boomboomsroom

Politicians make strange bedfellows.  What’s old is new.

Do you know what you get when you cross-breed two old-school famous sayings?  You get Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez(AOC).

Old Bernie turns 80 this coming September.  He’s been doing all of the Vermont people’s business since 1991 in one or the other Halls of Congress.  That’s a smooth 30 years.

Young AOC turns 32 this coming October.    She’s been doing some of the New York people’s business since 2019 in the House of Representatives.  That’s two years and counting.

President Joe Biden revealed his $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan late last week shortly after the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill two weeks prior.  Never mind that the relief bill only had 9% of the money earmarked for direct money to the citizens nor that that infrastructure plan (dubbed the American Jobs Plan) has only about 25% for traditional (roads, bridges, airports) infrastructure repair or improvements.

A BBR staffer bumped into a U.S. Rep Saturday who will remain nameless.  That Congressperson summed the giveaways up perfectly,  “you can sell anything you want when you use the words ‘Covid relief.’  And who can possibly be against ‘jobs’?”  Indeed.  Sounds like a chicken in every pot and pork for all.

But wait, there’s more!  Or at least AOC and Bernie wish it to be so.

AOC applauded Biden’s “vision” on the infrastructure plan but exclaimed that it is not sufficient and “needs to be way bigger.”  She went on, “we’re the richest country in the world, it should be $10 trillion.”

Senator Sanders said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he was working to include “human infrastructure” into President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package.  “One of the areas that I am working on right now is the need to expand Medicare in order to provide dental care and hearing aids and eyeglasses for the elderly. Is that infrastructure? I think it is. Look, Jake, the truth is, in so many ways, we are behind many other countries throughout the world in providing for working families and the elderly and the children. And I think now is the time to begin addressing our physical infrastructure and our human infrastructure.”

Who knew infrastructure had so many definitions?  And, if you can’t hear people blowing horns at you nor see the red light in front of you how can you take advantage of all that new infrastructure?  We digress.

Is it any wonder that AOC backed Sanders’s latest failed bid to reach the Democratic nomination for President?

AOC called us rich and therefore we snap our fingers and can afford it. Oh, to be young and naive all over again.

Sanders makes it overtly simple.  He is a Socialist.

Biden said no one making under $400k will have to pay for any of it.  Well, the corporate tax of currently 21% recommended returning to the previous 28% might cost the consumer a titch we suppose.

“No president has ever raised business taxes to recover from an economic crisis,” Rep. Kevin Brady, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said. “This couldn’t come at a worse time.”  Details, details.

In 13th Century England, Robin Hood robbed from the rich and gave to the poor.  Supposedly.

Robinhood.com, the investor website, got in trouble playing games with GameStop stock a few weeks back.

And now this young (AOC) and old(Sanders) Robin Hood duo are playing a different game that needs to stop.

Margaret Thatcher knew as much many, many moons ago.  She said, “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”