The Build Back Better bill must die

The Build Back Better bill — let’s call it B4 — combined with the infrastructure bill and President Biden’s green energy schemes are unprecedented threats to American national security and economic stability and must be stopped now. It could break America’s back by spurring an ever-larger surge in inflation, leading to Fed curbs, much higher taxes and recession. If the Congressional Budget Office doesn’t spell that out in the clearest terms, it has been politicized beyond redemption. 

Much more important, though, is that Biden’s foreign policy failures in Anchorage with the Chinese, Geneva with the Russians, Afghanistan — which demoralized our allies and encouraged our enemies — and Glasgow, where the Chinese ignored Biden, make it clear that America has little leverage left. A death blow to national security would be to pass any form of B4, which would drain the defense and national security budgets, either through outright cuts or through inflation. And this inevitable American military decline would occur precisely when China is in the middle of a huge military expansion and Russia is feeling increasingly emboldened. 

The central problems are budget and leverage. 

While America is seeing current nominal growth in the stock market, it will be short-lived. The inflation/Fed action will begin to apply the brakes. Supply chain issues will begin to take a bite out of corporate performance, and the inevitable increase in taxes to cover these huge spending bills will finish the picture. Warning: Never believe a politician who claims that a huge spending bill will “pay for itself.” 

This administration’s semantics have converted the word “infrastructure” to mean anything at all. The same is true for “budget.” The White House fails to understand that the real world is a set of trade-offs among possible ways to spend money, money that is actually available, and the real economy that creates money. If any form of B4 is passed, it will divert money from defense and national security and strain the overall economy. The real question is whether the many political faction Christmas gifts in B4 are worth the risk to national security and the economy. The answer is a resounding “No.”

The climate conference in Glasgow provided the global dimension to America’s leverage problem. First, Biden’s fiascos have destroyed nearly all of America’s political leverage on the world stage. Additionally, by demolishing America’s energy independence, Biden has driven up the price of energy to U.S. consumers and industry and vastly weakened the economy. Biden now begs foreign producers to increase production to bail us out, and they’ve refused. At the same time, the drive to bet America’s future on solar and wind, which require massive batteries that won’t exist for decades to store sufficient energy, and huge expansion and overhaul of the electric grid, which can’t be done for decades, puts the entire economy at risk. Add to that the inevitable sharp electricity price increases and lower reliability from solar and wind energy, and the consequences to American industry and households are clear. 

Glasgow proved that our enemies understand all of this and know that B4 may be a decisive blunder, even though the White House is clueless. Along with the military buildup, China is massively expanding its coal-fired energy production through 2050. It is happy to sell America solar power systems assembled by slave labor, but it has no interest in destroying its own economy with a plunge into solar and wind. Similarly, Russia is left laughing that “woke Europe” will be largely dependent on Gazprom for winter and industrial gas supplies, thanks to Biden’s implicit green light on the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. The bottom-line message from Glasgow is that America is welcome to commit suicide with immediate solar and wind and B4, but it will have absolutely no effect on the environment nor climate change. Biden has squandered American political leverage and B4 is the final nail. 

To add insult to injury, Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate, John Kerry, still cannot grasp that his hugely expensive, candy-man diplomacy — that is, America will give you billions or trillions of dollars if you promise not to pollute or build nuclear weapons — is a global joke. 

B4 will make America the first national candidate for the Darwin Award. 

So, what are the politics of defeating the bill? The recent election results are clear to everyone but the Democratic Party leadership. The majority of American households know what the words “budget” and “price inflation” really mean. They will also quickly grasp the meaning of “reliable energy,” “insufficient storage” and “cultural collapse.” In political terms, that means that power is shifting to moderates in Congress who have the spine to say no to B4, to increases in the debt ceiling, and to precipitous destruction of America’s critical energy systems. 

Save America, “B4” it’s too late. 

Grady Means is a writer (GradyMeans.com) and former corporate strategy consultant. He served in the White House as a policy assistant to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. Follow him on Twitter @gradymeans1.