Posted originally on the conservative tree house on October 27, 2021 | Sundance | 103 Comments

The New York Post has an excellent expose’ [See Here] showcasing just how manipulative the legislative tricks are within the mega-trillion dollar human infrastructure and Build Back Better bill.

As anticipated by most political observers, the Democrats are using budgetary tricks to avoid the Congressional Budget Office putting a real price tag on their legislation.  The article is easy to understand even though the legislative tricks are far beyond anything any congress has ever attempted.

(New York Post) – After months of criticizing Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for balking at the original $3.5 trillion price tag, congressional Democrats are finally accepting reality and paring President Biden’s social welfare package to between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion over the decade.

Does this mean they are responsibly removing the bill’s worst provisions and crafting fiscally sustainable legislation? Of course not!

Instead, welcome to the gimmick Olympics, where progressives are using classic accounting tricks to hide the true cost of the bill.

Instead of producing legislation that truly costs $2 trillion over the decade, lawmakers are crafting as much as $4 trillion worth of new initiatives, but simply using fake expiration dates to score only a few years of each proposal. The idea is to create new federal programs, hook the constituencies on new federal benefits, and then assume that future Congresses and presidents will not dare to allow them to expire. Those assumed extensions will then blow up the cost far above today’s $2 trillion sticker price.

For example, the March stimulus law temporarily expanded the child tax credit from $2,000 to $3,000 per child (and $3,600 for children under the age of 6), and expanded eligibility to higher incomes. Democrats have made clear that they want this policy made permanent at a cost of $1.3 trillion over the decade. Yet the initial reconciliation proposal expanded the policy for just four years, and now the White House is calling for just a one-year extension — effectively hiding nearly $1.2 trillion in upcoming costs. Congress already renews a small number of tax cuts each December, and the child credit will simply become another annual extender.

But the gimmick Olympics do not stop at the child credit. The White House has reportedly proposed three- to four-year expiration dates for other initiatives such as paid family leave, Medicaid expansion and new ObamaCare subsidies. A proposed new child care program — which a study by the left-wing People’s Policy Project shows could raise child care prices by $13,000 per year — would reportedly phase in slowly and expire after a few years. On the other side of the gimmick window, a new Medicare dental benefit would be delayed until 2028, and then have its costs jump once outside the 10-year scoring period.

Most cynical of all is the Democrats’ maneuver on the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. The $10,000 cap is set to expire at the end of 2025, but House Democrats want to eliminate it immediately. So to “pay for” that immediate $90 billion-per-year tax cut, Democrats would actually impose a new SALT cap beginning in 2026 — count that future revenue as an offset — and then quickly cancel the tax before it ever goes into effect. In other words, they are creating entirely fake future policies in order to count the fake savings today. (read more)

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on October 27, 2021 | Sundance | 320 Comments

Attorney General Merrick Garland appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about his involvement in the drafting of a DOJ memo to the FBI requesting support for investigations of parents who attend school board meetings across the country.

While the topic is downplayed by U.S. corporate media, the specifics of the issue are pertinent in that they highlight the politicization of the Justice Department by DOJ officials throughout main justice and the various offices of U.S. attorneys.

Garland was prompted to write his instructions as an outcome of the White House coordinating with leftist political operatives within the education system, specifically the National School Board Association.

It seems apparent, from the questioning and responses today, that Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco was the central DOJ official who coordinated the political intent of the memo.  Monaco was previously President Obama’s homeland security advisor and lawyer in the White House.  Within the main justice structure, Lisa Monaco is now the head of the DOJ National Security Division, the agency given the prosecutorial power within the Garland memo.

The background of the memo involved parents becoming aware of Critical Race Theory (CRT), essentially Marxist lesson plans within various regional school boards.  The parents responded to the information by confronting school boards across the nation.  The left-wing political operatives were caught off guard by the massive assembly and grassroots organization of parents in almost all states.

The CRT and education issue galvanized across party boundaries as Republican, Independent and Democrat voters -who are also parents- united in a common cause against the Marxist indoctrination material that is akin to the same playbook that triggered the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Quickly awakened parents and concerned citizens were confronting the issue, and their commonality became a political risk to Democrats.  This triggered contacts from various left-wing organizations to the White House.

The Joe Biden White House -filled with Obama ideologues- responded to the threat of intense political damage, by organizing pushback against parent groups through the various educational organizations, teachers unions and community activists.  Their assembled strategy resulted in the letter from the National School Board Association, to the DOJ into the awaiting hands of DAG Lisa Monaco.

Monaco, having previously seeded the discussion within Main Justice about the political threat, then organized and helped draft the memo quickly signed by AG Merrick Garland.  The NSBA letter arrived on Friday, and the AG memo instructing the FBI to target parents was signed the following Monday.  Everything in the background of the issue highlights how the political needs of the White House become the focus of activity by the U.S. Justice Department.

In essence, the Merrick Garland memo highlights how the DOJ is weaponized against the political opposition of the White House; this is the larger issue.

Given the recent examples of the DOJ being weaponized against their political opposition, the Garland memo is seemingly just another data point in an endless assembly of data-points that prove just how corrupt the U.S. system of justice has become.  However, just because corruption is rampant and transparently obvious does not mean we should allow ourselves to become numb with anticipation of that corruption.

Action to address that corruption starts at the local level with a committed and engaged citizenry who actively address and hold accountable their local school board members and educational officials.

The intent of the Garland memo was to frighten parents away from the corruptions within the education system with the threat of the FBI investigating them.   If you allow your behavior and expectations to change based on fear, those who count on fear to manipulate the outcome will win.

Many people view these confrontations by Senators as nothing more than public displays that amount to no accountability.  In part, that is correct; however, it is not the responsibility of a senator, any senator, to confront the school board member where the origin of accountability needs to reside.

The role of a U.S. Senator is to hold the federal arm of the DOJ accountable and put them on notice.  This is what they are doing.  The role of the engaged citizen is to address the educational manipulation on a local level.  You cannot abdicate your responsibility to confront corrupt activity in your neighborhood to Washington DC.  It is the role and responsibility of the parent/citizen to deal with that corruption.

Snarking at Senators for confrontational hearings might feel like a good way to deflect our responsibility.  However, all it does is erode the foundational principle behind our constitutional republic which is built upon individual rights and responsibilities that start at the local level.   Those who believe the federal government should address local school board issues, are, by nature of their argument, asking for a larger system of centralized government.

Ted Cruz:

Josh Hawley:

Mike Lee

John Cornyn:

Chuck Grassley:

Posted in 1st Amendment, Big Government, Big Stupid Government, Cold Anger, Deep State, Dept Of Justice,