Ross: So much defunding!
Nov 19, 2021, 5:55 AM | Updated: 9:27 am
A copy of H.R.5376, the Build Back Better Act, is seen as the House Rules Committee begins work on President Joe Biden's sweeping domestic agenda, the Build Back Better Act, at the Capitol in Washington, on Nov. 3, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The Congressional Budget Office has released its analysis of the Biden Build Back Better Bill, and it’s not what the President had hoped. The bill does not pay for itself.
According to the CBO, paying for the programs in the bill would add another $367 billion to the national debt over 10 years.
Right now, the national debt is $28.9 trillion, which means that the $367 billion would be an increase of 1.2% over 10 years.
So, now that we know how much the bill would increase the debt, let’s find out why the President said it wouldn’t.
Apparently, he was a little too generous in estimating the extra tax revenue that the IRS would collect from his plan to beef up tax investigations. Biden expected to collect an extra $400 billion by stricter enforcement of the tax rules – but the accountants said no way is that going to happen. They figure he’ll get less than half that amount. There’s the discrepancy.
And I’ll admit, that bugs me. It bugs me regardless of what’s in the bill itself. Because this is not about raising taxes, it’s not about imposing a new wealth tax, it’s just making people pay what they already owe. It’s about going after lawbreakers.
And yet, the IRS audit force has been shrinking year after year. Even crazier is that with all the outrage over the calls to defund the police – I don’t hear any outrage over defunding the IRS! But that’s law enforcement too, right? And it pays off. Even the accountants at the CBO found that the $80 billion the president wants to put into the IRS would return $207 billion over 10 years. Again, not by raising taxes, but by making the cheaters pay.
So there’s the reason the bill won’t pay for itself: Because as a nation, we’re OK with tax cheats.
And the great irony in all this is that those dire warnings about the national debt are coming from some of the same people who’ve been gleefully defunding the agency that could help pay it off.
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