America's Talking - Episode 23: CBO says Biden spending plan adds to deficit

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

CBO says Biden spending plan adds to deficit. Lawsuits challenging Biden's private sector vaccine mandate consolidated, sent to Sixth Circuit. Biden loses legal battle, COVID confidence as vaccine mandate stalls. FBI 'tagging' parents fuels debate over school boards, parental rights. Energy companies to Biden: Poor policy decisions are responsible for spike in energy costs 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 and Focus, powered by thecentersquare.com. I'm Cole McNeely. Coming up, we'll take a quick look at one of the top stories from thecentresquare.com. And later, executive editor of the Center Square, Dan McAulb, and DC reporter Casey Harper, will take a deeper dive into some of the top stories of the week. Coming up right after this on America and Focus, powered by thecentresquare.com. Hi, this is Chris Krug, publisher of the Center Square. produces the nationally read and recognized news stories at the center square.com, the country's fastest growing,

nonprofit, nonpartisan, state-focused news and information site. We deliver essential information with a taxpayer sensibility through reporting that's easy to understand and easy to share with your friends and family. We know that you need information that allows you to understand what the governor and your local legislators are doing. Get the news that you need to know at thecentersquare.com. That's the center square.com. Square.com. Border Patrol agents encountered nearly 130% more people at the southern border this year than last, according to new data published by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The greatest number of encounters was in Rio Grande Valley in Texas, and the greatest percentage increase was in Yuma, Arizona. To read more about these stories and many others, visit thecenter square.com. Now for a closer look, it's Dan McAulb and Casey Harper. Thank you, Cole, and welcome back to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me for another week of exciting conversation about what's going on in our nation's capital is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. Casey, next week is Thanksgiving, which is probably my favorite holiday of the year.

What are you thankful for this year, Casey? I'm thankful. I just celebrated one year of marriage, something definitely to be thankful for. Congratulations. You have any traditions? We do at annual, every Thanksgiving, we have our calorie burning kickball game. We work off our guilt by playing some kickball. That sounds like fun. Unfortunately, I'm going to be in an area where there's probably going to be snow,

so I won't be playing kickball outdoors. Every year for the last eight or nine years, most of my extended family, my mom, my brother, my two sisters are out east of me. I'm, of course, in the Chicago suburbs. So we're driving to my mom's home in Pennsylvania, providing that an anticipated snowstorm doesn't occur when we're scheduled to drive that way. So looking forward to it, hopefully the weather cooperates, but we'll have to see. All right, Casey, let's get into it.

We are recording this on the morning of Friday, November 19th. As we speak, the U.S. House is preparing to vote on President Joe Biden's 1.1.1.1. $8 trillion social spending bill. This comes after the Congressional Budget Office last night, Thursday night, released its analysis of what passage of the bill would mean. What can you tell us about this, Casey? Well, I can tell you that President Biden's fingernails are bloody because he has been scraping and clawing and doing everything he can to get this through.

So, you know, he cut a deal a few weeks ago with some of the more progressive Democrats to convince him to vote on the infrastructure bill, even though he hadn't secured everything he needed for the reconciliation plan. Now, that was risky on their end, but I don't know what he told them. He purportedly made several phone calls to leading progressive Democrats who were holdouts, but he told them something, and he made some promises, and now it's time for him to fulfill those promises in their mind. And so, you know, some Democrats, you call them more moderate Democrats,

had said, we can't vote on this bill until the, CBO estimate is released. CBO is a congressional budget office. They're supposedly a nonpartisan, for the most part, group that basically scores and says officially how much this bill is going to cost over how many years because, you know, believe it or not, politicians and administrations might mislead people about the actual cost. Yeah, you know, and there's a, and the Biden administration has suffered a lot of accusations of accounting gimmicks, you know, there's certain provisions in the that just expire randomly after a couple years to make the math work. Because if it was a full 10-year program, it would be too expensive.

