$3 Trillion Infrastructure Grab Bag Would Strangle Economy With Taxes, Debt

BY DAVID DITCH

SEE: https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/03/25/3t-infrastructure-grab-bag-would-strangle-economy-americans-with-debt-taxes

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

The media were flooded Monday with news that the Biden administration is working on a colossal new $3 trillion to $4 trillion spending plan.

While full details are not available yet, the plan appears to be another left-wing grab bag of big-government proposals. Rather than stimulating the economy, it would stimulate bigger government while funneling unprecedented amounts of power and money through the hands of politicians in Washington.

All this comes on the heels of President Joe Biden signing into law on March 11 a badly flawed $1.9 trillion legislative package that was originally marketed as a COVID-19 response, but which was more focused on left-wing pet causes, such as bailouts for union pension plans and unnecessary handouts for state governments.

Just a day later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., released a statement calling for bipartisan work on legislation that would focus on infrastructure. While there were good reasons to question how beneficial or “bipartisan” such legislation would be, there was at least a chance of finding some across-the-aisle support.

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But the potential for bipartisanship was quickly scuttled by news of the latest multitrillion-dollar plan.

It would be bad enough if the latest plan was just a big-spending infrastructure package. However, it appears that only a fraction of the new spending would go toward an already too-expansive definition of infrastructure.

Instead, most of the new spending and tax subsidies would go toward expanding the welfare state, including “free” tuition for community colleges, “free” child care, and other handouts that lack right-of-center support.

This would likely be the largest expansion of the federal government since the “Great Society” of the 1960s, even eclipsing Obamacare in scope.

Reports indicate that Democrats might attempt to split the plan into two bills—one focused on social spending that passes narrowly along party lines, the other focused on actual infrastructure aimed at winning bipartisan support.

However, it’s clear that the $3 trillion-plus total price tag is already souring prospects for bipartisan infrastructure legislation.

House Republicans boycotted the annual Ways and Means Committee “Member’s Day” hearing on Tuesday in the wake of news reports on the plan, since they indicated that Democrats have already made up their minds to pursue as much spending as possible through the legislative procedure known as reconciliation.

Coincidentally, two respected nonpartisan groups released reports this week that show why Biden and Pelosi should pause their aggressive agenda.

First, the Congressional Budget Office published a paper demonstrating what would happen if a sustained increase in federal spending were coupled with big tax increases to pay for the spending.

While the analysis points to different long-term effects from different types of taxes, any tax-and-spend approach would lead to reductions in economic growth and personal income that are larger than the size of the tax hikes.

For example, the analysis found that having 10% more federal government would mean a 12% to 19% reduction in personal consumption.

And that’s a conservative estimate. Most estimates show tax hikes shrink the economy by two to three times more than the revenues they raise.  

That doesn’t mean Congress could escape the consequences of a continued spending spree by simply adding to the national debt. The CBO paper cautions that that would not only impose significant costs and divert resources away from the private sector, but it also would be unsustainable and increase the risk of a devastating financial crisis.

Along the same lines, the Government Accountability Office released a sobering report on the nation’s poor financial health.

Now that Congress has passed a combined total of $6 trillion in legislation in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic (more than $48,000 per household), it must quickly address the unsustainable growth of major benefit programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Even before the pandemic struck, these programs were on a path to bankruptcy. Addressing these shortfalls in a way that is fair to both current retirees and future generations who will have to foot the bill is one of the greatest policy challenges facing the nation.

Unfortunately, Washington is exacerbating the problem by adding excessively to the national debt and potentially stunting economic growth with higher taxes.

While the Biden administration has repeatedly claimed that it will only seek to raise taxes on the wealthy, a government of the size that it’s seeking would require amounts of money that can only be generated through steep across-the-board tax increases on middle-class Americans.

Regardless of whether those taxes are levied tomorrow or in a few years, they would be an inevitable part of expanding the size and scope of the federal government.

Rather than continuing down the path of centralized power and socialism, lawmakers should recognize the costs associated with endless federal spending and chart a course toward financial responsibility and prosperity.

If they don’t, it will be the public’s duty to hold them accountable.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we will consider publishing your remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. 

