The following was written by Convention of States Action President Mark Meckler and originally published on Selfgovern.com. To sign up for regular editorials from Mark (and other special guests!) click here and scroll down to "Get Email Updates."
I don’t say this often, but here goes: Joe Biden is right.
The President’s recently announced “Build Back Better” plan would fundamentally transform the United States of America. As expressed in the Democratic mouthpiece that is the New York Times, the President’s $4 trillion (!) legislative package would “reshape the U.S. economy and other parts of American life.”
But it won’t be a good thing.
At its core, the “Build Back Better” bill aims to make the American people more dependent on the federal government. It would destroy the spirit of self-governance by injecting federal bureaucrats into virtually every area of American life, and it would turn our children and grandchildren into servants indebted to paying off Washington’s enormous spending commitments.
Here are just a few of the items Biden’s team have leaked to the press.
- Expand Obamacare by increasing the number of Americans eligible for taxpayer-funded subsidies
- Make permanent a provision of Biden’s COVID-19 “relief” bill giving some Americans monthly payments of $300 per child
- Expand the public education system to include pre-kindergarten as well as the first two years of college
- Impose massive spending to “fight climate change”
- Build one million “energy efficient” housing units
- Implement tax credits to “encourage” developers to build “energy efficient” buildings
The plan would also spend $1 trillion on “infrastructure,” something many Republicans say they could support. Building interstate highways and bridges seems like an appropriate task for the government, and the Times reports that the GOP is more open to that portion of Biden’s bill.
Not so fast. Here’s what New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex had to say about the infrastructure portion of Biden’s legislation: “One of the big goals we had when we introduced the Green New Deal was to show how people thought about climate change from being a billion dollar problem to a trillion-dollar opportunity. This infrastructure package generally seems to be shaping up in that kind of framework.”
In other words, far from being the moderate he claimed during the campaign, Biden is pushing exactly the kind of world-changing policies outlined in the Green New Deal by the most radical elements of his party.
I haven’t even covered how Biden is going to pay for it. Right now, the official plan is to raise taxes significantly on “The Wealthy” and “Corporations,” the two most evil entities in American life, according to the Democrats.
But don’t be fooled: this plan won’t work without raising taxes significantly on middle-class Americans. Socialist utopias don’t pay for themselves. To pay for their welfare state, Scandinavian countries tax their citizens at exorbitant rates even if they make middle-class wages. Right now, a $60,000 salary is a good living in most parts of the country; after Biden has his way, an American making that salary will need government assistance to get by.
And that’s the point, right? Biden wants all Americans dependent on government assistance. That way, the federal government will control everything: education, energy, the environment, business, travel, state and local government, and a host of other issues. If We the People need Washington’s checks to put food on the table, we’ll agree to anything Washington wants to do.
We can’t let Biden transform our country. We can’t let the federal government take over. That’s why I helped launch the Convention of States Project. A Convention of States is called and controlled by the states and has the power to propose constitutional amendments that limit the power, scope, and jurisdiction of the federal government.
With these amendments in place, most of Biden’s agenda would be thrown out the window. He might be able to build a few interstate highways, but that’s it. All other topics would be left to the states, where everyday American citizens have a real voice in government.
Biden’s plan would fundamentally change our country, but a Convention of States can restore our founding principles and save future generations from total dependency on Washington.