So in the bill, it expires after two years, it's called the sunset. But, you know, why would you institute this whole new program just for two years? It's very likely you're going to try to re-up it or extend it after the bill's passage. But by breaking it into smaller pieces, it makes it seamless expensive and masks the true cost of the bill. So things like that. But CBO came out Thursday evening and there was a couple of big things about that. One, they said that the bill will add to the deficit. Now, if you've been paying any attention at all, you'll have heard the administration really on repeat saying this is paid for.

This bill is paid for it. It'll add nothing to the national debt, which has already gotten a lot of criticism because it's pretty hard to spend a couple trillion dollars and, you know, just assume it's all paid for and going to cost nothing. I think that smell test was a little suspicious for a lot of people on that. But it's not too far away, you know, a few hundred billion dollars, depending on, you know, the different costs. It's pretty complicated, you know, because they're going to beef up and increase the IRS enforcement. So another thing we've reported on a lot is that Biden is going to have a lot more auditors and spend a lot of money on the IRS so they can audit more Americans. And, you know, there's a lot of debate over how much money that would actually bring in. But I'll have to say, you know, Biden, you know, he did, he gave the moderate Democrats what they wanted.

The CBO estimates here. And even though it says that the bill will add to the deficit, they're just plowing ahead with the vote. And we'll see. I mean, it still has to go to the Senate. So we'll see what happens. So, of course, Democrats have have a slim majority in the House. They could afford to lose a couple of votes in the House. The Senate of the Senate is split even 50, 50.

between Democrats and Republicans. A Democratic West Virginia, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin has been one of the most vocal in opposition to the bill if it does add to the deficit. So what are the, I mean, I know what you're guessing, but what are the chances in the Senate? Yeah, I mean, maybe by the time our listeners hear this, think something different will have happened. But I think that there's, whether, which way the vote will go, I'm not sure, but I think one thing that does seem more sure is there's going to be more negotiation. I don't think that this whole, you know, the CBO passes and 12 hours later we're trying to vote on this bill. I don't think that that kind of thing's going to happen. It's important to know that the Senate bill is not the same as the House bill, if I'm correct. So there's differences or small

differences. They haven't been. So even that you could say a CBO score on the House bill, you know, what does that have to do with the Senate bill? You know, so they don't have, the bills aren't identical. Now the costs are probably somewhat similar, but I think that Manchin has shown a lot of insistence that he doesn't want to vote for this. Biden's, the Democrats, heavy losses in Virginia in the election was really foreshadowing and scared a lot of Democrats about what could be coming for them in 2022. Inflation is getting worse and worse, and it's causing a lot of Democrats to pause. And of course, Republicans have been harping on this and saying, hey, now it's not the time to print another $2 trillion to, you know, go through our wish list. You know, let's hold off. Let's deal with inflation.

So, man, you, Dan, flip a coin and tell me if it says heads or tails. And then that's what I'll tell you. Heads. All right. It's not going to pass. There you go. All right. More to come on that one. Other big news this week. President Biden last month instituted a private sector vaccine mandate on businesses with 100 or more employees requiring businesses to make sure that their workers are either vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 testing. A number of lawsuits have been filed

by red states and business groups and others across the country. There was news on The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans last week put a halt to it citing grave constitutional concerns over it. There were some more news this week about all of those cases being consolidated into one. What do you know about this? Sure. I think I'll probably toss this back to in a second because I know you covered this recently as well. But just to give a little bit of – I think one thing that's confusing is people, there's several mandates and which one is being challenged, which one is being struck down as a little confusing. So there's, I mean, there's kind of three big buckets. One is the federal employees. So Biden, you know, issued an executive mandate that if you work for the federal government or you're a federal contractor, you have to get vaccinated. So that's one. The Department of Defense with Joe Biden's sign off enacted another mandate that said if you work, if you're a U.S. service member, Army, you know, Navy, anything like that, you have to be vaccinated as well.

