually roll in due to these crazy tax cuts. It wasn’t happening. So a change off of a four-year flat rate is not really an increase when you consider working and living with higher tax rates for almost a century.
A real-world example here? You’re running a household (like everyone) and you’re seriously in debt with not much of a change in revenue coming in. So you wisely add revenue (get a new or add another job) and cut some costs on unnecessary splurges (like always eating out) because you need to pay down that mounting debt that’s staring you in the face. Nobody said things would be easy and this is the way you do things – if you ever want to really open up a business and see true prosperity and growth for yourself (meaning the US here). Trickle-down economic theory is basically old, tired and weak and it means that the middle class will only get theirs eventually when things have been satisfactorily satisfied but never upfront to those that need it the most.
Your real-world example works in the private sector….in the government sector? Not so much. Gov’t cannot control its spending….if they cut their budgets 10% across the board – then maybe your method would work.
The government primarily spends on healthcare, retirement, and defense programs. So, if a government as you say can’t control its spending (Medicare, Social Security, military, etc.) then the alternative is to raise revenues to fund these programs. It is why a corporate flat tax rate of 21% launched in 2018 jeopardized these areas of health, safety and security in that time period (’18-20) as witnessed with the revenue streams dropping to a concerning 16% of GDP. One political party wanted to continue on with this charade of kicking the can down the road (including mounting debt) while the other is attempting to address it (above).
Mr Hoffman, the prophet of gloom and doom, does it again. No doubt he has drank a double portion of the extreme right Kool Aid. Maybe he ought to write for OAN or Newsmax, or for any of the other fountains of nonsense diatribe.
I think you’ve pretty much confirmed that DragNet = Stranger Than Fiction. Same person. We get it. Trying to show support for your own posts. Pretty weak if you ask me.
Why do you love the idea of such a strong, powerful, central government? Have you never worked for yourself and seen the fruits of your own labor? Are you a government or union employee who’s just filled with envy over the success that others who’ve taken risks and invested their time, resources, and energy into building a business on their own? Tell me one thing the government does well – outside of fighting wars (questionable now with Milley in charge) and building & maintaining infrastructure? Why do you want to reward underperforming, unaccountable bureaucrats?
HI Wing – I’m not dragnet, but I do appreciate his/her snarky and concise posts.
Also, Trey ignores the most important aspects of the IRA bill, i.e., addressing climate change, negotiating Medicare drug prices, shoring up ACA shortfalls, and then misrepresent the tax and IRS provisions. You seem to sing the same song.
Let me restate your position without doublespeak. People who make over $400,000 per year should be given a pass on paying their lawful taxes since they mainly own businesses or, like the 45th president, are “too smart to pay taxes.” Corporations should not have to pay even an alternative minimum tax if they can find ways to shield their income from the IRS. The IRS should never be given the workforce even to check behind these wealthy individuals or corporations because, you know, they are above the law. Also, if they are caught cheating or have to pay an ATM, they will merely pass it down to the middle class consumer, so it is much better to let them get away scot free without even making a pretense of checking them.
I think that covers your position thoroughly, but his time in plain English.
100% incorrect on your assumptions of me. I believe in taxes just not in a bloated government. Actually I’m one of those weird flat taxers who thinks a consumption tax is the way to go. The more stuff you buy, the more tax you pay. Obviously the more income one makes the more funds they have so rich pay more. And I believe in a flat pre-bate for all Americans to help subsidize the poorer who don’t make as much of an income. Basically Boortz’s plan from 10+ years ago. As far as Trump not paying taxes – has anyone ever convicted him of a tax-related crime? He didn’t make the tax laws, he’s just using them to his advantage. Don’t hate the player, hate the game and the bureaucrats who made the rules.
Flat tax on consumption would also Mean that noncitizens and those that are paid cash under the table contribute. The problem is that many of those government employees for the IRS would suddenly have to find a new job.
I like it too.
Mr. Hoffman, the eternal victim, pens yet another jeremiad of doom and gloom having swallowed every canard of the far right and regurgitating it without a second’s reflection. It must be horrifying to live in perpetual fear of victimization; never mind that the foreboding prophecies never materialize.
