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10 Absurdly Wasteful Items Tucked Into Democrats’ $3.5 Trillion Tax-and-Spend Monstrosity

David Ditch / @davidaditch / October 18, 2021

One of the many provisions of congressional Democrats’ $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend bill are tax loopholes for some politically favored groups. One of these, Section 138517, would give a tax credit toward “compensation for local news journalists.” Pictured: Copies of The Des Moines Register await taking inside the newspaper’s Iowa newsroom. (Photo: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post/Getty Images)

COMMENTARY BY

David Ditch@davidaditch

David Ditch is a policy analyst specializing in budget and transportation policy in the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation.

House Democrats a few weeks ago released the full text of their big-government socialism $3.5 trillion tax-and-spend package.

Many important elements were already clear. It would recklessly boost federal spending at a time of already high inflation, impose ruinous tax hikes when the post-pandemic economic recovery is still vulnerable, and impose an anti-work welfare state.

However, due to the incredible length of the bill—2,465 pages, or about the length of two King James Bibles—there are thousands of separate provisions, far more than can be properly analyzed by legislators or the public.

The following are just 10 of the ridiculous things buried in the bill.

1) $25 Million for ‘Anti-discrimination and Bias Training’ at HHS

There have been several instances of federal agencies promoting critical race theory and similar far-left agendas to employees. In Section 31056 of the bill, Congress wants to legally mandate such training at the Department of Health and Human Services, the largest nondefense agency.

The idea that an agency focused on administering social benefits programs is a haven of racists ought to be laughable, but apparently House Democrats think otherwise.

2) $200 Million for Presidio Trust, aka ‘Pelosi’s Park’

Section 70203 of the bill earmarks $200 million for Presidio Trust, a park located in the north end of San Francisco, which is represented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

The Presidio park contains many scenic views and even a golf course. San Francisco is one of the wealthiest parts of the country and can easily afford to support the park, which makes this handout egregious even without Pelosi’s involvement.

3) Welfare for Journalists

While the bill contains many tax hikes, it also opens loopholes for some politically favored groups. One of these, Section 138517, would give a tax credit toward “compensation for local news journalists.”

The secretary of the treasury is required to issue “regulations and guidance as are necessary,” which could allow the government to determine what counts as “news.”

Worse, the tax credit is “refundable,” meaning that a money-losing organization would get a check from Uncle Sam, rather than simply not owing anything. That means it’s corporate welfare.

That would serve to prop up media organizations that the public doesn’t consider valuable enough to support voluntarily. Apparently, we need to be forced to do so.

4) $1.25 Billion for Activists, Bureaucrats to Go After Landlords

The activist left insists that housing is a right—and that this supersedes fundamental private property rights, including the ability of property owners to exclude others from squatting or to evict tenants who refuse to honor their rental agreements.

The federal government advanced this notion with its unconstitutional eviction moratorium under the guise of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Now, Congress wants to fund anti-property activists and regulatory enforcers to the tune of $1.25 billion, including erecting legal hurdles for property owners merely trying to defend their rights in court against delinquent tenants.

Sections 40106 and 40107 might not explicitly require funding for left-leaning groups, but phrases like “fair housing organizations” can only be reasonably understood to mean exactly that.

5) $4.5 Billion for Federal Housing Plan Takeover

The bill seeks to impose a federal takeover of housing policy, both through the construction of massive amounts of public housing and by strong-arming local governments into changing zoning rules.

Bending local communities to the will of Washington elites on the texture of local neighborhoods undermines the ability of families and local governments to determine for themselves the distinctive features of their communities.

While there are many opportunities to reform housing policy, one-size-fits-all federal mandates are the wrong approach. Yet Section 40103 would dedicate $4.5 billion just for bureaucrats at all levels of government to “develop” and “evaluate” housing plans.

The private sector could construct tens of thousands of housing units for that amount of money, but this bill would rather tax businesses to pay bureaucrats to think about building houses.

6) $26.5 Billion for Left-Wing Transportation Programs

Congress is on the verge of passing a $1 trillion-plus infrastructure package that came together following months of bipartisan negotiations.

The package already moves federal transportation policy solidly to the left, including many new programs relating to “social justice” and “climate.”

One of the reasons why some moderate Republicans supported the bill was that President Joe Biden promised not to include more transportation funding in the Democrat-only $3.5 trillion social spending bill, since that would mean the bipartisan negotiations were not a true give-and-take.

