Joe Biden's Mad Woke Tax and Spend Program

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced a new tax and spend program, misleadingly called the American Jobs Plan, as if jobs aren't created in the free market for everyone.

The spending side is a crony collection of government programs that would make LBJ jealous, with a massive amount of wokism thrown in to justify the programs. From the plans fact sheet:

• [U]nlike past major investments, the plan prioritizes addressing long-standing and persistent racial injustice. The plan targets 40 percent of the benefits of climate and clean infrastructure investments to disadvantaged communities.
•  Solidify the infrastructure of our care economy by creating jobs and raising wages and benefits for essential home care workers. These workers – the majority of whom are women of color – have been underpaid and undervalued for too long. 
• The plan also will ensure that Americans who have endured systemic discrimination and exclusion for generations finally have a fair shot at obtaining good paying jobs and being part of a union.
• Eliminate racial and gender inequities in research and development and science, technology, engineering, and math.
• The President’s plan will invest in vulnerable communities through a range of programs, including FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, HUD’s Community Development Block Grant program, new initiatives at the Department of Transportation, a bipartisan tax credit to provide incentives to low- and middle-income families and to small businesses to invest in disaster resilience, and transition and relocation assistance to support community-led transitions for the most vulnerable tribal communities
• Address longstanding public housing capital needs...These improvements will disproportionately benefit women, people of color, and people with disabilities.

When I hear about these kinds of programs, it brings to mind an old 1970s Murray Rothbard clip about government urban renewal programs (2 minutes and 11 seconds):

And that is not to mention the protectionism, evil union support and industrial policy parts of the plan.

The tax side is a bigger horror.

The plan calls for a corporate tax increase from 21% to 28% .

The plan also imposes a 15% tax on the financial-statement income of companies if they don’t otherwise pay that much.

Overall, Biden’s corporate tax increase alone is more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years, with another $1.5 trillion coming soon on individual income and investment. That’s about $300 billion a year, or 1.36% of GDP each year, assuming U.S. GDP of $22 trillion, notes The Wall Street Journal.

What needs to be understood about the plan is that it distorts the economy and is an expansion of government.

Aside from questionable infrastructure programs and woke programs, the plan through taxation pulls money away from the investment sector and the private wage sector. In other words, it is a grand crony, central planning program that will produce a general decline in the standard of living by shrinking the proven productive private sector.

- -RW