Twitter: Calling Boulder jihadi Ahmad Al Issa a ‘white Christian terrorist’ doesn’t violate misinformation policies

BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/03/twitter-calling-boulder;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Twitter has sunk to yet another new low. Twitter has become a perpetrator of misinformation and a key propaganda outlet for the red-green axis, but targets and censors those who expose the global jihad, as well as the advance of Marxism in the West. On Twitter, falsely smearing Christians is acceptable, but telling the truth about jihadists is not.

Some revealing items regarding Twitter and its agenda:

Robert Spencer has been on top of the news, covering Ahmad Al Aliwi Al Issa (that’s how he spells his name himself, not “Alissa”), who is a Muslim migrant with Islamic State sympathies, despite the thumbs-up from Twitter to characterize him as a “white Christian terrorist.” Read HERE.

“Twitter Says Calling Boulder Shooter a ‘White Christian Terrorist’ Is OK,” by Daniel Villarreal, Newsweek, March 23, 2021:

A tweet describing Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, the suspected gunman in Monday’s Colorado supermarket shooting, as a “white Christian terrorist” does not violate the social network’s misinformation policies, Twitter told Newsweek.

Many Twitter users assumed the shooter was white before his name was released by police in Boulder, Colorado. Several pointed to the massacre as another example of racial injustice and white supremacy in the United States, coming a few days after a white man killed six Asian women in an Atlanta shooting spree.

Those tweets backfired when police named Alissa, whose family immigrated from Syria and whose now-deleted Facebook pages suggested he was a Muslim. Many conservatives accused the left-wing Twitter users of race-baiting.

Some users have deleted their tweets calling him white. Others have defended their claims, saying they were based on Alissa’s skin color rather than his ethnicity.

Newsweek put the misleading posts to Twitter. The social network has been accused of left-wing bias and anti-Christian prejudice in the way it polices speech on its platform.

In January, for example, Twitter locked the account of The Catholic Review, apparently for tweeting an article that described assistant Health and Human Services Secretary Rachel Levine as “a biological man identifying as a transgender woman.”

A Twitter spokeswoman said the “white Christian terrorist” tweet and other false posts did not violate its rules….

Colorado Governor: ‘There’s no reason to suspect any connection to terrorism’ in Boulder massacre

BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/03/colorado-governor-theres-no-reason-to-suspect-any-connection-to-terrorism-in-boulder-massacre;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Jared Polis is neither judge nor jury. He has no authority to make these claims. He is not a police or FBI investigator, and their investigations cannot possibly be complete yet. His statements amount to abuse of his office, and reveal his own disrespect for due process, his proclivity for appeasement as opposed to leadership, and his servitude to political correctness.

Polis’ mentality is to accept uncritically what the family of mass shooter, Ahmad al Aliwi Al Issa (that’s how he spells his name himself, not “Alissa”), says. While it is possible that Al Issa is suffering from mental illness, that in itself does not prove that his attack was not motivated by Islam’s teachings on jihad. Although the investigation has a long way to go, Alissa has already been reported to have Islamic State sympathies.

Journalist Jack Posobiec, who cited an unidentified White House official, reported that Joe Biden “has been briefed the Colorado shooter had ISIS sympathies.”

In a subsequent tweet, Posobiec said, “It is beginning to look like the Boulder shooting was a jihadist terror attack.”

Posobiec reported on Twitter that government intelligence suggested Al-Alissa initially planned to execute his shooting spree at a Trump rally in Colorado Springs in February of last year, but postponed the rampage until the next one scheduled for March in Denver which was ultimately canceled over the coronavirus pandemic.

A White House official also told Posobiec that Alissa planned to travel to Syria last summer, but covid lockdowns interfered with the trip.

Read more coverage about Ahmad al Aliwi Al Issa HERE.

“Colorado Governor: ‘No Reason’ to Suspect Any Ties to Terrorism in Boulder Mass Shooting,” by Jack Phillips, Epoch Times, March 24, 2021:

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said he is ruling out claims that the Boulder mass shooting suspect had any ties to terrorist groups.

“From a preliminary perspective, there’s been comments from the brother, the family, that there were concerns about this individual’s mental health,” Polis said in a televised interview on Wednesday, adding that an investigation is ongoing.

