Now, after seemingly rushing to push this legislation through Congress, the truth is coming to light. The Penn Wharton Budget Model has found that this bill will only reduce inflation by a mere 0.1 percent over five years, a fact that the Congressional Budget Office corroborates. So, what exactly are we dealing with here? A scaled-down version of the failed Build Back Better Act, masquerading as a solution to our economic woes, while in reality, it is “the single most significant legislation to combat climate change in our nation’s history,” as the Biden-Harris Department of Treasury proudly proclaimed in a release last November.

Let’s break this down. The Inflation Reduction Act allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices, extends enhanced Obamacare subsidies for three years at a cost of
64 billion, and claims to reduce the deficit by $300 billion.

But hold on—this bill also increases taxes just as America teeters on the brink of recession and boosts funding for the IRS by a jaw-dropping $80 billion, making it larger than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined. Is this really what Americans need right now?

Financial experts are sounding the alarm on this nearly trillion-dollar boondoggle. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink pointed out in April that it’s hard to envision inflation dropping to two percent, given the reckless spending spree initiated by Biden and the Democrat-led 117th Congress.

“I think two is a hard number. We have restructured how we frame our economic policy. We have a trillion dollars of fiscal stimulus in the CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure Act, and the [Inflation Reduction Act],” Fink emphasized during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Price Index in July surged by 2.9 percent year-over-year, a clear indicator that the administration’s policies are failing.

Fox News’s Larry Kudlow, who served as the director of the National Economic Council during the Trump administration, didn’t hold back in his critique of the Inflation Reduction Act. He stated, “There is not one single iota, scintilla, whit, shred or morsel of economic growth incentives in this bill. Not a single comma, semicolon, dotted ‘i’ or crossed ‘t’ of growth. Nothing.”

So, what’s the takeaway here? The Biden-Harris administration is pushing a narrative that simply doesn’t hold water. With a name like the Inflation Reduction Act, one would expect a focus on economic stability and growth. Instead, we see a politically motivated agenda that prioritizes climate change over the pressing needs of American families. It’s time for the American people to wake up and recognize the hypocrisy and double standards at play. This isn’t just politics as usual; it’s a dangerous game that could have lasting repercussions as we head into the 2024 election.

Receiving less attention is the set of similar subsidy programs that were contained in 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), one of which allocated the princely sum of $5 billion to the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Transportation (DOT) to serve as grant money to subsidize the installation of fast-charging EV charging stations around the country. In late February, Nick Pope reported at the Daily Caller that, more than two years after passage of the bill, this government program has resulted in the opening of just two locations – in Ohio and New York – that include only 8 such charging stations.

The slowness of this process should not come as a surprise to anyone, given that this subsidy program incorporates the massive bureaucracies at two federal departments. It is the nature of government agencies to find ways of slowing whatever process over which they have purview, not to speed them up. That’s not a slam on the people who staff those agencies, but a simple recognition of the realities they face in attempting to conform their actions to the complexities of the laws they are required to enforce, of which the IIJA is merely one.

This tension between the nature and complexity of western law and the need for speed the Biden White House hopes to achieve with the setting of hyper-aggressive goals and timelines related to the adoption and enforcement of its Green New Deal policies always has been and remains the central conundrum of the energy transition in the United States. The pace of the multi-faceted, $300 trillion transition is already drastically behind schedule, both in the US and across the rest of the world. There is little prospect for that pace to catch up to the desired timelines anytime in the future.

This reality is not unique to the world of electric vehicles and their associated infrastructure needs, which are massive and hugely expensive. There is also the need for dramatically expanding the electric grid, which provides power to every aspect of not only the transition but to society as a whole. The needs there were already unimaginably huge even before the rise of AI, a power hog of unprecedented proportions.

While the IRA and IIJA included incentives and subsidies that address a subset of the thousands of moving parts of an integrated energy transition, many major elements – such as the gigantic transmission expansion needed for the power grid – were left out entirely.

When the IRA was passed, I warned that the Biden White House viewed it as not a stand-alone subsidy bill, but merely as a down payment for what it viewed as a series of even larger subsidy efforts to come. If one accepts that the climate is really in an emergency condition – as the climate alarm lobby’s propaganda claims – then the passage of a perhaps unending series of debt-funded subsidy bills becomes a moral imperative, after all.

One of the big dangers there is that the momentum behind this fear-driven need for speed begins to be used as justification for the limitation or even abrogation of guaranteed rights of all stakeholders. We see this already starting to happen in states like California and Massachusetts, where Democrat Governors Gavin Newsom and Maura Healey are pushing efforts to overrule the rights of local governments to deny permits for new wind projects and other “green” energy priorities.