And the third bucket is Biden instituted. All private companies with at least 99 employees, 100 or more employees, have to ensure that their employees are vaccinated or they can suffer really heavy fines. I mean, and if they have, if they put up a fight for a few weeks or months, we could be talking millions of dollars if they're a company of that size. So the private sector mandate is the one that has. already, you know, taking a big loss in court. But these have been, these have been combined, right, Dan? Yes, 34 lawsuits earlier this week. By the way, Casey, what do you've been doing

all week if I got to step in and write this stuff? Hey, I'm just, just kidding on the beach, you know, a lot going on in Washington, D.C. So 34 of these lawsuits, all of the ones that were filed by state governments challenging the private sector mandate were consolidated into, sent to the sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, one of the attorneys in the Louisiana case, I spoke to him for this story. He expects this case to get to the U.S. Supreme Court as early as December. Of course, the private sector mandate was supposed to go into effect on January 4th. OSHA charged with enforcing the mandate and regulating it. came out this week and said it was suspending implementation of the program as it works its way through the court system.

But we could see the U.S. Supreme Court weighing on this as early as next month. Yeah, one Pinoa, please. Oh, sorry, Dan. Yeah, that sounds great. I'm sure that was great. Whatever you sound. I'm busy on assignment here down in Miami, you know, just working hard while you're covering. No, I'm just kidding.

I'm going to schedule a meeting with us in HR here after we're done recording. We can't afford HR. You know that. No, definitely. And still in D.C., got to be here for the CBO stuff. But it's a this is, you know, this really may seem independent, but it ties into the previous story because this is an issue that is really matters a lot to voters and plays into the whole, you know, how are Democrats going to handle the next election? And these things start to pile up unpopular vaccine mandates. And even if they're just mildly popular, if it's flip 50-50, you know, half the country isn't too excited about it.

But the half that are being forced to do it or who are being threatened to lose their jobs or who don't support it, they're really, it's getting a lot of enthusiasm. And I think you're going to see that in November. So this thing start to add up with inflation, with all the COVID policies, with all the school board stuff. These things are mounting. And I think these are the things that are in the mind of these, you know, Joe Manchin's been a politician for a long time. He knows, he knows how to, you know, see what's going on to read the tea leaves. And these things are starting to add up.

And I think that's why you're seeing a lot of skittish Democrats. Right. Let's move on then, Casey. More news on the attorney general, Merrick Garland, ordering the FBI to monitor parents, upset parents, who show up at school board meetings protesting curriculums such as the teaching of critical race theory, such as COVID-19 restrictions and things like mask mandates for children in schools. A couple of U.S. congressmen this week leaked some internal FBI memos that they got.

What can you tell us about this? Yeah, I mean, I just foreshadowed this. Talk about issues at Rala voters. This one was really deciding one in Virginia. It's parents, school boards, parents feeling like they can't have a say or they're being told to sit out and shut up while the professionals handle their kids. So, you know, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced earlier this year that the FBI would be investigating some of these parents who had been allegedly harassing school board members. You know, you've seen a lot of rowdy, although not really violent school board meetings around the country. You know, you've had like one arrest and that guy that will get. get into his case, but it seems like he had pretty good reason for being upset. And so there's a lot

of raucous meetings, a lot of anger around, you know, COVID policies in schools, around critical race theory, around, you know, even some transgender bathroom policies, around some explicit, sexually explicit content that is in students teaching, you know, materials. I think part of what exposed this is kids were home for a year, you know? Kids were home with their parents for you. And a lot of parents are like, what are you learning? But what is this? You know, parents kind of had to watch their kids go to school for a year and they said, wait a minute, this is, what is this? You know, I don't think I agree with this. I can't believe you're having to read this. So parents, you know, were forced to be even more and more involved in their kids' education. So they've been speaking out