“Again, there’s no reason to suspect any connection to terrorism,” he said. “I think it’s likely to be an instance where it’s at an age where, you know, people might come unbalanced. So, we’ll find out. We don’t want to conclude anything before the investigation’s done.”

Ahmad al Aliwi Alissa, 21, was identified by officials as the suspect in the case. He was charged with 10 counts of murder on Tuesday.

His former wrestling teammates in high school said that Alissa had a short fuse and was concerned about being targeted due to his Muslim faith.

But Ali Aliwi Alissa, the 34-year-old brother of the suspect, told news outlets Tuesday that he does not believe his brother was ideologically motivated, saying that he appeared to have mental issues and was paranoid.

The exterior of King Sooper’s grocery store is seen the morning after a gunman opened fire in Boulder, Colo., on March 23, 2021. (Chet Strange/Getty Images)

The shooting was not “not at all a political statement, it’s mental illness,” his brother told the Daily Beast. “The guy used to get bullied a lot in high school. He was like an outgoing kid, but after he went to high school and got bullied a lot, he started becoming anti-social,” the brother added….

After 9/11, Bush Let the Al Issa Family Into America. Now 10 Americans are Dead

BY DANIEL GREENFIELD

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/03/after-9-11-bush-let-the-al-issa-family-into-america-now-10-americans-are-dead;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Two years ago, Ahmad Al Issa shared a post entitled, “Why refugees and immigrants are good for America.” On Monday, the Syrian Muslim immigrant shot up a supermarket, killing ten Americans.

Biden declared that he was “still waiting for more information regarding the shooter, his motive, the weapons he used. The guns, the magazines, the weapons, the modifications that have apparently taken place to those weapons that are involved here.”

Why do the modifications to the Syrian immigrant’s weapons matter more than his motive?

Obama joined in, demanding that it is, “long past time for those with the power to fight this epidemic of gun violence to do so.”

Guns don’t kill people. Muslim terrorists do.

Ahmad Al Issa spent much of his time in America accusing his classmates and everyone around him of being “Islamophobes.” He repeatedly got into furious confrontations with the Americans whom he claimed were disrespecting his Islamic religion.

The media is spinning this as a mental illness, but if hating non-Muslims is a mental illness, then it’s a common one in his home country.

While Ahmad Al Issa came to America at a young age with his family, the Al Issa clan originated from Raqqa. The name of the Syrian city may not mean much to most Americans, but it was the former capital of the Caliphate of the Islamic State.

Or ISIS.

And that was after it had been previously taken over by the Al Nusra Front, linked to Al Qaeda, and by Ahrar al-Sham, which had coordinated with ISIS. Multiple Jihadist units and groups used the name “Raqqa” to symbolize their determination to stake a claim to the Syrian city and region.

Raqqa has a sizable Sunni Islamist base even beyond ISIS.

While Al Issa grew up in America, his family would have likely maintained an extensive network of family connections with Raqqa. Family members insist that Ahmad Al Issa was not a radical, but he was clearly a committed Muslim and his Facebook page, since taken down, is filled with Islamic content, and with attacks on President Trump and on America over “Islamophobia.”

Colorado took in a sizable number of migrants with multiple charities, religious and secular, springing up to help the alleged refugees. And once again Americans are reeling from a terror attack because Democrats and some Republicans refuse to secure our immigration system.

There were plenty of warnings that Ahmad Al Issa’s hatred for America and obsession with Islamophobia could turn violent. In 2017, he assaulted a fellow student claiming that he had made fun of his identity. The Syrian immigrant got off with a misdemeanor, probation, and community service. Just imagine if the system had done its job and locked him up instead.

The angry outbursts and claims of Islamophobia are now being spun as mental illness.

But the most obvious explanation for why a Syrian Muslim immigrant whose family comes from the capital of ISIS would shoot up an American supermarket isn’t mental illness.

Nor is the solution gun control.

Democrats and the media had attacked President Trump for suspending the migration of Syrians into America. When Biden overturned the suspension, the media cheered.

“Beyond contravening our values, these Executive Orders and Proclamations have undermined our national security,” Biden had falsely declared.

The bodies of ten dead Americans show what national security with terror migration looks like.

In 2016, Judge Posner had prevented Governor Pence from blocking Syrian refugees. Posner bizarrely claimed that Pence’s attempt to protect Americans from Islamic terrorists was the equivalent of forbidding “black people to settle in Indiana.”

