Top Democrats are working overtime to pass their multi-trillion dollar Build Government Bigger pork package. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi planned to hold a vote late Thursday and then postponed it until Friday. She's also evaded questions about how many votes the bill currently has. As of this writing, she still hasn't called a vote on this bill. These facts point to one conclusion: she currently lacks the votes to pass the massive spending package, and perhaps the small infrastructure package that accompanies it. "They added seven votes this afternoon," said Representative Mark Green (R-Tenn.) Thursday evening. And still it seems she hasn't reached the 218 votes needed to pass the bill.
"We're going to pass both bills," Pelosi insisted in a press briefing, although she also said the infrastructure package was out for this week. We heard the same message last Friday before President Biden whisked off to Europe and negotiations stalled. But Biden himself is back at it, personally calling Democratic lawmakers to get them on board. White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared, "the president has been very clear, he wants to get this moving."
But Pelosi may have opted to get it past the House at the expense of getting it passed into law. After reducing the price tag from $6 trillion to $3 trillion to $1.75 trillion, the cost has crept back up to $1.85 trillion, as House Democrats re-add provisions Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has warned he will not support, such as paid leave handouts and "budget gimmicks" to disguise the true cost.
Democrats have two basic problems with passing the spending package into law (no, they aren't Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.)). First, they are trying to pass a sweeping agenda with a tiny majority; that gives them no margin for error. Second, their agenda is unpopular. On Wednesday, a Harvard Caps/Harris Poll found only 42 percent of Americans are in favor of the monstrous spending package, while 58 percent of Americans oppose it. That makes it more unpopular than Joe Biden! That could spell disaster for Democrats in competitive districts who are forced to vote for it. Tuesday's electoral results already signaled the 2022 midterms won't be pretty for the Left if these trends continue.
Americans haven't rejected this bill out of ignorance or prejudice. On the contrary, the more they learn about the bill, the more they dislike it. The bill is 2,135 pages, but House Republicans and others have been working identify the most problematic sections. For example, the bill "increases OSHA penalties on businesses that fail to implement the [employee vaccine] mandate up to $700,000 per violation" and "includes nearly a billion dollars in funding for the Department of Labor to increase enforcement of these penalties." The bill funds companies that oppress Uyghurs. The bill radically expands taxpayer funding for abortion.
Worst of all, the legislation would construct a cradle-to-grave welfare state to undermine the family. Biden's bill would have government care for and indoctrinate children for the first two decades of their lives. It starts with free childcare -- but only for parents who go to work and entrust their infants to government caregivers. The bill also provides universal preschool, bridging the gap to government-run public schools, and tacking on free community college. Children will reach adulthood believing what the government desires, not what their parents taught them. To see what the government wants to teach them, witness the horror show in public elementary schools nationwide. For good measure, the bill also increases the marriage penalty. Will the institutions of family and marriage survive trillions of federal dollars spent to destroy them? The better alternative is to sink Biden's titanic spending bill.
