Over the past nine months, Americans are finding it harder than ever to foot the bill for everything from groceries to healthcare to clothing. Even going to the movies is out of reach for most families. The prosperity of recent years was all too quickly undone by a pandemic and the foolish response to it.

Part of the problem is rampant inflation. Millions of Americans were happy to cash Uncle Sam’s stimulus checks, not realizing they were actually deflating the purchasing power of those dollars flying off the Federal Reserve’s printing press. The government flooded the country with demand, but supply has been unable to keep up.

But there’s another important reason why we can’t make ends meet: taxes. The person who came up with the idea that government should get its hands on a cut of our hard-earned money before we even receive the paycheck was an evil genius. Since we never see the money in the first place, taxes don’t have the same impact as if we had to write a check every week to the IRS. As a result, we seldom think about taxes.

But in reality, Americans spent more money on taxes in 2020 than on all of their other household expenses … combined. This includes federal, state, local, Social Security, and property taxes. Analyzing data from the Department of Labor and Statistics, CNS News reports, “Americans on average paid government $371.23 more in 2020 than they paid for food, clothing, healthcare and entertainment combined.”

Kind of makes the stimulus check an insult, doesn’t it? And people thought the federal government was doing them a favor. Those handouts contributed to inflation, making the dollar worth less than it is already, all while adding to the surging national debt.

Democrats have a solution and, you guessed it, the plan takes a problem they created in the first place and makes it worse.

They want to raise taxes even higher. That’s right. While kids are now back in school — well, the ones not shut out by more foolish COVID responses — and parents try to figure out if they can even keep their job under draconian mandates, Joe Biden and company are trying to push through a $3.5 trillion spending bill to address, you know, real problems like a grossly exaggerated climate crisis.

It would be one thing if we had a surplus of cash in the government’s coffers, but we’re broke. Twenty-nine trillion dollars broke. There is no money. So the only way to fund the $3.5 trillion is to print more money and raise taxes.

Our own Thomas Gallatin explains how these taxes would harm small and large businesses alike, not to mention middle-class taxpayers. We’re talking about wiping out the 2017 Republican tax cuts and several years of economic growth in one fell swoop.

This comes after President Biden promised not to raise taxes on those making under $400,000. “House Democrats have been unable to keep the pledge,” according to The Washington Times. “In crafting the tax changes they hope will pay for their massive social spending bill, they have proposed a series of direct and indirect taxes that will affect all income levels.”

Moreover: “Republicans also point to the various deductions being eliminated, including those for estate taxes, as another rising burden for lower-income individuals. Altogether, the proposal being championed by Democrats amounts to one of the largest tax increases in U.S. history and would be used to pay for a host of liberal priorities, including expanded health care, educational benefits and immigration reform.”

“Pay for.” Heh.

In addition to a few outspoken but powerless Republicans, only Democrat Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have expressed concerns over adding to the budget deficit. This has outraged the Marxist wing of the Democrat Party, which just can’t get enough of wealth redistribution.

Whatever numbers the Democrats eventually settle on, the spending bill will increase taxes, inflation, and the national debt. Then again, none of this should come as a surprise. For now, all we can do is chalk this up as another way the president and congressional Democrats are putting America and Americans last.