Question: Is the Democratic Senate Majority Leader trying to tank his party ahead of November? Inflation is raging, Americans' purchasing power is painfully diminished, and Chuck Schumer thinks the 'only' way to right the ship is to, um, confiscate more earnings from Americans and American businesses? Higher taxes and increased spending are his party's predictably knee-jerk solutions to nearly every problem, even when those policies are glaringly and cartoonishly wrong for the moment. And yet:
WATCH: Senator Chuck Schumer claims the “only way” to reduce #Bidenflation is to raise taxes on Americans pic.twitter.com/iJ8tUdTf8R
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 26, 2022
Read this post for the background on the Trump/GOP 2017 tax cuts, which slashed rates across all income groups, and ushered in two-plus years of strong, pre-pandemic growth across GDP, jobs, and wages. In his answer, Schumer starts to say "raise taxes" as his exclusive inflation solution, then catches himself and realizes he needs to frame it a little differently. That's when he invokes Trump's name, then explicitly advocates raising rates. Democrats have been trying to tie Republicans to a half-baked tax proposal from a single Senator, which has been rejected by more or less the rest of the party. Here's Schumer, Democrats' upper chamber leader, advocating tax increases as the one and only way to curb inflation. It's a killer soundbyte, especially considering that nearly every single Democrat in Congress supports President Biden's $5 trillion 'Build Back Better' spending bomb. The Democratic Party's stance on inflation is to increase federal spending by even more trillions while raising taxes -- including on millions of middle class families, while also carving out a huge tax break for blue state millionaires. Is that an unfair characterization? A newly-elected Democratic Senator was asked point blank about what his party is doing to fight inflation, and let's see if he can serve up a more charitable and cogent explanation:
"When somebody says to you, 'What are Democrats doing to address inflation?' what do you say?"
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 26, 2022
DEMOCRAT SEN. JON OSSOFF: ......................... pic.twitter.com/gzEUwNKPPi
It's like Ossoff memorized a memo packed with talking points about the causes of inflation, replete with admonitions to evince empathy by mentioning how his constituents are hurting, then he just vomited them out in response to the prompt from Bret Baier. But he provides no actual answer. Perhaps he should keep it snappy like Chuck: We are going to raise taxes, and if we can't do it with bipartisan support, thanks to those awful anti-tax-increase Republicans, we will use the Senate's 'reconciliation' tool to do it on our own. Run with this messaging, Democrats. Please. And how's this for a back-up plan? It risks angering the majority of Americans who didn't go to college or take out huge loans. It'll fuel inflation. And it'll further explode the cost of going to college. But Democrats are struggling with young people, so why not try a targeted, unilaterally-attempted, taxpayer-funded bribe?
I guess if you want inflation to go even higher, that could be fun. The "I Did This" stickers have already been printed. https://t.co/anZKe0eeHc
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) April 26, 2022
This will be another major break between Democrats and the working class. Making them pay for the degrees of wealthier Americans while also raising the cost of college even more and putting it further out of reach. https://t.co/nBFsSFksPw
— Rory Cooper (@rorycooper) April 27, 2022
Quote on student debt forgiveness: “The biggest beneficiaries would be white Americans under the age of 40 who have graduate degrees and live in high-income, majority-white neighborhoods — in other words, extremely online Democrats.” https://t.co/vwYLn34QeT
— Brit Hume (@brithume) April 27, 2022
Here's Charles Cooke on what should happen next, if this insanity plays out:
The response to any such move must be to end the federal loan program, tax beneficiaries and universities to cover costs, investigate colleges for fraud, and destroy the accreditation cartel. https://t.co/P067NfUYSC
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) April 27, 2022
If President Joe Biden follows through on his threat to unilaterally “cancel” all, or any, of the $1.7 trillion in federally held student-loan debt, the Republican Party must respond to the move by taking an industrial-grade flamethrower to the status quo until it is reduced to ashes. What Biden is considering would be an act of political, economic, and constitutional warfare, and Republicans at both the federal and state levels would be obliged to immediately treat it as such by salting the earth as soon as they possibly can.
The GOP should also appeal hard to the coalition of Americans -- a large majority -- who didn't go to college, chose to forego expensive options out of a sense of personal responsibility, or worked their tails off to pay off their expensive loans. This type of giveaway would represent a terrible moral hazard under any circumstances. It's downright insane to pursue in the middle of brutal inflation, especially within the realm of higher education. There would be a revolt. I asked on television last week, why shouldn't my mortgage be "canceled" or "forgiven" by the government? Exactly this:
Desperate polls call for desperate measures: Dems consider forgiving trillions in student loans. Other bribe suggestions: Forgive auto loans? Forgive credit card debt? Forgive mortgages? And put a wealth tax on the super-rich to pay for it all. What could possibly go wrong?
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) April 27, 2022
And yes, the polls are indeed desperate:
Gallup: Joe Biden's approval drops three net points to 41-56 (was 42-54). Looking at approval among some groups:
— The Wokest Numbersmuncher (@NumbersMuncher) April 27, 2022
Independents 35
Males 36
Females 46
18-29 years old 34
Non-college grads 34
College grads 53
Some ugly numbers for Biden as we kickoff the midterm campaigns.
Mark Penn, a Bill Clinton pollster, in today’s New York Times: "These economic blows are just one element in a cascading set of problems all hitting at the same time. It combines the nuclear anxieties of the 1950s and ’60s with the inflation threat of the ’70s, the crime wave of the ’80s and ’90s and the tensions over illegal immigration in the 2000s and beyond. This electorate is not experiencing a malaise, as President Jimmy Carter was once apocryphally said to have proclaimed, but has instead formed into a deep national fissure ready to blow like a geyser in the next election if leadership does not move to relieve the pressure." ... Americans think the economy is weak, inflation is effectively giving them a major pay cut, the border is being overrun, criminals are roaming unchecked, Covid policy is a mess, Vladimir Putin is more dangerous than ever before, and political correctness amounts to a national gag order. Any one of these things could be enough to cost Democrats the House...America today is facing real, undeniable problems, and most of them are strongly associated with the Democratic Party. The rout is coming, and Democrats are doing almost nothing to avoid absorbing painful punishment in November.
Let's come full circle to another Democrat who almost seems intent on ruining his party's fading chances. Remember Terry McAuliffe's gift-wrapped boost to Glenn Youngkin in Virginia? The fateful, tin-eared debate line about parents' role in their own kids' education? McAuliffe went down to defeat last year, with Youngkin surging on the issue of education. A Biden +10 state went red by 2-3 points. Biden witnessed all of that and decided to try to out-do McAuliffe. Slow clap:
Joe Biden says to teachers about their students "they are not somebody else's children. They're yours when you're in the classroom."
— American Principles ???? (@approject) April 27, 2022
No, Joe, they are not "somebody else's children."
They are OUR children. pic.twitter.com/A5wW3ytRQk
The Republicans may blow major, winnable races through a combination of incompetence, foolishness and vengeful spite -- but the Democrats just keep cruising for a major bruising. And developments like this won't help their cause:
Reality check: the NY ruling likely costs Dems at least three seats they otherwise would have captured under the gerrymander, a devastating result you can't message your way out of. https://t.co/vyLzlQf97N
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) April 27, 2022
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