1) Washington Spending Binge Since COVID Now $7.5 Trillion
This table from ace economist Joel Griffith at the Heritage Foundation makes us think of a snake trying to swallow a bowling ball.
Yes, Biden has spent the bulk of this, but Republicans have supported a lot of this spending too. This doesn’t include the foreign aid package for Israel and Ukraine (again) that could add close to another $100 billion to the stack.
We’ve mentioned many examples in recent Hotlines about the money pouring OUT of ESG investments, because so much money is being lost on this green and social justice crusade. Now we have more recent evidence of what we call “peak wokeness” from the Wall Street Journal.
Here's the cheerful headline and chart:
WSJ reports:
The about-face comes after tightened regulatory oversight, higher interest rates that have slammed clean-energy stocks and a backlash that has made environmental, social and corporate-governance investing a political target...
The third quarter was the first time more sustainable funds liquidated or removed ESG criteria from their investment practices than were added, according to Morningstar.
4) Argentina's President-Elect Javier Milei on Taxes
Here’s a no tax pledge we like a lot more than “read my lips.” Yesterday we linked to a great video of our new hero, President-elect Javier Milei, talking about all the government agencies he wanted to close to cut spending. He’s even more committed to his no tax agenda! He’s promising to cut off his arm if taxes are raised!
Milei has also signed the famous Grover Norquist “no tax” pledge.
5) Climate Fanatics Propose: 60% Global Tax on the Richest 1%
Just as we’ve always suspected: Climate change is simply a disguised plan to massively redistribute income.
Now the climate change lobby is finally admitting it.
The anti-growth “charity” Oxfam (which gets U.S. taxpayer money as an NGO) is releasing a report ahead of the UN Climate summit in Dubai this month demanding wealthy people in the West be punished.
According to Oxfam, the wealthiest 10% of people in the world are responsible for 50% of global carbon emissions, and the emissions of the top 1% cancel out the work of nearly 1 million wind turbines each year.
“The super-rich are plundering and polluting the planet to the point of destruction,” claims its interim executive director, Amitabh Behar. He calls for world leaders to “end the era of extreme wealth.” They want a 60% tax on the richest one percent.
That would include “a 60 percent tax on the incomes of the richest 1 percent.”
Are these people mental midgets? We will say it for the hundredth time: using energy causes people to get rich. Not using energy makes the country poor. The left’s agenda of rationing energy hurts poor people the most.