Commenter VisionaryJax thoroughly debunked the fearmongering in this ridiculous falsehood-laden letter. But I would like to add that Trey’s claim that “78-90% of the additional funds raised will come from households making under $200,000 per year” is also not true and stems from a dubious Joint Committee on Taxation analysis of the bill which claims that federal taxes for people making less than $200,000 would rise by $16.6 billion in 2023, and that those taxpayers would be shouldering just over 42% of the tax increases in the bill that year. This misleading claim is made by estimating the effect on individuals of collecting the minimum corporate tax, as in corporations passing along some of the burden of higher taxes in the form of lower wages and lower stock values, affecting shareholders.
The fact is people making less than 400K will not be affected negatively by this bill and its high time corporations started paying their fair share. They continue to dole out record compensation packages to CEO’s and executives while working people are struggling to get by.
Trey continues to disappoint me by ignoring the student loan forgiveness in his rants! This is the second letter where he fails to excoriate it and declare that forgiving loans is downright anti-American and the next step toward communism.
But as he refuses to take THAT bait, I will here list a few points about the IRA about which he is so distressed, just on the off chance that ANYONE is taking Trey’s word for what’s in the “bill whose very name is a lie.”
• There’s a 15% minimum corporate tax rate on businesses making over $1 billion a year. Surprisingly (if you are Trey Hoffman), this will NOT affect any individual or household tax rates!
• Prescription drug prices are capped for people on Medicare and Medicaid! This is a big one: by 2025 no one in these programs will pay more than $2K in a year out of pocket for the prescriptions they need.
• Yes, there will be additional IRS agents, but a former IRS chairman points out that with the retiring of agents, it won’t be like 80K “new” agents unleashed on middle America; it will be more like adding back the 30,000 agents cut since 2010 (which losses left an estimated $10 billion+ on the table because the agency couldn’t investigate all the suspected tax dodges as they were so understaffed). The former chairman also said unless you’re making $400,000 or more per year, you will probably not hear any more from the IRS than you already do, which for most middle Americans, is never. They’re not looking to bust hardworking middle-class people who can’t fight back, but actual tax cheats … like, say, a self-proclaimed multi-millionaire who somehow pays only $750 in personal income tax …
• It extends Affordable Care Act subsidies for insurance premiums for the most vulnerable. About 3 million Americans would lose their healthcare without these subsidies, so this is a much-needed development.
• It’s the biggest investment in combating climate change and securing energy our nation has ever made, which has to be important, even to Trey Hoffman!
There’s other stuff as well, but none of it as harrowing as what Trey is freaking out about. And, while even its proponents admit it probably will not reduce inflation this year, it’s hoped that by investing in the future and reducing the deficit and collecting unpaid taxes, it will help stop inflation in the years to come. You have to start somewhere.
And as for Trey’s lament that only the GOP cares about the poor … it’s hard to believe he can even say this with a straight face! Starting with Reagan’s scorched-earth policy in modern times the GOP has systematically slashed and burned as many programs for folks in need as it possibly could over the past 30 years. Just add another layer to the many lies Trey tells himself, and us, every week or so.
Now, Trey, don’t leave me hanging! Use next week’s diatribe to sock it to use about loan forgiveness! Your fans are waiting.
Well done to the commenters in checking Trey Hoffmans’s claims. And especially to VJax’s well researched and nicely presented facts.
Personally, by the time I reached Trey’s final sentence–“Remind me again which party is looking out for the interests of the poor and middle class?”–I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So I poured a Scotch instead.
A double.
Suz, yep sometimes a “double” is indeed in order. So with that, here’s a double of quotable lines from that big ol’ cartoon Rooster …
“Stop, I say stop it boy, you’re doin’ alot of choppin’ – but no chips are flyin’!”
Or,
“That dog’s like taxes – he just don’t know when to stop.”
Mr. F Leghorn
Dear Doon–Here’s cheer to you and Foghorn!