The Office of Management and Budget author’s assessment of” a robust economic recovery” and job growth is addressed in this comment.
The Biden administration’s rosy depiction of the U. S. economy is not going to fool the public, Rep. Tom McClintock ( R- Calif. ) told the White House’s budget director on March 21.
Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young testified during a House Budget Committee receiving regarding President Joe Biden’s proposed funds for the fiscal year 2025.
In her opening speech, Ms. Young touted the government’s monitoring of” a strong financial recovery”, including the design of 15 million jobs and an unemployment rate that has remained below 4 percentage for two years.
However, Mr. McClintock disagreed with that cheerful view of the situation.
” Madam chairman, as I listen to you and my Democratic colleagues, I really wonder if you’re actually going to learn that you cannot roll the economy”, he said. ” Nobody knows, in their own life, how they’re doing. And if you try to flip them, you merely come off as foolish and out of touch.
The president had purposefully allowed illegal immigrants into the country, prompting the California lawmaker to point out that many of the positions being created were part-time opportunities.
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” By flooding the market with cheap improper work, you’re killing the income of American working people”, he said.
The’ Misery’ of Socialism
This month, the president made the budget for the fiscal year 2025 public. His strategy calls for significant tax increases and spending of$ 7.3 trillion for businesses and those with incomes greater than$ 100 million.
Highlighting the corporate tax increase, Mr. McClintock said the change from 21 to 28 percent would end up harming middle- income employees and consumers.
He claimed that there are only three ways to pay corporate taxes. ” It’s paid by employees through lower wages, it’s paid by consumers through higher prices, and it’s paid by investors through lower earnings—that’s your 401K. I do n’t know of any other way a corporate tax can be paid, do you”?
Ms. Young suggested that businesses stop using stock buyback programs to pay the tax.
” But that’s not true”, Mr. McClintock said. ” That comes directly from their earnings, which are the people’s retirement funds, the earnings that they use to pay their employees, the earnings that they use to keep prices low in a competitive market, and the earnings that they give to investors.”
The administration’s decision to cancel billions of student loan debt at the expense of American taxpayers was another policy that the congressman criticized.
” You’ve now required taxpayers to pay off$ 132 billion in loans from college students. How much more are you proposing”? he asked.
The president has said without apology that we must do everything we can to lessen the strain student loans have placed on students, Ms. Young responded.
” But I think he should be very apologetic in this respect”, Mr. McClintock shot back, questioning how it could be fair to expect a truck driver to pay off a college graduate’s loans.
The director countered that truck drivers who had student loans also had a chance of getting a job through the program.
However, Mr. McClintock argued that when the government takes money from consumers, it reduces both their ability to provide for their families and their motivation to produce goods and services for others. ” That’s why socialism produces misery and poverty wherever it’s imposed on society”, he said.
Economic Forecast
The Congressional Budget Office ( CBO )’s nonpartisan annual long-term budget and economic outlook is the subject of the hearing, which comes one day after it is released.
Over the 30- year span, budget deficits are expected to average 6.7 percent of GDP—3 percent more than they averaged over the last 50 years. In 2054, the total deficit is projected to be 8.5 percent.
By 2029, the debt will be equivalent to 107 percent of GDP, surpassing its historic post-World War II peak and rising from there, according to near-term projections.
The CBO attributed the change to its prediction that “potential labor force growth will be stronger over the next ten years, largely fueled by increased net immigration and faster capital accumulation over the next 30 years.”
The agency also cited last year’s debt limit deal, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, as another reason for the improved projection. In exchange for discretionary spending caps over the next two years, the law established a two-year statutory debt cap through January 2025.
Emel Akan, Jackson Richman, Andrew Thornebrooke, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
