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| Sviatlana Lazarenka/Getty Images |
With all the trillion-dollar numbers spinning about government policy these days, it’s easy to lose perspective on the scale of recent federal spending. We decided to put the past year’s policy into perspective by calculating the future tax hike that would be necessary to pay the bills rung up since January, 2020. What the average American owes for the stimulus will shock you.
The exercise is not farfetched. Rumors spread throughout Washington last week that the Biden administration is considering tax hikes to pay for COVID-19 relief enacted this year and last. To some extent, it is amazing that the U.S. experienced a 32 percent drop in GDP in the second quarter of last year and did not dive into a depression, and some credit is surely due to those who crafted stimulus bills. On the other hand, the five bills passed to provide relief, once one subtracts out loans that will be repaid, together added $5.3 trillion to the debt that you, dear reader, will have to pay back someday. Think of COVID-19 relief as a new car payment, of course without any delivery of four wheels, an engine, or a chassis. When you see the numbers, you will realize that the comparison is not an exaggeration.
This is not an academic exercise. The thing about debt is that it eventually has to be paid. There is no such thing, annoying economists like us tend to remind too often, as a free lunch. Even if the debt is rolled over ad infinitum, the lunch is not free because taxpayers have to pay higher interest each year to cover the additional borrowing, which crowds out other government services. Milton Friedman famously argued against aggressive stimulus because, he said, taxpayers would look ahead to their future tax hikes and save today to prepare themselves for the worst. Whatever the government tries to do will be futile. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Kevin Lamarque/Reuters |
Coronavirus lockdowns were only supposed to last for a couple of weeks, supposedly to make sure we could build up our hospital capacity. Those of us who were skeptical about claims like this were derided as either anti-science, callous about human life, or conspiracy theorists. Yet today is the 365th day since the beginning of the “two weeks to slow the spread” campaign, and our economy remains hamstrung and kids are still locked out of their classrooms. By now, it should be obvious that this isn’t about science and safety, but compliance and control, and it won’t stop unless we the people make it stop.
On March 16, 2020, former president Donald Trump announced the beginning of a few-week period of restrictions intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus. However, history has shown us what happens when we give the government an inch of extra power. Despite the stated purpose of these restrictions, various governments — federal, state, and local — used this opportunity to eviscerate livelihoods and to push a political agenda.
This is why on March 20, 2020, I wrote that Americans needed a “date certain” for returning to their normal lives while taking commonsense public-health measures (hand-washing, sanitizing, etc.) to protect our seniors and those who are immunocompromised. Instead, we went from the greatest economy in American history to an unemployment rate of 14.8 percent, the highest since 1948. Now, Americans are still grappling with the damage caused not only by the virus itself, but rather by our disproportionate and overblown response to it.
When the coronavirus was declared a national emergency, businesses across America were forced to shutter their doors, with nearly 170,000 business closures by September, 98,000 of which were permanent. Surviving businesses have been forced by politicians and bureaucrats to jump through hoops — e.g., by creating restaurants out of sidewalks and streets, and generally dealing with upended business models — just to stay afloat. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to related stories and resources:
COVID-19 vaccine near me: Digital tools to help you find vaccination locations
No stimulus check yet? Use IRS 'Get My Payment' tool to find the status of new COVID relief payments
USA TODAY: Coronavirus Updates
WSJ: Coronavirus Live Updates
YAHOO NEWS: Coronavirus Live Updates
NEW YORK POST: Coronavirus The Latest
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