However, Sections 110002 through 110012 of the partisan bill contain a total of $26.5 billion for rail, slush funds, and Green New Deal transportation programs.

That’s exactly the “double dipping” that Biden vowed to avoid, and is yet another reason why Congress should move away from the flawed bipartisan bill before it’s too late.

7) Extra Funding for Bureaucrats, Ad Campaigns

The legislation contains trillions of dollars’ worth of new benefit programs. Normally, the price of a program is understood to include the cost of paying the government employees who administer it, along with any necessary public awareness activity.

Yet this bill is littered with at least $13.3 billion in additional funding specifically for federal bureaucrats and billions more for ad campaigns, on top of the trillions in program costs.

This highlights the true socialist nature of the bill, which is to get as many people as possible dependent on as many government programs as possible, so that the politicians who support those big-government programs can remain in power.

8) $197 Million to Subsidize Hiring Local Teachers

The spending package includes hundreds of billions of dollars to fund the left’s vision of education, including “free” community college tuition, “free” school meals, and poorly crafted pre-K programs.

Even smaller education provisions are flawed. Section 20006 of the bill would give $197 million for “Grow Your Own,” a concept that prioritizes schools hiring teachers that live nearby.

Such staffing decisions are fair game for local districts and school boards, but the federal government should not use taxpayer dollars to micromanage those choices.

9) $7.5 Billion ‘Community’ Slush Fund

One of many housing initiatives in the bill, Section 40105, would give $7.5 billion for a “community restoration and revitalization” fund.

The money would go toward nebulous concepts, such as “creating equitable civic infrastructure” and “capacity building,” which would give bureaucrats the ability to fund housing projects or left-wing activists as they see fit.

Unfortunately, such place-based subsidies fail to help those in need and are often susceptible to inefficient allocation or even corruption.

Most importantly, they do nothing to address underlying causes of poverty; namely, children denied educational choice trapped in underperforming public schools, burdensome business regulations, government mismanagement, or disempowered law enforcement

10) 2 Decades of Funding for Obscure Tech Accounts

Sections 80010 and 80011 would provide $2.35 billion for the Federal Citizen Services Fund, which deals with government websites and information technology for the executive branch.

Those already receive annual funding through the appropriations process. Notably, the bill would provide the equivalent of 20 years of funding for the Federal Citizen Services Fund and 25 years of funding for executive branch information technology.

That sort of largesse (at taxpayers’ expense) demonstrates the complete lack of prioritization that characterizes the legislation.

These ridiculous items are just 10 of the countless reasons why Congress should steer clear of the largest tax-and-spend bill in world history, which would impose real costs on the economy and on American society.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

Question of the Week: Which Department of the Federal Government Should Be the First to Be Abolished?

I was asked last week which entitlement program is most deserving of reform.

While acknowledging that Social Security and Medicare also are in desperate need of modernization, I wrote that Medicaid reformshould be the first priority.

But I’d be happy if we made progress on any type of entitlement reform, so I don’t think there are right or wrong answers to this kind of question.

We have the same type of question this week. A reader sent an email to ask “Which federal department should be abolished first?”

I guess this is what is meant when people talk about a target-rich environment. We have an abundance of candidates:

• Department of Education
• Department of Agriculture
• Department of Energy
• Department of Veterans Affairs
• Department of Transportation

But if I have to choose, I think the Department of Housing and Urban Development should be first on the chopping block.

Raze the building and put a layer of salt over the earth to make sure it can never spring back to life

I’ve already argued that there should be no federal government involvement in the housing sector and made the same argument on TV. And I’ve also shared some horror stories about HUD waste and incompetence.

• HUD engages in racism and social engineering.
• Urban renewal projects destroy neighborhoods and foment corruption.
• HUD subsidies are grotesquely wasteful.
• There are epidemic levels of waste, fraud, and abuse at HUD.

Heck, I even made HUD the background image for my video on the bloated and overpaid bureaucracy in Washington.

It’s also worth noting that there’s nothing about housing in Article I, Section VIII, of the Constitution. For those of us who have old-fashioned values about playing by the rules, that means much of what takes place in Washington – including housing handouts – is unconstitutional.

Simply stated, there is no legitimate argument for HUD. And I think there would be the least political resistance.

As with the answer to the question about entitlements, this is a judgment call. I’d be happy to be proven wrong if it meant that politicians were aggressively going after another department. Anything that reduces the burden of government spending is a step in the right direction

Milton Friedman on Spending

October 3, 2020 by Dan Mitchell

I identified four heroes from the “Battle of Ideas” video I shared in late August – Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher. Here’s one of those heroes, Milton Friedman, explaining what’s needed to control big government.

