Last night, we heard a lot about the Biden-Harris record on infrastructure.
They're right about one thing: They threw tons of cash at the issue—more than $1.6 trillion since 2021.
The problem is, we have no idea where most of that money went.
The details are shocking. (1/15)
Biden's big infrastructure "wins" involve four bills: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, the American Rescue Plan, and the CHIPS Act.
The first two alone had a price tag of almost $1 trillion. But only $1.25 billion has actually been spent. (2/15)
We see the same issue with the CHIPS Act—one of Biden's signature infrastructure bills. The law was pitched as a way to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to America.
The bill appropriated $52 billion. Two years later, less than $1 billion has been formally awarded. (3/15)
Here's one more example: Last night, Biden boasted that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law's $5 billion electric vehicle program had built "500,000 charging stations all across America."
As of February 2024, the actual number is eight. (4/15)
So what's going on? In this thread, we'll be looking at @ThomasHochman's new essay on this for @AmericanAffrs.
We'll use the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—one of Biden's biggest infrastructure bills—as our case study for how things went wrong. (5/15)
The CHIPS Act took a relatively simple approach: The government gives grants directly to specific manufacturers.
But the IRA favored a different approach—one that has increasingly been favored in industrial policy circles: Doling out tax credits to eligible recipients. (6/15)
Here's where things get crazy. Nearly all of these credits are uncapped, which means there's no limit on how many the government can dole out.
And because they enjoy IRS confidentiality, nobody knows how much we're spending or what we're spending it on.
Hochman writes: (7/15)
While IRA's original budget was roughly $369 billion, the real cost is now projected to be closer to $1 trillion over the next decade—more than triple the original price.
"The spending under the law is therefore not just hard to track; it’s also theoretically unlimited." (8/15)
Even worse, the IRA has few restrictions on "foreign entities of concern."
In other words, the bill was pitched as a way to fund clean energy jobs for Americans—but a lot of the cash is probably going to China, which dominates the industries the IRA is pouring cash into. (9/15)
Chinese companies have made up nearly a quarter of new "American" solar capacity since IRA was passed.
And on top of that, "many IRA-funded companies will source their raw materials from Chinese manufacturers and their components from Chinese suppliers," Hochman writes. (10/15)
Republicans—at least, the ones who are paying attention—have been publicly sounding the alarm about the fact that American dollars are flooding to China en masse.
Marco Rubio, in particular, has introduced multiple bills to try to block China from accessing IRA funds. (11/15)
But the White House has shown little interest in addressing the issue—or even acknowledging it.
The issue is bigger than IRA. Chinese companies have been making a killing off of a whole suite of programs in Biden's various climate and infrastructure bills.
Per Hochman: (12/15)
To add insult to injury, Hochman writes, we're now seeing "the rollback of the very provisions that were meant to increase American manufacturing independence." (Emphasis ours)
The infrastructure law's "Made in America" mandate was waived to make EV chargers in...China. (13/15)
All of this undermines the central political pitch of Biden's climate, infrastructure and manufacturing agenda.
The argument was that these bills would lead to good jobs for American workers and make us more competitive with China. We heard it again at last night's DNC: (14/15)
America does need an industrial policy. We do need manufacturing. We must reshore critical supply chains.
Republicans should be articulating "a vision for industrial policy," Hochman writes. But we "will need to be clear about what that policy is trying to achieve." (15/15)
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The Left believes that the West has to be punished for its historic sins. That's the animating principle behind their policy agenda.
Don't believe us? We'll show you. 🧵 (1/15)
In 1927, the economist Ludwig Von Mises coined the term the "Fourier complex": A "pathological mental attitude" in which "one so hates somebody for his more favorable circumstances that one is prepared to bear heavy losses if only the hated one might also come to harm." (2/15)
This is the impulse lurking beneath the surface of the entire left-wing program today. All the nice-sounding buzzwords—"justice," "human rights," "equality," etc—are just rhetorical window dressing.
The Left's fundamental conviction is that the West deserves to suffer. (3/15)
The Inflation Reduction Act spent $2.2 billion on reparation-style payments for minority farmers.
The payments went out last week.
Biden promised to "embed equity" at every level of government. Now, he's following through.
Do you know where your tax money is going? (1/9)
The Biden-Harris administration originally wanted to simply funnel $4 billion directly to black and minority farmers — explicitly discriminating against whites.
But that effort stalled out in the face of lawsuits from white farmers.
So they had to get creative. (2/9)
Instead of explicitly awarding tax dollars on the basis of race, Democrats tucked a "Discrimination Financial Assistance Program" into the Inflation Reduction Act.
Under the new rule, farmers could receive cash if they "experienced discrimination" prior to 2021. (3/9)
In his first public appearance in weeks, Joe Biden called for radical reforms to the Supreme Court—including term limits for judges.
This is why the Left wins. They're relentless. They never stop pressing their advantage.
Their war against the Court is a perfect example. (1/9)
The Left's arguments on this issue are always just a means to an end. There is no actual argument for packing the Supreme Court, for example. The Left barely even tries to pretend otherwise.
They want to "reform" the Court because they don't control it. That's it. (2/9)
The fact that they’re renewing calls to "expand the Court" now gives the game away. Why are they calling for it now? Not because of some well-reasoned, altruistic philosophical argument, but because the Court delivered a ruling that conflicts with their partisan interests. (3/9)
This is a lesson on how the media shapes our politics.
The press wanted Biden out. So they gave him the Trump treatment—burying him in an onslaught of negative news.
In a few weeks, he caved.
Now, the focus is changing once again. They've shifted back to the real enemy. (1/9)
For the brief period of time that the press was arrayed against Biden, everything seemed to suddenly come into place for Republicans. They were elated. The wind was in their sails. Victory seemed to be inevitable.
Biden was isolated—under siege. Trump had all the momentum. (2/9)
But many Republicans didn't fully realize why. Yes, Biden was a terrible candidate. Yes, Trump had just survived an attempt on his life.
But the through-line in all this was that the press was suddenly treating Trump better than they ever had before—or ever would again. (3/9)
The GOP has tried to do this for years. It never works.
Conservatives are supposed to be tough on crime. We should be hitting Kamala from the right—not the left.
We'll show you why. 🧵 (1/12)
A lot of conservative influencers are parroting the line that Kamala "locked up" too many criminals—originally a far-left attack on her in the 2020 Democratic primaries.
This is bad politics and bad policy. And it betrays our own base on one of our strongest issues. (2/12)
First of all, you can't mock left-wing "identity politics" and then complain about Kamala locking up "black men." As D.A., she prosecuted criminals of every race. Exclusively making it about black people plays into all kinds of bogus left-wing narratives about racism. (3/12)