If you think America is costly now, wait until — heaven forbid — voters give it over to people preaching “affordability.”
On Wednesday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus unveiled what it called its “New Affordability Agenda.” If it ever gets enacted, it’ll go down with “jumbo shrimp” and “open secret” in the great oxymorons of all time.
But don’t listen to the members of the caucus, who are pushing “affordability” as the buzzword for Democrats ahead of the midterms.
Their solutions? Make drug, oil, utility, and grocery companies pay more — and force all companies and taxpayers to provide freebies — under the unsupportable idea that none of these costs will be passed on to you.
“These bills tackle the biggest parts of most American’s budgets, making cheaper: prescription drugs, groceries, housing, utility bills, gas, and childcare,” a media release read. “New polling from Data for Progress shows every single proposal in the New Affordability Agenda is supported by the vast majority of Americans.”
Yes, well, so is Santa Claus giving you every present on your Christmas list — until you’re a parent, of course, which is the problem with this logic.
The first item of business would be “establishing a government program to sell generic drugs at a discount,” which doesn’t sound horrible except for the vagueness of it and the old maxim that if the government were put in charge of the Sahara they’d run out of sand in five years.
The Congressional Progressive Caucus meanwhile promised to make “utilities cheaper by cracking down on for-profit utilities overcharging consumers,” which will supposedly in no way be passed on via other costs or worse service.
They also plan to make “gas cheaper by charging big oil companies a tax on extra profits because of the war, then refunding that money to consumers.” Again, totally won’t be passed on. Also, that email in your spam folder really is from a Nigerian prince, and all you need to get a massive inheritance is give him your account and routing numbers.
Other soak-the-corporations provisions which absolutely, positively won’t trickle down to you, dear consumer:
- “Making groceries cheaper by cracking down on big grocers who fix prices and on companies that abuse seed patents to make farming more expensive.”
- “Making time off cheaper by guaranteeing every worker two weeks of paid vacation time.”
- “Putting money in pockets by requiring companies to pay double wages for overtime, as opposed to the current time-and-a-half standard.”
And when they’re not forcing corporations to pass on the price to you in creative ways, they’re finding ways to get government to make things cheaper by making them more expensive for someone who they swear won’t be you, for real, Scout’s honor.
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