President Joe Biden talks on the phone with King Salman of Saudi Arabia Wednesday, February 9, 2022, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
You may not be able to imagine a scenario in which America’s big government could get even worse, but Joe Biden has found a way. At the Ron Paul Institute, former congressman and presidential candidate, Dr. Ron Paul explains how Biden’s “centrist” budget will make America’s problem with big government even worse. He writes (abridged):
President Biden’s 5.8 trillion dollars fiscal year 2023 budget increases “discretionary” spending to 1.6 trillion dollars. The remaining 4.2 trillion dollars of spending consists of “mandatory” spending, including on Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the national debt. The discretionary spending is divided between 813 billion dollars for “defense” and 769 billion dollars for the rest.
Since Biden’s budget increases military spending and does not call for major new government programs, some have described it as “centrist.” Calling a 5.8 trillion dollars tax-and-spend monstrosity “centrist” shows how far the center of American politics is from the principles of limited government.
Little of Biden’s proposed defense budget will be spent to defend the American people, although it will defend the ability of defense contractors, lobbyists, and war party propagandists to continue littering Northern Virginia with “McMansions.” Biden wants to spend yet more to continue the US’s counterproductive intervention in Ukraine, as well as on NATO and other programs aimed at challenging Russia.
Biden’s budget spends 33.2 billion dollars to support law enforcement. Federal spending on local law enforcement violates the Tenth Amendment and takes a step toward nationalizing the police. A national police force would be a grave danger to liberty.
America may soon pay the price for attempting to fund a massive welfare-warfare state with fiat currency, America’s ham-fisted intervention in the Ukraine-Russian conflict has caused more countries to seek alternatives to the dollar. This increases pressure for the dollar to lose its world reserve currency status. When that happens, the US will face a major economic crisis featuring hyperinflation, massive unemployment, and the growth of authoritarian political movements. The only way these problems can be avoided is if the people demand the federal government stop trying to run their lives, run the economy, and run the world.
Dr. Ron Paul: Former member of Congress and Distinguished Counselor to the Mises Institute.
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