Still More Evidence That Bidenomics Is ‘Working’

Thirteen days after President Joe Biden told the nation that “Bidenomics is working,” the Congressional Budget Office released a report showing just how well it’s working – bankrupting the country far faster than anyone expected.

The report looks at spending and revenues for the first nine months of this fiscal year, which started in October. What it reveals is remarkable, both because it shows how reckless the Biden administration has been with spending and how it’s sapped the economy of strength.

The topline number is that the federal deficit so far this fiscal year has already topped $1.4 trillion, which is $875 billion higher than the same months last year and bigger than the deficit for all of fiscal year 2022.

The CBO finds that overall spending this year is running 10% higher than last year. At the same time, revenues are down 11% compared with last year, which defies claims by the administration that the economy is strong.

In June alone, spending was up $97 billion compared with June 2022, while revenues were down $40 billion. The result was a 56% increase in June’s deficit.

Look a little deeper and the numbers are even more disturbing. The CBO notes that the huge increase in spending this year came despite the fact that COVID-related outlays – tax credits, grants to states, and public health spending – plunged $265 billion.

What’s more, the CBO shows that a huge portion of the spending increases are directly the fault of the Biden administration. Bidenflation helped push Social Security spending up 11% and Medicare 17% this year. Meanwhile, the Fed’s attempts to rein in inflation hiked interest payments on the national debt by $135 billion – a 37% increase. The bank failures that Bidenomics unleashed added $52 billion in Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) spending. And Biden’s student loan bailouts added $22 billion to education spending (a 15% year-over-year increase).

On the revenue side, income tax revenue plunged 21% in the first nine months of this fiscal year, while corporate income taxes were flat. Both suggest an economy that is much worse than we’re being told.

The nation’s fiscal picture is also worse than the CBO had expected at the start of this year.

“Receipts collected through June 2023,” it said, “were about $300 billion less than CBO projected, mainly because of smaller-than-anticipated collections of individual and corporate income taxes.” The deficit is already above what the CBO had projected for all of fiscal 2023.

Biden and his team of handlers think they can gaslight the country by repeating the mantra about a strong economy, 30 million new jobs, and $1.7 trillion in deficit reductions. It’s easy for Biden to get away with this because he knows the mainstream press will eagerly play along.

But numbers don’t lie. And unless economic ruin is Biden’s goal, Bidenomics is an unmitigated disaster.

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board