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The laughably-named "Inflation Reduction Act" will double the size of the IRS - making it larger than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol...combined! And that will save money? Also today: under (government?) pressure, CBS censors its own report on US weapons to Ukraine. And...is the end of "woke" entertainment on the horizon?
By Ron Paul
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “surprise” trip to Taiwan last week should be “Exhibit A” as to why interventionism is dangerous, deadly, and dumb. Though she claimed her visit won some sort of victory for democracy over autocracy, the stopover achieved nothing of the sort. It was a pointless gesture that brought us closer to military conflict with zero benefits. As Col. Doug Macgregor said of Pelosi’s trip on a recent episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, “statesmanship involves advancing American interests at the least cost to the American people. None of that is in play here. … Posturing is not statesmanship.” Pelosi’s trip was no outlier. Such counterproductive posturing is much celebrated by both parties in Washington. Neoconservative Senators Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham were thrilled with Pelosi’s stop in Taipei and used it as a springboard to push for new legislation that would essentially declare war on China by declaring Taiwan a “major non-NATO ally.” The “one China” policy that, while perhaps not perfect, has kept the peace for more than 40 years is to be scrapped and replaced with one sure to provoke a war. Who benefits? Foolishly taking the US to the brink of war with Russia over Ukraine is evidently not enough for Washington’s bipartisan warmongering class. Risking a nuclear war on two fronts, with both Russia and China, is apparently the only way for Washington to show the rest of the world it’s serious. The Washington Post’s neoconservative columnist Josh Rogin accurately captures the mindset in Washington DC with a recent article titled, “The skeptics are wrong: The US can confront both China and Russia.” For Washington’s foreign policy “experts,” those of us who don’t believe a war with both Russia and China is a great idea are written off as “skeptics.” Count me as one of the skeptics! During the Cold War there were times of heightened tension, but even in the darkest days the idea that nuclear war with China and the Soviet Union could be a solution was held only by only a few madmen. Now, with the ideological struggles of the Cold War a decades-old memory, such an argument makes even less sense. Yet this is what Washington is selling. The US fighting a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine and Nancy Pelosi provoking China nearly to the point of war over Taiwan is meant to show the world how tough we are. In reality, it demonstrates the opposite. The drunken man in a bar challenging everyone to a fight is not tough. He’s foolish. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose from his display of bravado. That is interventionism at its core: a foolish policy that provokes nothing but anger overseas, benefits no one in the US except the special interests, and leaves the rest of us much poorer and worse off. There may be plenty to criticize about China’s government and policies. They are far from perfect, particularly in protection of civil liberties. But have we already forgotten that our own government shut down the country for two years over a virus, and then forced a huge number of Americans to take an experimental shot that is proving to be as worthless as it is dangerous? Let’s look at the log in our own eye before we start lobbing missiles overseas. America was never meant to be an empire. After all, empires go broke! Why would any nation ever want that? Human life is much (much) too complex for one nation, or one government, to rule them all. Sadly, in the early 1900's, Americans ditched sound money, with the creation of the Fed, and ditched the belief of non-intervention in the affairs of other nations. It's been all downhill ever since. 
Florida State Rep. Anthony Sabatini, in a recent candidate forum, dared to make a stand for non-interventionism in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He was interrogated by neocon moderator Marc Levin who could not believe anyone could advise staying out of the war, calling the Florida Rep’s views “the most radical I’ve ever heard.” Sabatini held his ground…and the crowd roared in approval.
In Arizona, Michigan, and elsewhere, Trump-backed candidates like US Senate hopeful Blake Masters pulled off victories in yesterday’s primaries. Is this the shape of things to come? Also today, more fallout from Pelosi’s perverse Taiwan junket and Russia accuses US of direct involvement in Ukraine war.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made good on her threat to be the first US House Speaker to visit Taiwan in a quarter of a century. The Chinese government is furious and threatening retaliation. Are there any benefits to the US of Pelosi's provoking China?
RPI's Daniel McAdams tells students at the 2022 Mises University that foreign policy is central planning at its worst. Government spends billions on corrupt foreign leaders like Zelensky and Americans bear the financial burden and the existential risk. This speech was recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, July 30, 2022. 
By Ron Paul
The Affordable Care Act, No Child Left Behind, and the USA PATRIOT Act received new competition for the title of Most Inappropriately Named Bill when Senate Democrats unveiled the Inflation Reduction Act. This bill will not only increase inflation, it will also increase government spending and taxes. Inflation is the act of money creation by the Federal Reserve. High prices are one adverse effect of inflation, along with bubbles and the bursting of bubbles. One reason the Federal Reserve increases the money supply is to keep interest rates low, thus enabling the federal government to run large deficits without incurring unmanageable interest payments. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act increases government spending. For example, the bill authorizes spending hundreds of billions of dollars on energy and fighting climate change. Much of this is subsidies for renewable energy — in other words green corporate welfare. Government programs subsidizing certain industries take resources out of the hands of investors and entrepreneurs, who allocate resources in accordance with the wants and needs of consumers, and give the resources to the government, where resources are allocated according to the agendas of politicians and bureaucrats. When government takes resources out of the market, it also disrupts the price system through which entrepreneurs, investors, workers, and consumers discover the true value of goods and services. Thus, “green energy” programs will lead to increased cronyism and waste. The bill also extends the “temporary” increase in Obamacare subsidies passed as part of covid relief. This will further increase health care prices. Increasing prices is a strange way to eliminate price inflation. The only way to decrease health care costs without diminishing health care quality is by putting patients back in charge of the health care dollar. The bill’s authors claim the legislation fights inflation by reducing the deficit via tax increases on the rich and a new 15 percent minimum corporate tax. Tax increases won’t reduce the deficit if, as is going to be the case, Congress continues increasing spending. Increasing taxes on “the rich” and corporations also reduces investments, slowing the economy and thus increasing demand for government programs. This leads to increasing government spending and debt. While there is never a good time to raise taxes, the absolute worst time for tax increases is when, as is the case today, the economy is both suffering from price inflation and, despite the gaslighting coming from the Biden administration and its apologists, is in a recession. The bill also spends 80 billion dollars on the IRS. Supposedly this will help collect more revenue from “rich tax cheats.” While supporters of increasing the IRS’s ability to harass taxpayers claim their target is the rich, these new powers will actually be used against middle-class taxpayers and small businesses that cannot afford legions of tax accountants and attorneys and thus are likely to simply pay the agency whatever it demands. Increasing spending and taxes will increase the pressure on the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low, thus increasing inflation. If Congress was serious about ending inflation, it would cut spending — starting with overseas militarism and corporate welfare. A Congress that took inflation seriously would also take the first step toward restoring a free-market monetary system by passing Audit the Fed and legalizing competition in currency.
When government claims that it's going to make something (anything) "more affordable" or "more accessible" ... watch out! Their attempt to tilt the tables in a certain direction always backfires. It ends up ultimately hurting those who they intended to help. There are countless examples, but on today's program, we discuss how the government (and Fed) created the student loan mess.
If you ever want to peer into the future, look at the names of the bills passed by Congress, and then assume the opposite results for their intended goals. The "Inflation Reduction Act" will be yet another example. You can expect much more inflation if such an act is ever implemented.
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