and the National School Board Association basically sent a request to the federal government, which they have since withdrawn, actually, asking, you know, parents to, or asking the, you know, federal law enforcement to protect these meetings. They withdrew it after the controversy, but the FBI is still plugging along. And so these, uh, Mary Garland came and testified before Congress and he basically told everyone, don't worry about this, that this is not, you know, not that big a deal. We're not going to be using the Patriot Act to spy on parents or anything. And then within a few weeks, there's already released memo that they're threat tagging certain parents. And so raises a lot of questions of, does this, you know, violate, um, the privacy of these parents? Um, our parents,

really a threat when there's been no violence. And, you know, people would say we have a lot bigger things the FBI can be worrying about, like, the rising crime all around the country. A violent crime has been soaring in the last year or two. And then that's question. And this is always the big question is how does the government decide who's the threat and who's not? And is how much room is there for abuse when you ask that question? So you referenced this letter from the National School Boards Association, which essentially compared these parents who were upset showing up at these school board meetings to domestic terrorists. That really upset not just parents, but even state school board associations who are members of the National School Board's

Association. Just somewhat breaking news. The Illinois Association, of school boards last night, Thursday night, voted to end its membership with the National School Board's Association, citing this letter. And that now makes 13 state school board associations that have discontinued its membership with the national organization or stopped paying dues to it. And 26 state school boards associations have distanced themselves from the association because of the controversial letter. So these states associations, essentially the National School Board Association sent this letter without any input from its state members. It sent it on its own, didn't let anybody know when it was doing it. And that's got state groups across the country withdrawing from the National School Board's Association.

Go ahead. Well, I think that's probably going to continue. I think they're cleaning up this mess. And I won't add too much to it. But I'll just say that the media has really tried to characterize this as I think that, you know, we don't attack the media too much here. But I think there's been some disingenuous characterization, mischaracterization. in the media of these are all just racist parents or these are racist groups that are pushing all this.

But, you know, it's pretty widespread. And I got to tell you, Illinois does not fit the profile of, you know, racist, southern, backwood state that is just fighting against critical race theory. You know, it's more too than that. It's much more complicated than just race. Parents want to be involved. And if a blue state like Illinois is this upset, then you know that something's really going on. Right. There's one more thing on this story. We referenced A.G. Merrick Garland a couple of weeks ago, he testified before Congress or before a congressional committee about this, where he said the FBI was not, you know, tagging or targeting parents. But after these internal FBI documents were released that have said they, in fact, were state, or, excuse me, U.S. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio and some others are fired off letters to the Attorney General asking him if he, essentially lied to Congress. You think anything will come on that? Sadly, I don't. The FBI and top law

enforcement agencies in recent years and even some of the generals have just shown how highly politicized they can be, that they can lie to Congress, that they can cover for administrations or go against administrations with, you know, not that much repercussions. And so I think it's a real problem in the country right now, actually. And I don't think much is, there's not going to be much repercussions. I'll probably call him back in front of Congress, and he'll, him and Hall about how this is some new thing. It's not technically what he said, and this is new since he testified. Fake news. There's just not enough political, yeah, there's not enough political will to put the DOJ head really in trouble over something like this. All right, time for one more story,

Casey. News this week that President Joe Biden asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into whether oil and gas companies are essentially improperly raising the price of gas and other energy sources. And then the oil and gas industry fired back saying it's not, we're not cluding, it's poor federal government policies. Tell us more about this. Sure. Just as a preface of the story, we're no major defenders of oil companies. They have their, you know, flaws just like any other large corporations of different things you're doing. But we spoke of the smell test earlier. And essentially, you know, since Biden has taken office, gas prices have just skyrocketed.

You know, it's a dollar 20, a dollar and 20 cents more expensive today than it was a year ago to buy a gallon of gas. And of course, this is played into, you know, I've listed these issues with inflation and school books of things. This is another big one. I mean, it's politics, you know, 101 that if gas prices are up, you're in trouble if you're the ruling party. This is something that affects all Americans. It's something that has changed so quickly that it's really easy to blame on this administration. And especially when this administration has been pretty heavy-handed on regulations, you know, shut down the Keystone pipeline, did, you know, stuff preventing federal drilling. And, of course, Democrats are always talking about climate change.

