America's Talking - Democrats Vote to ‘Rein in’ Biden’s Executive Orders

Episode Date: March 5, 2023

Nearly 60 House Democrats voted with Republicans in the U.S. House Wednesday to put a check President Joe Biden’s executive orders. The House voted on the REIN IN Inflation Act, which would require the Biden administration to publish the “inflationary impact” of each executive order before issuing it. The bill passed 272-148 with 59 Democrats in support. “Pushing one big-spending policy after another, President Biden has continued to throw fuel on the inflationary fire,” House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said on the House floor. “That fire is rapidly consuming the wages of our constituents. They have had to pay higher and higher prices for everything from eggs to electricity – all while inflation pushes their real wages farther and farther behind.” Join The Center Square's Dan McCaleb & Casey Harper. --- Listen to Other ATN Productions: America's Talking: An interview podcast hosted by Austin Berg. Guests include professors, journalists, artists, business and nonprofit leaders, authors, and more. Everyday Economics: Join economist Dr. Orphe Divounguy and Chris Krug as they discuss global markets, inflation, and everything else that will help you understand the economic world around you. Future of Freedom: Future of Freedom is a bi-weekly podcast highlighting the work of the non-profits which are shaping the future of the freedom movement. Listeners will hear civil, intellectual conversations about why the organizations exist, what their mission is, and how they work to achieve it. Hosted by Scot Bertram. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America in Focus. I am Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau's chief. The national debt has been a big topic of conversation and significant concern. The national debt now tops $31 trillion on its way to $32 trillion. And Democrats join Republicans, some Democrats, join Republicans this week in casting a key vote on essentially reining in President Biden's executive orders that would add to the national debt. What happened here? You're right.

This was really a big story. The bill in question doesn't do, that doesn't really that broad or sweeping. But to see nearly 60 Democrats, 59 Democrats voted for a bill to rein in the incumbent Democratic president when it comes to inflation and spending was pretty interesting. and it did get some pickup online. So it's the House voted on the Rain and Inflation Act. It passed 272 to 148, as I said, 59 Democrats in support. And the bill basically, it applies to executive orders that impact more than a billion dollars. So just, you know, something small doesn't require this.

But for larger executive orders, it requires the president to release an official estimate of how this will impact inflation. So it requires, you know, the Office of Management, budget and the Council of Economic Advisors to get together and say, hey, this executive order, you know, for example, the student debt. Loan debt, forgive that. Yeah, student loan debt would be an example of something the president really did unilaterally is going to have a big impact on the economy.

You would have to actually estimate how much the inflationary impact this is going to have. So, you know, one sense, Ombi is somewhat trustworthy, but they are still part of the Biden administration or the incumbent president, whoever that is, they're administration. So often those numbers are a little rosier than maybe others. You know, there's going to be a little more biased than something like the Congressional Budget Office, I'd say. But it's still, you know, a way that Congress is using their power to put a check on the president and say, hey, your executive orders are getting out of control. We need to rein them in. And we need to know how much, how this is impacting inflation, which is something we've talked

about a lot. You know, inflation is sore since Biden took office, food and energy prices in particular. have really risen. And so to see dozens of Democrats get behind this, it says, wow, this is more serious than just a Republican messaging bill, which is what it seemed like at first. And I wonder, could this even pass in the Senate? Right. So it's passed in the House and now goes to the Senate. And of course, it would still also need the president's signature to become law. But you referenced, if this were to pass, something like this could be used, for example, on Biden's executive order. to cancel up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 a year, but up to $20,000 in debt for Pell Grant recipients. That was done by executive order of President Biden.

Congress did not pass that. So this is something that could be used in a case like this. But Biden's executive order canceling student loan debt also was challenged in courts. court this week heard arguments in that case. Tell us a little about that. Yeah, that's right. It was really interesting listening to these arguments because it almost seemed, you know, it's hard when you listen to these arguments you're trying to read between the lines and what the justices say. Sometimes the justice can ask really hard questions, but then they vote, you know, they vote in favor of the thing that they interrogated. So I'm always a little more reluctant than other media outlets to make assumptions about how justices feel based on their tone

in questioning. But a few themes that arose were it seemed almost as if the state, they didn't quite do this, but they were also admitting that they couldn't really prove that the president had the legal authority to do this, to cancel this day. You know how do it without Congress's input. Right. Most of the debate did not center around that idea, which is really interesting. What it centered around was whether the group the state bringing the lawsuit challenging the student that actually had legal standing to do so. So it was kind of a more technical nuanced argument. And to me that communicated that the federal government felt their best chance to win this case

was not really to focus on the legal authority of the president because they don't have much to point to in that regard, but to focus and to challenge the state's actual ability to sue in this case because you have to have standing, you have to have been injured in some way. You have to prove that a law injured you. It's called injury, you know, to actually file a lawsuit. And it's really hard to prove that giving someone else money actually injures you personally, legally. So this has always been a question with how this case was going to proceed. But anyway, still to say, the legal authority, I think, definitely seemed to lean against the Biden administration.

We've seen this, you know, you remember the eviction moratorium. Biden did this eviction moratorium as law of the land, the Supreme Court's like, hey, you can't just, yeah, you can't just make an moratorium on things with the stroke of a pen. I mean, so that's not the only thing Biden has kind of had its wrist slapped on. So if it's really going to come down to the standing on that Supreme Court case, but as you said, I mean, we're talking, it's nearly half a trillion dollars when it's all said and done, when you include all the cost of the deferment. interest payments. Yeah, we're in the neighborhood of half a trillion dollars. Wow. Of course, another story you wrote on just briefly, Casey, because we don't have a lot of time this week, is that the cost of interest payments on the national debt is going to, it's huge already. But over the next decade, it could surpass what we spend on national defense, on national security. Right. I mean, this was a really kind of an alarming story to me. And I can't believe more people aren't talking about it. But, you know, Congressional Budget Office, they release these forward-looking projections for the spending debt, the economy, all these things. And they found that we're going to spend about $10.5 trillion just on interest payments on the national debt in the next decade, which is an incredible amount of money.

And it's actually more, as you said, that we'll spend on national defense in that time. So, or rather, our spending on, on interest payments will surpass our spending on the national debt. And actually, if you just keep, the interest payments just keep rising. So the, we're only, we're not that far out from spending on the interest payments being the largest expenditure for the federal government. Wow. So if you're passing even entitlements, this, and we're not, it's not that that's like Medicare, In 244, we'll spend more money on the interest on the national debt than we'll spend on Medicare. 2050 is Social Security.

So, and those, you know, of course, our biggest entitlements in defense are, you know, some of our biggest items. So just the cost of having the debt is actually going to surpass the benefits Americans are even receiving from their tax dollars. It's hard to wrap it for the average American average consumer. It's hard to wrap your mind around 31. 32 trillion dollars with that many zeros in the number. But make no mistake, taxpayers are going to be on the hook for this. Taxpayers are on the hook for this.

So this is an important story. Listeners can keep up with this ongoing story about the national debt and more at the center square.com. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McAulb. Thank you for listening. Freedom and liberty are important to all of us. If you're looking for civil, intellectual conversations with those shaping the future of freedom, try the Future of Freedom podcast with me,

Scott Bertram. We speak with leaders across the country in the greater conservative and libertarian movements. In-depth conversations about where the next intellectual battles will happen across the country. It's the Future of Freedom Podcast. Find it at America's Talking.com or wherever you get your podcasts.