The Black Magic Of Congressional Arithmetic
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?
“Who are you going to believe? Me, your Truthful Aunt Nancy, or that rusty bag of bolts, Big Red Car? I’m going to squeeze his headlights but good. Look into my eyes.”