The "Build Back Better" Bill Will Spend a Lot of Money To Make Our Problems Worse

You can support pre-K education and affordable child care and worry about climate change while understanding that policymakers need to get out of the way.

Should we ignore the costs of the "Build Back Better" bill and simply focus on the benefits? Wouldn't that be nice? Unfortunately, the most constructive criticisms of the legislation reveal why the magical thinking behind this monstrously expensive spending package will not improve American society.

In urging us to focus less on costs, economist Alan Blinder asserts: "The House bill includes several real winners. Do you oppose universal pre-K education? You shouldn't; it works. Are you against more-affordable child care? Not many Americans are. Do you think we should ignore global climate change? If so, think again."

But these assertions are weak. You can support pre-K education and affordable child care and worry about climate change without believing that heavy-handed government is the best answer. A compelling case can be made that the most effective policy lawmakers could follow to achieve these goals is simply to get out of the way. Indeed, it's likely that a great deal of the BBB legislation will obstruct progress.

Start with pre-K education and child care. It sure does sound good to promise that this massive spending bill will lower what parents pay for pre-K education and child care more broadly, but it won't.

First, the legislation doesn't address why child care is so expensive in the first place. More people seeking it will only collide with ill-advised government restrictions on the supply of such care—restrictions like the excessive occupational licensing and credential rules that prevent plenty of qualified people from offering their services. A bill that truly aims to reduce the cost of child care would remove these restrictions and allow parents to choose any capable provider.

BBB doesn't lift any restrictions and adds more. As University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan explains, "the bill requires that child-care workers be paid a 'living wage' and that their earnings be 'equivalent to wages for elementary educators with similar credentials and experience.'" As a result, child care will become even more expensive for all families that don't qualify for "free" child care.

How much more expensive? Well, it depends how regulators implement the rule. But Mulligan notes that "elementary-school teachers earned an average of $63,930 annually in 2019, compared with $25,510 for child-care workers. By that benchmark, child-care facilities would need to pay workers 151% more." Matt Bruenig, founder of the left-leaning People's Policy Project, made the similar point that if child care workers were paid like teachers, it would increase middle-class child care costs by $13,000 per year.

Meanwhile, universal pre-K might increase moms' labor force participation, but we should not blindly assume it will be good for children. A recent paper on the effects of a universal child care program in Quebec that followed the children into their teens finds that "there was a large, significant, negative shock to the preschoolers' noncognitive development and health of children exposed to the new program, with little measured impact on cognitive skills," including "increases in early childhood anxiety and aggression."

Making matters worse is that, as some economists have noted, these provisions would create incentives for single parenthood. That's because a dad's income only counts against the child care subsidies received by a mother if they are legally part of the family, and vice versa. This, alongside the disincentives to work like the expanded child tax credit, could spell problems for those children the government is trying to help.

How about climate change? Well, it's amazing that here again legislators are more interested in subsidizing green companies than stopping some of the government's own problematic behavior. For all the demonization of oil and gas companies, the tax code and various agencies throw massive subsidies their way.

Climate solutions are mostly in the hands of private-sector innovators. As Arthur Diamond explains in Openness to Creative Destruction, his 2019 book, "In a system of innovative dynamism, creative inventors will find ways to reduce global warming, and innovative entrepreneurs will find ways to adapt to it." These innovators need capital, but BBB's increases in taxes on capital would ultimately lead to fewer investments in climate innovations.

As we've seen many times, green subsidies will line the pockets of the influential companies that are already involved in the space. That means we shouldn't expect many new entrants into this market—just lots of distortions in an area where we need real competition.

While the cost of this legislation is astronomical, the so-called benefits turn out to be costs, too.

Regarding so-called “Build Back Better” legislation, patriots are reminded of the following.

The states have expressly constitutionally authorized only themselves, not the unconstitutionally big federal government, to tax and spend for the things that alleged election stealing, elite pirate Democrats and RINOs are politically promising with Biden's constitutionally indefensible “Build Back Better” bill, just another example of unaccountable, unconstitutional federal spending imo.

Such legislation is based on state powers, and uniquely associated state revenues, that the very corrupt, post-17th Amendment ratification Congress has been continuously stealing from the states by means of unconstitutional laws and taxes that Congress cannot reasonably justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers imo.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”Simply this, that the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Constitution, is in the States and not in the federal government [emphases added]. I have sought to effect no change in that respect in the Constitution of the country.” —John Bingham, Congressional. Globe. 1866, page 1292 (see top half of third column)
"[...] a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." —Justice Louis Brandeis, Laboratories of Democracy.
"From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]." —United States v. Butler, 1936.

The bottom line is that patriots need to primary incumbent state lawmakers who don't agree to use their 10th Amendment powers to help eliminate the unconstitutional middleman, the unconstitutionally big federal government, from "helping" the states to manage their affairs, including revenues.

Insights welcome.

The ultimate remedy for unconstitutionally big, alleged election-stealing, Democratic Party-pirated federal and state governments that manufacture crises to oppress everybody under their boots...

Consider that all the states can effectively “secede” from the unconstitutionally big federal government by doing the following.

Patriots need to primary federal and state elected officials who don't send voters email ASAP that clearly promises to do the following.

Federal and state lawmakers need to promise in their emails to introduce resolutions no later than 100 days after start of new legislative sessions that proposes an amendment to the Constitution to the states, the amendment limited to repealing the 16th and ill-conceived 17th Amendments (16&17A).

In fact, I challenge the states to ram the repeal amendment for 16&17A through the ratification process faster than Nancy Pelosi irresponsibly rammed unconstitutional Obamacare through the House. /semi-sarc

Again, insights welcome.

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