The Patriot Post® · Massive Spending Costs 'Zero Dollars'?

Joe Biden really should get a job hawking his wares on the Home Shopping Network, because his latest “As Seen on TV” pitch just took things to a whole new level.

“Every time I hear this is going to cost A, B, C, or D,” Biden said of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending monstrosity, “the truth is, based on the commitment that I made, it’s going to cost nothing, because we’re going to raise the revenue.”

“We pay for everything we spend,” Biden insisted. “It’s going to be zero. Zero.”

He later doubled down on that utter falsehood: “My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars. … It adds zero dollars to the national debt.” And his mouthpiece, Jen Psaki, reiterated it: “This reconciliation package would cost zero dollars.”

This line of reasoning is so absurd as to be one of the most laughable things Biden has uttered — and that’s saying something. But rather than role their eyes and say There goes Joe again, other Democrats jumped the shark right along with him. “This is a zero-dollar bill,” insisted Democrat Representative Pramila Jayapal, “because it’s all going to be paid for with taxes on the wealthiest corporations and the wealthiest individuals.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn’t quite buy the “zero dollars” snake oil but instead changed the turf of the debate: “This is not about price tag. This is about what’s in the bill.” She added, “Let’s not talk about numbers and dollars, let’s talk about values.”

Those “values” mean she’s changed her position and is now in favor of putting “infrastructure” ahead of the larger bill. That is sure to outrage the party’s far-left wing.

Where are the Leftmedia “fact-checkers”? Explaining why Biden has a point, even if Congress might fail him in actually getting there.

That failure might come because several Democrats still aren’t quite ready to swallow a price tag as big as $3.5 trillion. Worse, the real rub is that not only is this not $0, it’s far more than $3.5 trillion — more accurately in the neighborhood of $5 trillion, which is roughly $38,000 per taxpayer.

Besides, if this bill costs $0, why are Democrats in a pinch to raise the debt ceiling? They could do it without a single Republican vote, but they want the patina of bipartisanship to cover for their very partisan fundamental transformation. Republicans blocked a first attempt yesterday. Democrats and their Leftmedia propagandists are, of course, blaming Republicans for refusing to go along with an increase and putting the nation on course for defaulting on debt and a government shutdown.

Perhaps Democrats should learn a simple less from economist Milton Friedman: “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”