After almost 16 months in office, what is President Biden’s track record on fiscal policy?
The good news is that his big tax-and-spend plan to “build back better” has not been approved by Congress (and fingers crossed that it stays that way).
The bad news is that he has done other things, such as getting a fake stimulus though Congress, as well as a so-called infrastructure package.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget put together an estimate of his major initiatives.
By the way, the CRFB folks fixate on how these initiative impact the deficit. What we really should be concerned about is how much money is being spent.
But let’s set that aside and focus instead on a jaw-dropping claim from the White House.
Even though all of his major initiatives have increased red ink, he is patting himself on the back for lower deficits.
For what it is worth, Biden’s claim is semi-accurate. It is true that budget deficits are temporarily falling.
But not because of him. Instead, red ink is falling because there was massive, one-time, multi-trillion dollar emergency spending for the COVID pandemic in 2020. That spending began to wind down in 2021 and it has mostly dissipated this year, so of course deficits have fallen.
For Biden to take credit for this drop would be akin to Truman taking credit for the big drop in red ink after World War II ended.
Eric Boehm of Reason wrote a column that debunks Biden’s ludicrous claim.
…this year’s budget deficit is forecasted to be the third or fourth-largest in American history—but President Joe Biden claims…his administration is overseeing a period of fiscal austerity. …Here are some words that actually tumbled out of the president’s mouth at a press conference… “We’re on track to cut the federal deficit by another $1.5 trillion by the end of this fiscal year. …on top of us having a $350 billion drop in the deficit last year, my first year as president,” Biden continued. …Those facts, however, exclude a few key details. …Biden took office the year after the budget deficit hit previously unimaginable highs due to a completely unprecedented spending binge triggered by a once-in-a-generation public health disaster. …if you look at the actual budgetary baselines published by the Congressional Budget Office—that is, the ongoing amount of annual federal spending absent any emergency stimulus bills like the ones passed on several occasions during the height of the pandemic—Biden has overseen a noticeable increase in the deficit above the pre-pandemic baseline. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog group that advocates for lower deficits, Biden’s policies have added about $2.5 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
Brian Riedl is now with the Manhattan Institute, but we used to work together earlier this century at the Heritage Foundation. One of his admirable traits is that he hasn’t lost the ability to be outraged.
That comes through in his tweet about Biden’s supposed accomplishment.
By the way, I’m not making a partisan point. I have no doubt Trump would have done the same thing.
After all, politicians are probably the least ethical people in the nation. And Washington brings out the worst of the worst.
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Image credit: Gage Skidmore | CC BY-SA 2.0.