The slowness of federal bureaucracies only serves to heighten this sense of alarm, the worst possible motivation to justify the allocation of trillions of debt-funded dollars. It is the worst of all possible worlds, one in which policies motivated by politics promote investment decisions free markets would never create on their own and result in outcomes that do not begin to solve the problem allegedly at hand. It is, in a word, a mess.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

The views and opinions express in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

For some reason, the Biden-Harris regime thought it would be a good idea to trot out their minions to the Sunday talk shows to discuss the bill. The results have been comical so far. ABC’s Jonathan Karl grilled Karine Jean-Pierre about it and it didn’t turn out well. But even the moronic press secretary did far better than Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on CNN’s State of the Union today.

When asked about how Americans will see lower costs today, Granholm went into an odd, repetitive response about how Americans need to buy expensive junk such as electric vehicles, solar panels, and other “green” products. These technologies often require massive expenditures to acquire and install, far beyond the means of the vast majority of Americans.

Even for those who can afford this stuff, the net effect from the tax credits will not outweigh the costs in the short term. It may take years, even decades for any cost-savings to materialize, tax credits or not.

“Immediately, people will be able to lower the fuel costs in their home through the 30% tax credit you can claim in 2022 for installing energy-efficient windows, heat pumps, energy-efficient appliances,” she said. “That is right away. And, on top of that, of course, if citizens want to install solar panels on their roofs so that they can generate their own power, that’s another 30% tax credit. And, of course, there’s the tax credits that are at the dealership for the automotive sector, for electric vehicles.”

Watch:

Inflation? What inflation? Can't afford to pay for anything? Well, no worries, says Jennifer Granholm. You'll receive a tax credit for installing an electric charging station in your home. pic.twitter.com/cAbkJH8vRI

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) August 14, 2022

This is how disconnected the Biden-Harris regime is with the people. Their answer to how Americans will benefit today is to tell them to spend a ton of money on green products. I guarantee Jennifer Granholm isn’t worried about rising potato prices like the rest of us.

It’s getting crazier and the Biden-Harris regime are not even trying to fix things. If you are concerned about your wealth or retirement and want to move $25,000 or more to precious metals, contact our America First sponsor.

As they say, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Before any Republicans cheer about the latter, we have to understand the implications of the former. Democrats were already hurting electorally, so they’re throwing up a Hail Mary that has zero chance of reaching the end zone. But they’re doing it anyway, and that’s a major concern because it seems they’re continuing the trend we’ve seen for the last year-and-a-half: A political party doing the bidding of the globalist elites to damage the U.S. economy beyond repair and hoping their corporate media propaganda machine can spin it for them.

Republicans winning in November will be a Pyrrhic victory at best. But it’s probably much worse than that — very little victory at all — because with feckless RINOs Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy likely running their respective chambers, it’s a near certainty they’ll be unable to get a single thing done to reverse the damage this bill will do. Instead, they’ll just obstruct the Biden-Harris agenda which is a good thing, but they won’t do much more than fundraise off it. They’ll talk big and pretend to be tough which will help them score even more electoral victories in 2024 for fellow RINOs, should we even make it as a nation until then.

Get ready for two years of bellyaching just like we heard from McConnell and Paul Ryan during the Obama era. They pretended to be tough and passed conservative bills like the many Obamacare repeal pieces of legislation because they knew they would get vetoed. The moment they had someone in the Oval Office who would actually sign them, suddenly they were unable to put a single Obamacare bill on the president’s desk for two years. That’s the type of fake leadership we’ll be seeing if the GOP Establishment replaces their fellow Uniparty Swamp leaders after the midterms.

So no, I’m not excited about gaining seats in Congress in exchange for this abomination of a bill. We’ll be watching our nation’s remaining fiscal strength drained in exchange for two years of RINO Kabuki Theater.

The article below by Richard Stern from Daily Signal details pretty concisely why this bill is bad in the short term and worse in the long term. Naming it the “Inflation REDUCTION Act” is like naming naming a hangman’s noose a “Neck Protective Covering.” In both cases, the name is the opposite of what it will actually do. Inflation will rise, perhaps faster than it has in recent months, because you can’t raise corporate taxes and expect costs to go down. Wall Street will lurch. Meanwhile, the people will continue to struggle.

This is just another reason why we recommend four things. First, look at moving some of your wealth, investments, and/or retirement to precious metals. Second, focus on solidifying your city, county, and state governments with America First patriots. If you can’t, consider moving to redder pastures. It seems the federal government is on a collision course with economic totalitarianism. You’ll want conservative and populist leaders in your city, county, and state to try to hold DC back.

