Can't Congress Pay For ANYTHING?

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Unleash Prosperity Hotline
Issue #1,002
04/22/2024
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1) Can’t Congress Pay For ANYTHING?
We've said for months that reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of another $95,000,000,000 foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. That includes another $61 billion ($24 billion in direct bilateral aid) for Ukraine on top of the nearly $75 billion we’ve already spent.

Not One Penny of This Is Paid For
What we've said from the start of this debate is any foreign aid should be provided in the form of a loan to the recipient country, not a handout. Instead, the bill is packed with bogus "forgivable" loans that will never be repaid.

We've also insisted that any additional spending should be paid for not by adding to the $34 trillion national debt, but cutting an equal amount from other programs in our near $7 trillion budget.

This would have merely required shaving 5.5 percent off of this year's discretionary spending or 0.5 cents of every dollar spent on discretionary programs over the next ten years. Why is this so hard? Remember, we are spending $1 trillion more a year now than before the lockdowns. We are giving billions more to a Biden administration that has turned the Pentagon into a massive green energy program.

This aid package is further evidence that in this Congress (and both parties are guilty) the idea of "pay as you go" budgeting has been tossed out the window.

Sad to say, but now both parties are adhering to the sophistry of “modern monetary theory.”

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2) Small Businesses Getting Crushed By Bidenomics
If the economy is so good, then why do small business leaders feel so bad?

The latest NFIB "Small Business Optimism Index" could hardly be more depressing. Small business confidence reached its lowest point in 12 years and is lower today than it was during the Covid lockdowns when most businesses were shuttered. The index has fallen for most of the Biden presidency.

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The confidence numbers have gotten worse every year Biden has been in office:

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Why are small businessmen and women feeling so dreary?

Here's a good analysis from former Trump Treasury assistant secretary and former World Bank President, David Malpass (and the new head of our CTUP economic advisory caucus):

"Smaller businesses are being crowded out by complex regulations and direct competition from the $35 trillion national debt. Treasury borrowed $23 trillion in 2023 alone, much of it in the expensive short maturities needed by smaller businesses for working capital. Federal Reserve data through March 27 showed that commercial and industrial loans, a key resource for small business dynamism, fell over 5% in the last year in nominal terms, down over 8% after adjusting for inflation."

Our friend Alfredo Ortiz, who runs the Job Creators Network, tells us that "our members feel as though Biden has declared war on small businesses."

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3) No Wonder Biden Wants To Forgive College Loans
More evidence that the Republican Party has become the party of the working class and the Democrats now represent the cultural elite. Dems now have an all-time high 18-point lead over Republicans among white voters with a college degree, while Republicans have a 27-point lead among whites who did not attend college.

Liberals have spent more than $150 billion bailing out the student loans of more affluent and over-educated people – and if the latest rules stand up in court, the tab will be more than half a trillion dollars. This is a gigantic pay-off. It used to be called graft.

What’s scary about this chart on the “diploma divide”, is that what it tells us is that if every young person in America went on to college, we’d be a socialist country.

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4) Chicago Teachers Union Wants 9% Floor on Annual Pay Hikes
Even the most leftwing unions agree with us that inflation isn’t headed to 2%.

Bidenflation is now stubbornly stuck at a monthly rate of more than 4% a year, down from the 9.1% recorded in July 2022.

But the Chicago Teachers Union leaders and its 30,000 members are demanding an annual COLA of 9% or equal to the consumer price index, whichever is HIGHER. What other employees in America are likely to get such a sweetheart deal?

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That’s not all. CTU President Stacy Davis Gates is promising to expand contract negotiations “beyond economic proposals.” Among her demands are funding for “restorative justice” programming. Gates was the instigator behind last year’s shutdown of an Illinois school choice program, putting the futures of 10,000 low-income students at risk while she sent her own son to a private school.

Last year, we warned after Brandon Johnson narrowly won the runoff to become Chicago’s Mayor it spelled disaster for the Windy City. Johnson’s job while he was running for mayor was as an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union. He will soon be appointing a majority of the city’s school board.

The fox is guarding the budget henhouse in Chicago. No one is representing the taxpayers. All we can say is: well these fools voted for him.

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5) Conservatives Win Idaho Budget Showdown
Our friends at the Idaho Freedom Caucus won a momentous budget battle in Boise in recent weeks – slashing a bloated budget and eliminating pork projects.

A group of our CTUP members, including former CTUP board member Frayda Levy put this super-cool video using AI explaining how a group of 8 to 10 rabble-rousers defeated the establishment Republicans. If you have five minutes to watch this video of the Week, it explains how this victory could and should be reprised in many other states.

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6) An Earth Day Note From a High-Schooler Who Reads the Hotline

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