The inevitable Joe Biden recession, Part II

In this post, I wrote "When he took office, Joe Biden inherited a strongly growing economy, a secure border, 3 COVID-19 vaccines and inflation that sat at ~2%. We'd just achieved energy independence and we were exporting oil and natural gas for the first time in our history. Just 9 months later, the Tex-Mex border is functionally open. Inflation is eating wage gains and gas prices just hit a 7-year high.

In this article, Bloomberg reports "Just a few months ago, the U.S. economy looked like it was roaring back from the pandemic slump. Now the recovery is starting to look more like a grind. ... The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s real-time estimate of economic activity now predicts growth of 1.2% in the quarter that ended in September. Two months ago it was forecasting 6%."

This is a policy-induced recession. Specifically, the policies are owned by Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi. Their free money is costing families dearly in high inflation and reduced purchasing ability. That's before the effects of the Reconciliation Bill. The Republican Study Committee put together a list titled "42 Reconciliation Policies to Wreck America", which highlights some of the policies in the bill. Here are just a couple of items from the list:

• Perpetuates labor shortage: Continues welfare benefits without work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents at a time where there are 10.1 million job openings—more openings than there are people looking for work.
• Forces faith-based child care providers out: The bill blocks the ability of many faith-based providers from participating in the childcare system and will lead to many of their closures (page 280).
• Hurts small and in-home daycares: Requires pre-K staff to have a college degree. (page 303)

Requiring a college degree for pre-K staff will create a shortage for in-home daycare operators. Put this in the category of starting with a shortage, then turning it into a severe shortage. How does that represent progress?

Tax hikes for the middle class, tax cuts for the rich:

• Drives up costs on Americans’ utility bills: Issues a punitive methane tax (page 367) and includes a tax on natural gas up to $1,500 per ton that could cost the American economy up to $9.1 billion and cost 90,000 Americans their jobs (page 368).
• Tax benefits for the top 1%: The bill will possibly lift the SALT deduction cap meaning many of the top 1% wealthiest Americans would pay less in taxes.
• Tax credit for wealthy donors who give to woke universities: The bill creates a new tax credit program that gives tax credits worth 40% of cash contribution that are made to university research programs (page 2094).

Jim Banks summarizes the Democrats' Build Back Better Bill in this interview:

This bill should die. As Larry Kudlow frequently repeats, "Save America. Kill the bill." Joe Biden's and Bernie Sanders' policies have inflicted enough pain on us already. Enacting the Build Back Better Bill would make things infinitely worse, starting with inflaion, a lengthy recession and shortages.