DML Morning Briefing Thurs. Apr. 1: Biden vows to ‘rebuild the backbone of America’

By  Team DML

Today is April 1 and I am Dennis Michael Lynch. Below are my opinions on the stories grabbing headlines this morning. I hope you share this briefing as doing so will make you the smartest person in the room, in my opinion.

1 – Biden unveils $2.5 TRILLION infrastructure spending bill and tax increase proposal

Biden tax increases threaten small businesses
Fox Business reports:President Biden on Wednesday unveiled details of a sweeping $2.25 trillion infrastructure that would be funded by dramatically raising the taxes paid by U.S. corporations, an increase that could have a detrimental side effect on the U.S. economy, according to one analysis.

The eight-year initiative, dubbed the American Jobs Plan, comes on the heels of Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. The White House said it will pay for the latest package by raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21% — rolling back part of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts — and increasing the global minimum tax on U.S. corporations to 21% from 13%.

But recent findings from the Tax Foundation show that Biden’s plan to raise corporate taxes would reduce GDP, the broadest measure of goods and services produced in the country, by 0.8% and eliminate 159,000 jobs. It would also reduce workers’ wages by 0.7%, the nonpartisan organization said.

Wall Street Journal warns: Mr. Biden’s corporate tax increases will hit the middle class hard—in the value of their 401(k)s, the size of their pay packets, and what they pay for goods and services. This damage won’t show up immediately, especially as the economy booms as Covid eases this year, but the corrosive impact will compound in the coming years.

Only a small percentage of Biden’s bill funds infrastructure
Breitbart reports: President Joe Biden detailed his massive infrastructure spending proposal Wednesday, but only about 25 percent of the $2.5 trillion bill funds basic infrastructure, according to a fact sheet summary of the bill.

The proposal spends roughly $639 billion on traditional infrastructure. The rest of the bill’s spending includes massive spending on climate change initiatives such as development for electric vehicles and charging stations, electric school busses and federal vehicles, and clean energy technology.
• $115 billion – highways and roads
• $25 billion – airports
• $15 billion – coastal ports, land ports of entry and ferries
• $85 billion – to modernize existing transit systems
• $80 billion – to fix Amtrak’s repair backlog
• $111 billion – to replace country’s lead pipes and services lines, upgrades to drinking, waste and stormwater systems
Other spending includes:
• $400 billion – expanding health care
• $213 billion on affordable housing, research training, development programs

DML: “Biden vows to ‘rebuild the backbone of America”…. Happy April Fool’s Day.

2 – Ocasio-Cortez eyeing $10T over 10 years for infrastructure
The Hill reports: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) late Wednesday called President Biden’s $2.25 trillion infrastructure package “encouraging,” but said the U.S. could need as much as $10 trillion over 10 years to invest in infrastructure and boost jobs and other priorities across the country.

“The vision that President Biden and the administration has laid out … has surprised a lot of us in a positive way and in the detail and the thought that’s here, the scope of it, is really encouraging,” Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.

However, the progressive lawmaker added that she has “serious concerns that it’s not enough,” calling for officials to “go way higher.”

Ocasio-Cortez said that the U.S. could “realistically” need $10 trillion over 10 years to “create tens of millions of good union jobs in this country, that can shore up our health care, our infrastructure, our housing and doing it in a way that draws down our carbon emissions.”

DML: Does AOC know anything about managing money? Anything? Where does she think it comes from???

3 – Biden’s DHS Rewarding Border Crossers with One-Year Permits to Live in U.S.
Breitbart reports: President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is rewarding border crossers with one-year permits to live in the United States, a new report confirms.

In a press conference this week, Former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Chief Mark Morgan said the Biden administration has released a total of 45,000 border crossers and migrants into the U.S. interior.

Many of the border crossers, as detailed by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Todd Bensman, are being rewarded one-year permits to live in the U.S. in a process known as “parole.” The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can eventually extend these permits.

Once in the U.S. interior, border crossers are able to apply for work permits via the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency to take U.S. jobs. Border crossers, Bensman reports, are boarding Greyhound buses after they are given parole to travel to states like New Jersey, Florida, Michigan, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, Texas, and Georgia.

DML: Here come your new neighbors. And they won’t be leaving.

4 – Los Angeles top prosecutor to erase gang unit, sources say
Fox News reports: Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor is reimagining, renaming and downsizing to eliminate a unit within his office that handles gang-related cases, sources told Fox News.

The unit is slated to be “decentralized” under George Gascon’s leadership, with a number of prosecutors in the Hardcore Gang unit expected to be transferred to other units. The unit currently has around 700 active cases.

Branch offices will get a “Special Trial Lawyer/Gang Coordinator” to assist prosecutors in absorbing the cases. No new gang or gun allegations will be filed.

Critics of the move argue it will result in more violence in communities.

In a statement to FOX Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva called the move a “suicide pact.”

DML: This is indeed a “suicide pact!”  Outrage!

5 – Brit Hume calls out ‘dishonest’ PolitiFact for grading his description of Biden as ‘senile’ false
Fox News reports: Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume fired back Wednesday at the liberal-leaning PolitiFact for an October “fact check” attempting to debunk his description of then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as “senile.”

“Elderly people experiencing memory loss and other problems associated with age can go for periods, for hours at a time and be just fine,” Hume said ahead of the first debate between Biden and then-President Trump on Sept. 29 of last year.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt Biden’s senile, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to show up tonight … And now that the expectations for him have been set so low, you know if he comes out and doesn’t drool and gets through everything pretty well, it could end up being quite a boost for him,” Hume said.

PolitiFact labeled Hume’s statement as “false,” citing “geriatric experts” before acknowledging that “[s]enility is not a precise medical term but is often used in place of the more precise and accepted medical term of ‘dementia,’” of which the experts said Biden “does not exhibit signs.”

DML: PolitiFact is _______ well, YOU fill in the blank!