Two millennia ago, we were warned to avoid the “double-minded man.” That kind of person is unstable. That it is best to avoid them in your personal life, as well as your business dealings.
Today, we as a nation will embark on a Recovery plan that is both expansive, that's the stimulus and restraining, that's today's introduction of new taxes.
Double-Minded.
Today we are promised that we will see, for the first time the new tax plan of the President. And this is being introduced Just days after the President pushed through Congress the second-highest stimulus package ever. Only the second time in history that we've seen an economic aid package measuring more than a trillion dollars. The actual number came in at 1.9 trillion.
Why such a staggering number? Because, as we were told by President Biden, and by his Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, people are hurting. Yellen reminded us that 10 million continue to be out of work.
Now not only does that mean that workers are idled, but so are the businesses that normally employ them. At least one estimate is out there indicating that as many as 400,000 small businesses will never re-open.
And yet later this afternoon, the President will presumably come to the podium, where he will introduce us to an entirely new series of higher taxes. Estimated to be, already, the largest increases in taxes in a generation or more.Double-minded.Imagine if Franklin Roosevelt, in the middle of the Great Depression did the same. I think Biden was right to propose stimulus as the proper response to these economic times
.And if the stimulus is the proper response right now, then it has to logically follow that higher taxes are inappropriate. Either the economy needs the boost provided by the stimulus package. OR it is strong enough to withstand increasing taxes. It's one or the other. But it is not both at the same time.
I said a couple of weeks ago that we were seeing the fastest move from stimulus to restraint when this plan was initially floated. But it is one thing to move quickly from one side to the other. It is quite another to hold both positions simultaneously. But that is apparently what Biden intends to do.
Double-minded.
Rumor has it that another Stimulus Package is now in the works. At the same time, this tax hike will also take place. Utter insanity. Stoke the monetary fires, while at the same time putting on the fiscal breaks.
It only makes sense in a kind of Neo-Marxian Universe, where the underclass becomes eternally dependent upon these so-called stimulus checks from the government. While the Entrepreneurial Class is restrained, and somehow punished.A government-centered redistribution program, perhaps.
But certainly NOT a formula to bring our economy back.The timing of all this could not be worse.
Finally: notice in all the projections so far, the new Tax Plan is marketed on the idea of increased revenue.Increased revenue for who? Not the businesses and industries that need to hire workers back.Not the small businesses that have closed their doors. Not the unemployed.
No, the revenue calculation is strictly for the Federal Government. And remember what is Revenue for the government is expense to free enterprise. So at the same time, we will be providing stimulus to states, schools and colleges, and individuals.
We will be increasing taxes on the productive parts of the economy. The businesses and industries that ultimately provide the jobs, goods, and services for the economy.
This is double-minded thinking at its most extreme.