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Why Milton Friedman Saw School Choice as a First Step, Not a Final One

On his birthday, let’s celebrate Milton Friedman’s vision of enabling parents, not government, to be in control of a child’s education.

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Kerry McDonald

EducationMilton FriedmanSchool ChoiceSchooling

Libertarians and others are often torn about school choice. They may wish to see the government schooling monopoly weakened, but they may resist supporting choice mechanisms, like vouchers and education savings accounts, because they don’t go far enough. Indeed, most current choice programs continue to rely on taxpayer funding of education and don’t address the underlying compulsory nature of elementary and secondary schooling.

Skeptics may also have legitimate fears that taxpayer-funded education choice programs will lead to over-regulation of previously independent and parochial schooling options, making all schooling mirror compulsory mass schooling, with no substantive variation.

Friedman Challenged Compulsory Schooling Laws

Milton Friedman had these same concerns. The Nobel prize-winning economist is widely considered to be the one to popularize the idea of vouchers and school choice beginning with his 1955 paper, “The Role of Government in Education.” His vision continues to be realized through the important work of EdChoice, formerly the Friedman Foundation for Education Choice, that Friedman and his economist wife, Rose, founded in 1996.

July 31 is Milton Friedman’s birthday. He died in 2006 at the age of 94, but his ideas continue to have an impact, particularly in education policy.

Friedman saw vouchers and other choice programs as half-measures. He recognized the larger problems of taxpayer funding and compulsion, but saw vouchers as an important starting point in allowing parents to regain control of their children’s education. In their popular book, Free To Choose, first published in 1980, the Friedmans wrote:

We regard the voucher plan as a partial solution because it affects neither the financing of schooling nor the compulsory attendance laws. We favor going much farther. (p.161)

They continued:

The compulsory attendance laws are the justification for government control over the standards of private schools. But it is far from clear that there is any justification for the compulsory attendance laws themselves. (p. 162)

The Friedmans admitted that their “own views on this have changed over time,” as they realized that “compulsory attendance at schools is not necessary to achieve that minimum standard of literacy and knowledge,” and that “schooling was well-nigh universal in the United States before either compulsory attendance or government financing of schooling existed. Like most laws, compulsory attendance laws have costs as well as benefits. We no longer believe the benefits justify the costs.” (pp. 162-3)

Still, they felt that vouchers would be the essential starting point toward chipping away at monopoly mass schooling by putting parents back in charge. School choice, in other words, would be a necessary but not sufficient policy approach toward addressing the underlying issue of government control of education.

Vouchers as a First Step

In their book, the Friedmans presented the potential outcomes of their proposed voucher plan, which would give parents access to some or all of the average per-pupil expenditures of a child enrolled in public school. They believed that vouchers would help create a more competitive education market, encouraging education entrepreneurship. They felt that parents would be more empowered with greater control over their children’s education and have a stronger desire to contribute some of their own money toward education. They asserted that in many places “the public school has fostered residential stratification, by tying the kind and cost of schooling to residential location” and suggested that voucher programs would lead to increased integration and heterogeneity. (pp. 166-7)

To the critics who said, and still say, that school choice programs would destroy the public schools, the Friedmans replied that these critics fail to

explain why, if the public school system is doing such a splendid job, it needs to fear competition from nongovernmental, competitive schools or, if it isn’t, why anyone should object to its “destruction.” (p. 170)

What I appreciate most about the Friedmans discussion of vouchers and the promise of school choice is their unrelenting support of parents. They believed that parents, not government bureaucrats and intellectuals, know what is best for their children’s education and well-being and are fully capable of choosing wisely for their children—when they have the opportunity to do so.

They wrote:

Parents generally have both greater interest in their children’s schooling and more intimate knowledge of their capacities and needs than anyone else. Social reformers, and educational reformers in particular, often self-righteously take for granted that parents, especially those who are poor and have little education themselves, have little interest in their children’s education and no competence to choose for them. That is a gratuitous insult. Such parents have frequently had limited opportunity to choose. However, U.S. history has demonstrated that, given the opportunity, they have often been willing to sacrifice a great deal, and have done so wisely, for their children’s welfare. (p. 160).

Sign-Up: Receive Kerry’s Weekly Parenting and Education Newsletter!

