The Past is Prologue: A Tragic, Shakespearean Spending Story Authored by the Biden Administration
History destined to repeat itself is best defined by the Shakespearean euphemism, “what’s past is prologue.” And unfortunately, President Biden’s spending habits have become the embodiment of this cautionary tale. It’s as if, “rinse and repeat” appear at the end of every Biden budget and include more taxes, more spending, and more borrowing from our children to pay for it all.When asked recently if he would do anything differently while saddling our nation with five trillion dollars in debt over the past two years, President Biden quickly responded, “nothing.”
In February, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said their last ten-year debt projection in May of 2022 was off by three trillion dollars, adding a terrifying total of $20 trillion dollars to our national debt over the next decade.
Why? The CBO explained that expensive legislation, costly actions by President Biden, and increased interest payments (in response to inflation) is the driving force behind their massive, multi trillion-dollar upward revision.
Unbridled Democrat spending over the last two years is a combination of political opportunism from big-government liberals and a Democrat Party beholden to the Left and their radical re-imagination of our country.
Sadly, the very people they claim to protect—poor minority Americans—continue to suffer the most. Fifteen straight months of four-decade high regressive taxes on working families in the form of significantly higher costs of goods and a precipitous decline in real wages and income. This historic inflation has forced parents living paycheck-to-paycheck to prioritize between fixing the family car or filling their refrigerators with groceries.
But the short-term economic consequences of Democrat spending pale in comparison with the irreparable impact of a debt crisis. The CBO projects that our annual interest expense will triple from a half a trillion to one and a half trillion dollars. A recent Penn Wharton study says our debt will climb from a record 120% of our economy today to an mindboggling 220% in thirty years. Our path is unsustainable and, if we don’t change course soon, the results will be catastrophic.
Failing to offer Americans a responsible budget that reins in spending, stabilizes our debt, and puts us on a path to balance, is to prepare to fail the country.
The President frequently says, “don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” He’s right. A budget is more than just a set of numbers, it is an expression of values. It’s a vision. It is a roadmap for the future. Any budget that fails to prioritize reducing our runaway deficit spending and bringing down our debt-to-GDP is consigning America to mediocrity, at best and, potentially worse, allowing the Republic to fall into utter ruin.
