10/16/20
In recent weeks Joe Biden has tried to distance himself from the “Biden/Sanders Unity Task Force Recommendations” or B/S UTFR and the Green New Deal by extension after President Trump tried to pin him down on his $4 trillion budget during their debate. Then earlier this week Biden starts touting his plan to retrofit 4 million buildings in 5 years and 2 million retrofitted homes in the same time frame all to “Net Zero” standards. Can you remember “shovel ready jobs”? These homes and building are part of a massive infra-structure strategy that is straight out of the B/S UTFR section on Climate Change. This section is sprinkled with phrases like “issuing executive orders”, “seeking additional legislation”, “establishing task forces”, and “new regulations”. It also speaks of “cutting red tape” and “streamlining requirements”. These goals are going to be difficult if not impossible to achieve given the contradictory nature of their own language. You can’t have both. The main thrust of Biden’s argument is the number of jobs this program will create, but the hurdles they have placed in front of themselves are daunting. They are talking about federally mandated programs requiring state and local governments to comply. This opens a legal battle between states’ rights vs. federal government authority that clearly will occur with our fractured political landscape. The Democrats have thumbed their noses at federal authority and championed states’ rights in recent years when the question of sanctuary cities and states arose. Now they’re going to reverse course and take the position that states have no rights at least on this subject. They will also try to make unrelated federal spending in recalcitrant states contingent on their acquiesces to these policies. This should be rich indeed. There has been little or no talk of how they’ll pay for this. Oh, the occasional vague mention of leveraging private investment to retrofit municipal buildings and schools in the B/S UTFR, but how? On the Biden campaign web site there is mention of a $2 trillion accelerated investment for various sustainable initiatives, but no reference to private investment. This is one more thing that we’ll find out if or maybe when they’re elected. They’re going to blow up the budget that is already sky high due to Covid spending.
Make no mistake if this could be done through private investment it would be a boon to the economy. But given the Democrats penchant for new regulations as stated in the B/S UTFR, their insistence on re-instituting all the regulations the Trump Administration has done away with plus their inherent distrust of business it is unlikely that these ideas will happen in 10 years let alone 5 years. This is one more Democrat money pit that will end up costing 3, 4, 5 times the projected investment. This plan is not business friendly and will labor under the burden of excessive regulations.
I would like to spend a few minutes on the B/S UTFR from which this proposal emanates. If you have read this document as I have, you’ll know that all these sections are inter-twined. None of this happens without triggering something in another section such as a union labor requirement or renewable energy requirement. It will be very hard for Joe to do any part of this without prompting calls from his allies to adhere to the agreement. There is talk of all these products being made in the U.S. which sounds good. Given the fact that Joe has spent almost 50 years sending jobs overseas with the trade deals’ he’s voted for this will be a change. His newfound commitment to the American worker is laudable or should I say laughable. My question is how long will it take to ramp up production? Years in my opinion to make the quality and quantity of these products suitable for the high standards of “Net Zero”. This proposal is farfetched and lacks realistic goals. You must have a realistic expectation of achieving your goals. This may be visionary, but the rosy economic outlook is not credible. At least in the time frame they’re talking about. In the meantime, our economy will go back to Obama level growth of less than 2%. I’m guessing you’re forgetting that Obama was managing the decline of America’s economy, his words not mine. I know, I know, it was a vibrant economy. Well vibrant is defined as “full of energy and enthusiasm”. Really no, no Really? I remember 2016 and the only energy and enthusiasm wasn’t with Obama or Clinton. So just look at the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, and you’ll see it was inconsistent and nowhere near vibrant! Once again. Troubling!