Third, make the necessary changes in your life to be best able to sustain yourself and your family through even tougher economic times than most are going through now. Those who have read my work or watched my show in the past know that I have never been a “doomsday” guy. I countered those who claimed during the 2009 economic downturn that we had to pull all of our money out of the bank and stash cash, gold, and ammunitions under our mattresses. I railed against the people who were buying two-year supplies of toilet paper in Spring, 2020.

Today, I have a three-year supply of toilet paper in my garage.

Fourth, take care of your long-term food situation immediately. Start a garden. Move to a homestead. Get a freeze drier, mylar bags, and oxygen absorbers. Raise chickens. For those who cannot do these things (or even if you can), I recommend buying long-term storage food, as much of it as you can afford and fit in your home.

We’ve been ringing the alarm bells for the last year. The “Inflation Reduction Act” is another major stepping stone for the globalist elites in their quest to manifest The Great Reset. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. The writing is on the wall. We are witnessing an economic murder-suicide taking place and it’s going to affect nearly everybody. Don’t be filled with regrets while you stand in breadlines thinking back to what you did in lieu of listening to these warnings. Here’s Richard Stern‘s article…

Gimmicks in ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ Mask True Costs, Massive Inflationary Deficits

As Senate Democrats achieve their goal of jamming  through the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, reality is becoming clear: The bill will likely increase near-term inflation, depress household incomes, and produce the long-term deficits that fuel long-term inflation.

Using the Congressional Budget Office’s latest scoring, estimates of the most recent changes, and accounting for very expensive gimmicks, it’s likely that the bill will produce deficits.

The cumulative deficit would be around $52.5 billion over the next four years, at least $110 billion through fiscal year 2031, and more beyond. That would mean adding to near-term and long-term inflationary pressures, in contrast to what proponents such as Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., claim.

In short, the bill is about as far away from a genuine Inflation Reduction Act as possible. Though it would be harmful under any circumstances, signing it into law during a period of stagflation would be the worst possible timing.

The Inflation Reduction Act utilizes three major sets of common congressional gimmicks to mask its true costs: cherry-picked expiration dates, ignoring net interest costs, and indirect tax burdens.

As one very costly example, the bill would extend for three more years “temporary” Obamacare subsidies that were supposed to expire this year. That brings to mind the wisdom of the late economist Milton Friedman, who once observed, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”

Despite the Obamacare subsidies being peddled as temporary, extending them was among the first provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that Senate Democrats committed to voting for. It just goes to prove something the everyone knows: There are certain taxpayer-funded handouts and giveaways that seem to always get extended in perpetuity.

To keep the reported cost of the provision down, a three-year expansion was chosen because it is what they could afford on paper. However, accounting for political reality, these subsidies will likely cost at least  $146.5 billion more than what is being reported through fiscal year 2031.

That would be further compounded by Congress yet again delaying implementation of the Trump-era Medicare rebate rule, a move that shifts federal costs further into the future and arbitrarily reduces the portion of the costs included in the budgetary window. While the future costs would remain real, they would conveniently slip under the radar of the formal score.

Yet another overestimation of savings presented by the bill’s authors is a claim to $204 billion in increased revenues from cracking down on tax fraud.

While increased enforcement activity might result in higher revenue collections, estimates are highly speculative. Because the actual results are so uncertain, such revenues are not included in official cost estimates under the bipartisan scorekeeping guidelines.

The deficits created by the bill, and the fact that they are front-loaded, would increase federal net interest costs by more than $14 billion—a fact that is not reflected in the formal CBO estimates.

In total, the bill would add at least $110 billion to the federal deficit through fiscal 2031. To put that level of spending in perspective, $110 billion is roughly four-and-a-half times NASA’s annual budget, or nearly the cost of the ships in six U.S. Carrier Strike Groups. In this case, however, the $110 billion will be used to buy more inflation.

When the federal government runs a deficit, it eventually must be paid back. That’s either done through job- and wage-killing taxes or by way of the Federal Reserve printing new money to finance the deficits.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fed financed 56% of new federal debt with trillions upon trillions of newly created dollars. Those dollars devalued paychecks and Americans’ lifetime savings. When the federal government attempts to print its way out of fiscal irresponsibility, it does so by imposing an inflation tax on every American household.

With that precedent, no one can be certain of how much the federal government will use new taxes or new money creation to cover deficits. The expectation of future money printing causes immediate inflationary pressures as people act now to mitigate such future possibilities.