Voucher Programs Today

Today, school voucher programs exist in 15 states plus the District of Columbia. These programs have consistently shown that when parents are given the choice to opt-out of an assigned district school, many will take advantage of the opportunity. In Washington, D.C., low-income parents who win a voucher lottery send their children to private schools.

The most recent three-year federal evaluationof voucher program participants found that while student academic achievement was comparable to achievement for non-voucher students remaining in public schools, there were statistically significant improvements in other important areas. For instance, voucher participants had lower rates of chronic absenteeism than the control groups, as well as higher student satisfaction scores. There were also tremendous cost-savings.

In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program has served over 28,000 low-income students attending 129 participating private schools.

According to Corey DeAngelis, Director of School Choice at the Reason Foundation and a prolific researcher on the topic, the recent analysis of the D.C. voucher program “reveals that private schools produce the same academic outcomes for only a third of the cost of the public schools. In other words, school choice is a great investment.”

In Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was created in 1990 and is the nation’s oldest voucher program. It currently serves over 28,000 low-income students attending 129 participating private schools. Like the D.C. voucher program, data on test scores of Milwaukee voucher students show similar results to public school students, but non-academic results are promising.

Increased Access and Decreased Crime

Recent research found voucher recipients had lower crime rates and lower incidences of unplanned pregnancies in young adulthood. On his birthday, let’s celebrate Milton Friedman’s vision of enabling parents, not government, to be in control of a child’s education.

According to Howard Fuller, an education professor at Marquette University, founder of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, and one of the developers of the Milwaukee voucher program, the key is parent empowerment—particularly for low-income minority families.

In an interview with NPR, Fuller said: “What I’m saying to you is that there are thousands of black children whose lives are much better today because of the Milwaukee parental choice program,” he says. 
“They were able to access better schools than they would have without a voucher.”

Putting parents back in charge of their child’s education through school choice measures was Milton Friedman’s goal. It was not his ultimate goal, as it would not fully address the funding and compulsion components of government schooling; but it was, and remains, an important first step. As the Friedmans wrote in Free To Choose:

The strong American tradition of voluntary action has provided many excellent examples that demonstrate what can be done when parents have greater choice. (p. 159).

On his birthday, let’s celebrate Milton Friedman’s vision of enabling parents, not government, to be in control of a child’s education.

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  Michael Harrington:  If you don’t have the expertise, the knowledge technology today, you’re out of the debate. And I think that we have to democratize information and government as well as the economy and society. FRIEDMAN: I am sorry to say Michael Harrington’s solution is not a solution to it. He wants minority rule, I […] By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)

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February 3, 2012 – 12:07 am

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Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 1-5

Debate on Milton Friedman’s cure for inflation

September 29, 2011 – 7:24 am

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What were the main proposals of Milton Friedman?

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Defending Milton Friedman

July 31, 2012 – 6:45 am

What a great defense of Milton Friedman!!!!   Defaming Milton Friedman by Johan Norberg This article appeared in Reason Online on September 26, 2008  PRINT PAGE  CITE THIS      Sans Serif      Serif Share with your friends: ShareThis In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is […]

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Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell [OFFICIAL FULL ALBUM STREAM]

ARTS & CULTURE

Why Sufjan Stevens Would Make Francis Schaeffer Proud

Elise Daniel
April 7, 2015TWITTERFACEBOOKLINKEDINEMAILSUBSCRIBEPRINT

If Francis Schaeffer was alive today, Sufjan Stevens would make him very proud.

Stevens’s new album, Carrie and Lowell, which debuted last Tuesday, was named best new music by Pitchfork shortly after he was compared to theologian Francis Schaeffer in the Atlantic. Few self-proclaimed Christian artists have achieved such secular popularity and recognition for their faith as Stevens.

His success among both non-Christians and Christians may be explained by the fact he seems to embody a Schaefferian view of work as an artist.

In Art & the Bible, Schaeffer asks,

How should an artist begin to do his work as an artist? I would insist that he begin his work as an artist by setting out to make a work of art.

Many agree Stevens has mastered focusing on the artistic qualities of his music first, an area where Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) artists have failed.

David Roark argues in the Atlantic that most music typically considered “Christian” today really isn’t all that good. CCM, which started during wake of the “Jesus Movement” in the 60s and 70s, views music strictly as a tool for evangelism rather than an art form. The highest measure of value is the number of times “Jesus” is mentioned in a song, while talent and production quality take a backseat. This is why he argues Christians have failed to make much of a dent in the popular music scene.