The Trump administration’s moves would not have stopped the Al-Issa clan from coming here in 2002, but it would have prevented future terrorists from taking more American lives.

Biden and the Democrats responded to the King Sooper shootings by preaching “common-sense gun control.” But their gun control has yet to work in Chicago or New York. Meanwhile what Americans need isn’t fewer guns, but fewer immigrant and refugee terrorists.

The tragedy of the Al Issa family arriving here in 2002, after September 11, is a case study in the obstinate refusal of our political elites to reckon with even the worst terror attacks.

President George W. Bush had postponed the Presidential Determination for the number of refugees imported into America because of the September 11 attacks. But he nevertheless went ahead and issued it in November 2001 which allocated 70,000 refugee slots.

And, insanely, boosted the Near East/South Asia category from 10,000 to 15,000 which had been set at 4,000 under Clinton. In 2001, some 3,000 had already been referred to through Syria, Jordan and Turkey. These numbers may sound technical, but they show the terrible policy decisions that led directly to the brutal murder of ten Americans in an ordinary supermarket.

The American victims of Ahmad Al Issa’s rampage included grandparents and employees, an actress, and a police officer who charged the Muslim shooter and paid for it with his life.

Colorado Democrats clamor that this shooting didn’t have to happen. They’re right, but not because of gun control. It didn’t have to happen if we just reformed our immigration system.

Ahmad Al-Issa grew up in America and hated every minute of it. He hated his host country, his classmates and his peers. Over the years, his hatred grew until it consumed him. Then it consumed in his victims in a murderous rampage aimed at non-Muslim Coloradans.

In 2019, Al Issa had fashionably tweeted “#istandwithrefugees.” It’s the sort of thing that many in Boulder, in Colorado, and across America have irresponsibly tweeted.

And it’s a hashtag that kills.

Bush’s decision to let in the Al Issa family after September 11 killed ten Americans. It was a tragic decision that he might not have seen buried in the numbers. But it happened anyway.

There’s really no excuse for it today after two decades of continuous Islamic terrorism.

Every day that we keep our border open, that we welcome in more migrants from terror states, we are pointing a loaded gun at our own heads and pulling the trigger. Most of the time the chamber is empty, but every now and then, the immigration gun fires and people die.

Biden and the Democrats would like to talk about Al Issa’s weapon modifications after opening the border to gang members and terrorists. They want to push restrictions on Americans owning guns, instead of restrictions on their own resettlement agencies bringing in terrorists.

The problem is not that a Syrian immigrant from the capital of ISIS had a gun. The problem was that a Syrian immigrant from the capital of ISIS was in Colorado and in America.

The authorities and the media will go on lying to Americans. They will blame mental illness, as they do with every Muslim terrorist, and depict Al Issa as the victim of Islamophobic bigots. The Democrats will turn the killer into the victim and his victims into the perpetrators as they have done so many times. They will tell us that Islam is a religion of peace, and that Al Issa’s religion and his family origins in the capital of the ISIS Caliphate should be ignored.

And even in the midst of so many burning issues, we must not give up the fight on this one.

There are hard, cold truths about Islamic terrorism that decades after September 11 we seem to be no closer to understanding than Bush was in November 2001.

We can stand with the terror refugees killing us. Or we can stand with their American victims.

 

The New American: Should You Take the COVID Shot?

BY DENNIS BEHREANDT

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/should-you-take-the-covid-shot;

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:

Rumble — In this interview with The New American magazine's Senior Editor Alex Newman, TNA Publisher and longtime scientific expert Dennis Behreandt discusses his latest article on the safety and science of the new experimental COVID "vaccines." From breaking down the mRNA technology to discussing the risks that governments and media seek to suppress, Behreandt goes into detail. He also touches on warnings by top scientists about potential infertility and other problems. The use of abortion victims in the vaccine development (of some shots) and testing is discussed, too. The critical importance of the right to informed consent is another topic addressed in the interview. Finally, Behreandt reveals that, for a variety of reasons, he will not be taking the shot.

Read Dennis' Article:
https://thenewamerican.com/magazine/tna3706/page/120134

🇺🇸 The New American: http://www.thenewamerican.com/