When one reads anything these days one is confronted by headline grabbing numbers as to the “cost” of various pieces of legislation — right now this falls under the headings of “infrastructure” and “social infrastructure.”

There are two bills at play now in the US Congress.

 1. Bill No 1 — the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (10 Aug 2021), priced at $1,200,000,000,000.

 2. Bill No 2 — the “social infrastructure” bill, known as the Build Back Better Bill informally, is intended to be passed by reconciliation, a legislative trick that requires a simple majority in both the House and Senate. This bill is priced at $3,500,000,000,000.

These two bills are in addition to the American Recovery Plan Act already enacted by POTUS Biden and the US Congress (the Dems) for $1,900,000,000,000.

We are talking nominal spending of more than $6,600,000,000,000 — which I believe understates the total expenditures by more than $3-4,000,000,000,000 because of Congressional Black Magic Arithmetic.

That is a total of approximately $10,000,000,000,000 which will ultimately add about $7,000,000,000,000 to the National Debt.

Hello, America! Are y’all paying attention to this?

What do they really cost, Big Red Car?

Ahhh, dear reader, therein lies the Congressional Black Magic Arithmetic of the blog post headline.

When the Build Back Better Bill was initially priced, the Dems said it would cost $3,500,000,000,000 whilst critics and skeptics said, “It’s really going to cost $6-7,000,000,000,000.”

How can that be correct?

Here’s how:

 1. The BBBB contains a number of programs that are proposed and priced to continue for a set number of years.

The total cost is the cost/year X the total number of years. Makes sense, right? Simple math.

As an example, say a provision costs $100,000,000,000/year and is nominally intended — wink, wink — to last for 3 years.; logically, the total cost will be $300,000,000,000. Right?

 2. No, dear reader. Wrong.

That bill is intended to last forever plus a day, but the authors of the bill in order to mislead the public and to fit under fictitious spending caps, pretend it will die a natural death at the end of its faux three year term.

If we pass a bill for three years and it provides some liberal wet dream benefit, will it really end at the end of three years?

 3. No, of course not. In three years what happens?

We have a bloody presidential election and that liberal wet dream benefit will not die a natural death as promised, but it will be extended and likely increased.

So, the reason some folks are trying to get you to believe that the overall BBBB is “only” going to cost $3,500,000,000,000 is because they are pulling the wool over your eyes (or a mask because of the Pandemic and our proximity to Halloween) and telling you it will expire, but it won’t. It will be renewed.

The skeptics, like your Big Red Car, know the liberal wet dream benefit will last forever making the real cost more than 2-3 times the nominal cost.

That is Congressional Black Magic Arithmetic.

But, there’s more — Billy Mays pitch voice coming from Nancy Pelosi’s mouth

The funding for these bills is a specious combination of tax increases (this is very real) and such nonsense as gigantic savings from reducing the defense budget and squeezing all the corruption out of the process of tax collection.

It is like you, you voluptuous, buxom Size Ten beauty, buying a Size Two because you are going to lose 50 pounds in the next three months. It is not going to happen. You know that and I know that, but the Congress and the MSM pretend they don’t know that.

Bottom line it, Big Red Car

These bills are highly inflationary — giving the government gobs and gobs of money to  spend always is — and are based on Congressional Black Magic Arithmetic projections that everybody involved knows are lies, and founded upon payment methodologies (except for gigantic tax increases) that are totally unsound.

Congressional Black Magic Arithmetic. And, now, you know.

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car. Be well and have a great weekend. Call somebody who you love or respect before you read their obituary. You will be glad you did.