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Watch: What Number Is Biden Trying to Say? - 'A Trillion, $300 Million Billion Dollars'

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Before we begin, I’d just like to make something clear: We really wish we didn’t have to write about this.

Even those of us who chronicle the mistakes and peculiarities of our nation’s elected officials for a living feel bad about beating up on someone who’s taken rhetorical punishment round after round. We don’t savor the idea that the bloodied competitor in the trainer’s corner — both eyes swollen shut, split lip, gut made of ground hamburger — is going to come out for another round with his gloves up under the misapprehension this time is going to be different. It’s not.

Unfortunately for my tortured boxing metaphor, the battered rhetorical pugilist is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world: Joseph Robinette Biden, 6’0″, 185 lbs and the holder of the 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. belt. Furthermore, he’ll take punch after punch, end up splayed on the canvas, stagger to his feet and neither the refs nor the judges will notice. He can say whatever imbecilic thing that comes to his mind — or rather, what doesn’t come to his mind — and nobody cares.

That’s why we must call attention to Biden’s interview on MSNBC that aired Wednesday in which he posited parts of his infrastructure bill and families bill could be financed by more aggressive Internal Revenue Service enforcement, to the tune of … um, “somewhere between $700 billion and a trillion, 300 million billion dollars.”

And the White House workplace counter for days without a serious gaffe gets reset — again — to zero.

According to the Washington Examiner, this ought to have been an easy enough concept for Biden to explain. The MSNBC interview came after a meeting with Republican leaders in the House and Senate in which both said Biden’s preferred method of funding the $2.3 trillion infrastructure program — a corporate tax hike — was a no-go.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the bill is a non-starter or it can’t pay for itself, at least in the logic of Biden-land. One way the administration plans to find money is to sic the IRS on wealthy tax scofflaws, which they estimate will earn quite a bit of money.

How much? Let the president fill you in:

“For example, there’s a situation where there’s an estimation of somewhere between $700 billion and a trillion, 300 million billion dollars if we hire more IRS agents and we go after those folks who are avoiding taxes at the top end,” Biden said.

Consider me sold.

Keep in mind that the Biden administration has been open about the fact it doesn’t want to send him out there for this kind of abuse.

In an interview on a podcast earlier this month, according to Business Insider, White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted the administration didn’t want him to answer impromptu questions, despite the fact Biden apparently loves doing it.

Related:
One of Biden's 'Non-Violent' Pardons Turns Out to Be Voodoo-Practicing Triple-Murderer

“That is not something we recommend. In fact, a lot of times we say ‘Don’t take questions,’ you know, but he’s going to do what he wants to do because he’s the president,” Psaki said.

Biden seems to have confirmed this by constantly saying he’ll get in trouble if he keeps answering questions put to him by the press:

Who’s he going to be in trouble with, you may ask? He’s the president, after all.

The thing is, he’ll be in trouble with the kind of people who voted for him and for the Democrats because they bought the line that they were the party of competency and normalcy. Instead, this is what they got:

I feel terribly sorry Joe Biden is sitting in the corner, his trainer pressing an ice pack to his eye, desperately trying to get him out there for another round. However, nobody should feel bad about pummeling him for these witless lapses that make him look incapable of carrying out the job. He signed up for four more years of this.

In the meantime, the president can have fun finding eleventy billion dollars in undeclared tax revenue in order to fund an infrastructure plan that doesn’t have much to do with actual infrastructure.

If and when he can put that into coherent language, my guess is the American people aren’t going to get behind the steps necessary to make it happen.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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