As such, the deficits created by the Inflation Reduction Act would simply be the newest addition to the current inflation tax.

To add insult to injury, almost every provision of the bill will bleed the bank accounts of American families. Tragically, the deficit- and inflation-increasing aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act are only the beginning of its burdens.

In these provisions we find the third set of gimmicks; namely, indirect tax burdens. Despite President Joe Biden’s assurances, the tax and price-control burdens of the Inflation Reduction Act will fall squarely on families trying to make ends meet.

Companies are combinations of workers, tools, and institutional knowledge that when brought together can produce the goods and services we need and enjoy. As such, companies can’t absorb a tax. They only direct how American households will feel it.

The bill’s business-tax hike will leave companies with no choice but to cut wages, increase consumer prices, or cut future investments in a growing and prosperous economy. The bill’s requirement that the government get a deal on drug prices will simply mean that drug prices will go up for families and that research budgets for new lifesaving drugs will be slashed.

The stock-buyback tax will trap capital with stagnant companies and will prevent investors from reallocating those funds to new, growing, and innovative ventures. The $80 billion IRS slush fund in the bill will go to “enforcement” activities that will likely target low-income families and minority populations.

In reality, this bill is a litany of policies aimed at scoring political points that has been recklessly and hurriedly slapped together. If it’s signed into law as expected, long after the press conferences and congressional pats on the back have faded into distant memory, it’s inflationary, tax, and other burdens will continue to haunt every American household.

JUST IN – U.S. Senate passes $340 billion "Inflation Reduction" Act. Kamala Harris casts tie-breaking vote.https://t.co/C5Dc63U94r

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) August 7, 2022

“I am confident the inflation Reduction Act will endure as one of the defining legislative feats of the 21st century,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said.

If by “legislative feat” he means a codified death sentence for capitalism, then Schumer may be correct. If they think it’s going to reduce inflation, it won’t. According to Liberty Nation:

Today, the more than 9% consumer price index (CPI) is not because Russia invaded Ukraine or Republicans obstructed President Biden’s agenda. Instead, mounting inflation pressures commenced because Washington approved astronomical deficit-financed spending bills – monetized by the Federal Reserve – and injected trillions of dollars into a locked-down economy. Have public policymakers learned from this? No. They are emulating these measures and hoping for different results.

As Liberty Nation recently reported, analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found that the bill would not do much to address inflation. In fact, researchers learned that it would add to the personal consumption expenditures index by 0.05% by 2024 and then decrease it by 0.25% later in the decade.

The administration recently touted “126 leading economists” who endorsed the landmark slimmed-down Build Back Better bill, many of whom got it wrong on multiple issues. In response, more than 230 economists penned a letter to the House and Senate leadership warning about the “inaptly named” bill that would exacerbate inflation, burden the economy, and worsen the global supply chain crisis.

Raising taxes during a recession is about as idiotic as trying to kill the fossil fuel industry when energy shortages are already hurting tens of millions of Americans. Leave it to Democrats to kill two birds with one vote.

Joe Biden didn’t claim he wouldn’t raise taxes when campaigning for president in 2020, but he did promise to only raise taxes on those making over $400,000 per year. Here’s the receipt from Washington Post:

The Biden-Harris regime reiterated this promise last March when then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki discussed tax hikes that were being proposed at the time.

“Nobody making under $400,000 a year will have their taxes increased,” Psaki said.

If Democrats can pass their “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” and if Biden signs it into law, that promise will not just be broken. It will be obliterated. It doesn’t just reduce the limit from $400,000/year down a tax bracket or two. It takes it all the way down.

From page 1 of their proposed bill [average tax rates highlighted]:

As the chart shows, the average tax rate for Americans making over $30,000 per year will go up across the board, and that’s just for 2023. The report continues into next decade, showing increases for most brackets in years to come.

Arguably the worst part about all of this is that the bill doesn’t match the name, as is often the case with legislation coming out of Democrat-run Capitol Hill. We have a near-consensus from economists on both sides of the political aisle saying this will not reduce inflation in the near-term and most are acknowledging that it won’t affect inflation long-term, either.

It seems like Senator Kyrsten Sinema is the only person who may stop this economic abomination, and that’s assuming Chuck Schumer can’t get a RINO or two in the Senate to back his plan.

Democrats have lost any hopes that Joe Biden could win reelection, and that’s concerning. It means any promises he made in 2020 can be broken without fear of election repercussions, and that makes his regime even more dangerous than they already are.

Article cross-posted from my Economic Collapse Substack.