Stevens doesn’t hide his beliefs in his work, but he purposefully avoids the CCM label, perhaps because he doesn’t believe Christianity should be viewed as a cultural subset. Instead, we should live and breathe the gospel so naturally that it weaves its way into every area of life, transforming it.

According to Roark, Stevens’s music is the physical embodiment of what Schaeffer called “the totality of life.” He says,

Instead of dealing directly with religious or biblical matters, Stevens’ music embodies what theologian Francis Schaeffer called the “totality of life,” as opposed some sort of “self-conscious evangelism”—an approach that turns the whole Christian-music stigma on its head…. For the musician, the gospel doesn’t just play some small, personal role in life and culture; it infiltrates and restores all of life and culture. It addresses the entire human experience, or “the totality of life” as Schaeffer described it.

Carrie and Lowell centers around Stevens’s mother Carrie, who abandoned him as a child and recently passed in 2012. In Should Have Known Better,he shares both the hurt his mother caused him as a child and his regret in not trying to be closer to her. He wrestles with depression in The Only Thingand cries out to Jesus for help in John My Beloved. He shares his brokenness, his fears, (Now I’m drunk and afraid, wishing the world would go away), and the little symbols of hope he sees in the world around him (My brother had a daughter/The beauty that she brings, illumination).

He struggles with sin and wrestles with his faith. Many moments are so raw and so vulnerable; some may find them difficult to listen to. But maybe that realism about the human condition is exactly what we crave in a song.

The way in which Stevens integrates his faith with his music can be compared to other artists like Johnny Cash and U2. Roark says these Christians artists stand in stark contrast to CCM because,

They didn’t see music as just a means to an end, or a way of evangelizing to young people. Instead, they focused on telling compelling stories and creating aesthetically pleasing music, while still expressing themselves personally and spiritually. It’s not as if they separated their faith from their work—on the contrary, Christian themes and ideas are woven throughout their lyrics. It’s more that their endeavors were simpler: They cared more about writing good songs than converting the world through music.

Is a song about a mother abandoning her son any less Christian than a song about a biblical scene? Sufjan Stevens wouldn’t say so, and neither would Francis Schaeffer.

Stevens’s music speaks something beautiful and true to our souls, which is why it’s captivating both Christian non-Christians alike. And if Francis Schaeffer had a chance to listen to Carrie and Lowell, I’m sure it would make him proud.

Leave your comments here. 

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MUSIC MONDAY Rolling Stones New Album Part 2 Review The Rolling Stones’ new blues album is an amplified death wheeze. And it rules

December 12, 2016 – 12:45 amBy Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)

MUSIC MONDAY Rolling Stones New Album Part 1 Review: The Rolling Stones Reinvigorate the Blues on ‘Blue and Lonesome’ Our take on rock legends’ first LP since 2005

December 5, 2016 – 12:36 am

MUSIC MONDAY Rolling Stones New Album Part 1 The Rolling Stones – Ride ‘Em On Down Published on Dec 1, 2016 Taken from Blue & Lonesome, the brand new album out now. Buy it at http://www.rollingstones.com/blueandl…. Directed by François Rousselet http://www.riffrafffilms.tv/video/dir… Produced by Natalie Arnett Riff Raff Films http://www.riffrafffilms.tvhttp://www.rollingstones.com/http://www.facebook.com/therollingstoneshttp://twitter.com/RollingStoneshttp://www.rollingstones.com/newsletter Rolling Stones […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)

MUSIC MONDAY Karen Carpenter’s tragic story

November 28, 2016 – 12:16 am

_____________ Carpenters Close To You Karen Carpenter’s tragic story Karen Carpenter’s velvet voice charmed millions in the 70s… but behind the wholesome image she was in turmoil. Desperate to look slim on stage – and above all desperate to please the domineering mother who preferred her brother – she became the first celebrity victim of […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|Comments (0)

MUSIC MONDAY The Carpenters!!!

November 21, 2016 – 6:29 am

carpenters -We’ve Only Just Begun The Carpenters – Yesterday Once More (INCLUDES LYRICS) The Carpenters – There’s a kind of hush The Carpenters – Greatest Hits Related posts: MUSIC MONDAY Paul McCartney Mull Of Kintyre November 13, 2016 – 10:29 am Paul McCartney Mull Of Kintyre-Original Video-HQ Uploaded on Nov 25, 2011 Paul McCartney Mull Of […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit|