Democrats' Bad Economics and Broken Promises

Democrats told Americans that the consequences of not passing their $1.9 trillion “COVID relief” boondoggle last year would be “dire.” They dismissed urgent warnings about the inflation threat from their supersized plans.

They pointed to the baseline employment projections in the Congressional Budget Office’s February 2021 economic outlook as “a call to immediate action” for their massive spending scheme. They claimed that employment would increase by 7.2 million between the fourth quarter of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2021 if their legislation passed. They tried to scare people into believing the country would add far fewer jobs if their plan was not enacted: Nancy Pelosi warned, “the results could be catastrophic.”   

A year later, and there are 1.1 million fewer people employed than Democrats promised. There are actually 136,000 fewer jobs after President Biden’s first year in office than CBO projected under its baseline before Democrats’ oversized, untargeted law. If the baseline was “dire,” what is 136,000 less than the baseline?

Bad Economics and Broken Promises

Democrats also assured Americans that their out-of-control spending would not cause runaway inflation. Americans have seen this promise crumble too. In December, consumers faced the highest rate of inflation in 40 years: 7%. At the same time, average hourly earnings only increased by 4.7%. The Biden inflation tax outpaced wage gains as the average American household had to spend $3,500 more in 2021 than they did to buy the same goods and services in 2019 or 2020. Wholesale prices in November were the highest on record.

Democrats made grandiose promises about their partisan spending plans. As those promises fall apart, they have tried to contort reality. Job numbers that once were a cause for alarm are now bragged about by the White House, and the president considers more reckless government spending “the biggest weapon in our arsenal” to fight rising costs. Democrats’ economic predictions were wrong, their promises were hollow, and their attempts to spin them now are excruciating.