So people, the American people are probably already suspicious of Democrats when it comes to this issue. Even if they support some of their climate change measures, they know that the Democrats are the one who crack. down on oil companies. And so costs have been skyrocketing. The last 12 months, energy costs overall, not just gas prices, but all energy costs have increased 30%, which is a lot. It's more, the most of it has increased in one year and over a decade. And so this is, you know, creating a lot of a political headache for Biden, let alone the, you know, financial headache it's causing for tens of millions of Americans. But it's creating a lot of problems for Biden. He tried previously to blame OPEC, but that didn't really work for him. You know, the overall, you know, the overreaching.

overseas oil conglomerates. But, you know, because people said, well, you know, just a couple years ago, we were not dependent on OPEC. So how can you blame OPEC now? Because we've, you know, been energy independent. So if we're blaming OPEC for our problems, that's your fault. And so that didn't really work. Some time went by. And now he's sent a letter to Lena Con who leads the Federal Trade Commission. And he's asking her to investigate, quote, anti-consumer behavior from the oil companies. And he's saying that their profits are still going up and essentially blaming the oil companies saying that they're the reason that gas prices have gone up so much. And let's talk a little bit about energy prices, too. There have been reports that as we head

into the winter months, the cost to heat your home could be as much as 50% or even a little bit more higher than the cost was to heat your home last year. I referenced up top, I'm going to be traveling next week, driving to visit my family in Pennsylvania, and of course, driving back, it's more than a thousand miles on the road. That's going to be a lot more expensive to me, and millions of Americans are going to be traveling, of course, this holiday season. So it's going to be more costly for them. And then on top of that, you've got Christmas season, Hanukkah season and all that coming up. The cost of all consumer goods have gone up. So that's got to be, front and center, top of mind for working families across the country.

Yeah, and you're right. And I don't think this is really a deflection in my mind that Biden is conducting. And I don't think it's going to work because, one, he's focusing on oil and gas prices here. But as you mentioned, all energy costs have gone up. So, you know, the natural gas companies, I mean, all kinds of, you know, electricity producers all around. And so it's, you know, it's not just oil. You know, if you said oil companies are colluding to raise prices, people might buy that. But it's not just oil.

There's all energy, all types of energy, is up 30%. And the other side of this is for those who believe that, you know, oil companies are out to get them or are out to extort for profit, which, you know, may some credence to that argument. But they were just as, quote, quote, evil last year as they are this year, right? And the difference is that there's a new president. There's a new administration. And so it doesn't really, I think back on the smell test, I think for a lot of people, it doesn't pass the smell test that oil companies were well behaved the last few years. But now that Biden's in office, they've just gone rogue and they're extorting Americans

and raising prices. Like, well, maybe the oil company's already been there for years. The changed variable has been a new administration. And so I think it's going to be hard for him to get out from under this. I think he's actually going to have to tackle. this problem. If gas prices keep rising at this rate and inflation keeps rising at this rate, this time next year, Dan, I really think we're going to be sitting in a totally red Congress. You're predicting next year's elections? Well, this is the kind of a prophetic insight you only get

at the center square, you know, a year out. But I'm just with the big qualifier of if gas prices continue to raise at this rate, if inflation continues to raise at this rate, I do think that Democrats are in big trouble. There you have it. Don't even need to hold the elections next year. Casey is calling it. Well, I don't know about that, but, you know, sure. That's how the fake news will report it. All right, Casey, that's about all the time we have this week.

Thank you, as usual, for your insights and I don't know what's going on inside the Beltway. Thank you, listeners. We'll talk to you next week. This has been the America In Focus podcast.