The last time Democrats inflicted this much damage on the economy, Jimmy Carter was bumbling around the White House and Saturday Night Live was funny:

Dan Aykroyd must have been peering into the future:

“I will present to Congress the Inflation Maintenance Program, whereby the US Treasury will make up any inflation cost losses through direct tax rebates to the public in cash.

“Now you may say, Won’t that cost a lot of money? Won’t that increase the deficit? Sure it will. But so what? We’ll just print more money.”

Unsurprisingly, California leads the way in actually implementing this policy. If you want to see what Democrats will do to us next, look to the erstwhile Golden State. To see what comes next after that, refer to Venezuela, then Zimbabwe.

A long list of other states have plans to counter inflation with tax rebates:

Even so, the rebate checks aren’t likely to cover the increased costs that most Americans are facing, since states are typically proposing checks of several hundred dollars while the average family will pay an estimated $2,000 in additional costs this year due to the higher prices of gas alone.

But inflation is insidious, so you don’t notice just how much it is costing you. In contrast, even a modest tax rebate can feel like a bonanza — especially if you are getting rebated the taxes someone else paid.

The rising cost of gasoline — a major driver of all rising costs — is mainly the result of Democrats’ ideologically inspired war on fossil fuels. The media has been gaslighting the gullible into blaming Putin, but only our real enemies inflate our currency or prevent us from drilling our own oil — namely, Democrats.

On a tip from seaoh.

Gasoline prices are through the roof, primarily due to Democrats’ ideologically driven campaign to suppress domestic energy production. The situation is even worse in California, due to the excessive taxation and regulation that inevitably result from Democrat rule. The moonbats running the erstwhile Golden State have a solution to keep the public from getting angry enough to vote them out of office:

The lawmakers, most of them Democrats, proposed pulling $9 billion from California’s $45 billion budget surplus to fund rebates that would more than cover the 51-cent-per-gallon state gas tax for one full year of weekly fill-ups for a car with a 15-gallon tank.

They confiscate an extra 51¢ per gallon, then give it back to you — for a while. That is, they want to bribe Californians to vote for them with their own money.

More accurately, they want to bribe Californians with other Californians’ money.

The surprising thing is that this rebate wouldn’t only be aimed at drivers, and you wouldn’t need to show proof of car ownership or provide gas receipts. The thinking is that all residents are experiencing a hit right now with inflation and the rising cost of living expenses.

So they throw money at everybody. Because that’s what cures inflation.

If the proposal passes, anyone who files taxes in the state would receive $400 — no matter how much you drive, no matter how much money you make and regardless of whether you have a car, the release said.

Free money! Hurray! All you have to do is vote Democrat.

California has the highest gas tax in the country. Rather than rebating it to people who don’t pay it, Republicans want to suspend the gas tax. But that wouldn’t advance equity.

On tips from Bluto and FrenchLeTaunter.

On a tip from Jack Bauer.

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their unjust powers from the support of the media, so that wealth created by groups liberals don’t like can be confiscated through taxation and inflation to be bestowed upon groups liberals do like in the form of welfare programs and straightforward race-based handouts. Why not make the main function of the federal government official with a white privilege tax? The people would support it — if by “the people” you mean morons shambling around near the beach in San Diego:

On tips from KirklesWorth and ABC of the ANC.

Classic games like Monopoly prepare kids for the world ahead of them. Here a young man is introduced to taxation:

On a tip from Occam’s Stubble.

If Democrats are able to ram through “voting rights” legislation to unconstitutionally seize federal control of elections so that they can institutionalize election fraud, they will establish single-party rule at the national level, like they already enjoy in California. This would be catastrophic, if not because of the incompetence and radicalism that characterize the party, then because of its insatiable, irresponsible greed.

Consider that people have been escaping the erstwhile Golden State in droves, largely because of stratospheric taxation. Then consider that Democrats are planning to double the already wildly excessive tax rates through a constitutional amendment:

The proposed amendment, ACA 11, would hike several key taxes to fund a state-level government healthcare scheme. According to the right-leaning Tax Foundation, it would increase the average household’s taxes by an astonishing $12,250.

Despite massive waste, California already taxes so greedily that it is running a budget surplus. The plan would increase bureaucrats’ take by $163 billion per year, effectively doubling the tax rate.

The attack is three-pronged:

There’s an income surcharge (on top of the already-high state income taxes) that applies starting at $149,509 in earnings. There’s also a payroll tax add-on, with the top rate applying to employees earning $49,990 or more. Then, there’s a 2.3% business tax hike on gross receipts above the first $2 million a business takes in.

The proposal will help keep unemployment high by creating a tax cliff. A company with 49 employees would take a tax hit of $90,000 for hiring one addition employee.

In exchange for being taxed into oblivion, Californians are promised “free” healthcare. No doubt this sounds like a good deal to the estimated 10 million illegal aliens who reside in the state.

There is no limit to how much Democrats will take, because they have no regard for the future. Their support for Black Lives Matter rioters is understandable, because Democrats in power are the equivalent of a mob of malevolent savages looting a department store. They will steal everything that isn’t bolted to the floor and burn down what’s left out of sheer malice. What comes afterward is someone else’s problem.

On a tip from Chuck A.

The cost of housing has shot into the stratosphere in California, largely because of repressive regulations imposed on behalf of radical environmentalists. Fortunately for Californians who have voted themselves into this mess by electing Democrats, federal taxpayers have been conscripted to help them pay their mortgages:

The U.S. Department of Treasury on Monday backed [California Governor Gavin] Newsom’s $1 billion mortgage relief grant program, clearing the way for its launch in just a few weeks. The governor estimates that between 20,000 to 40,000 California homeowners could benefit from the program, dubbed the California Mortgage Relief Program.

Having won elections at the national level means Democrats can redistribute wealth from parts of the country where they are not popular to parts where they are.

The program will fully cover overdue housing payments of up to $80,000 per household.

Typical of the latest welfare programs, recipients don’t even need to be poor. They can earn up to 100% of the Area Median Income for their county — which in some California counties is plenty.

The program comes after thousands of Californians were pushed out of a job and a paycheck during the pandemic.

There you have it: Big Government in a nutshell. It breaks your leg, then forces someone else to buy you a crutch.

On a tip from R F.

It seemed impossible that Elizabeth Warren (a.k.a. Fauxcahontas) could make a greater fool of herself than when she tried to spin the DNA test proving that she owes her career to being a racial imposter as proving that she is part Indian. (It actually indicated that she is somewhere between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Indian, as you might expect of an America with blond hair and blue eyes.) But moonbats can always find a way to get more egg on their faces:

“Let’s change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else,” Warren tweeted with a link to a story about [Elon] Musk being named Time Magazine’s 2021 person of the year.

“Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen,” Musk responded dismissively.

A tapeworm would be insulted to be called a freeloader by a Marxist politician like Fauxcahontas. Imagine how Musk must feel, considering that he expects to pay over $11 billion in taxes to Warren and her fellow parasites for 2021. This will be a record take from one person for the voracious IRS.

Warren must be fuming with impotent rage that she can’t just confiscate all of Musk’s property and then have him shot. But that’s not how it works here — yet.

On a tip from Bluto.

Due to Biden’s War on Energy, the cost of heating your home this winter was already set to skyrocket. High energy prices combined with profligate government spending have already produced the highest inflation in 39 years. But things are never so bad that Democrats can’t make them worse. Under Nancy Pelosi’s control, the House just passed a stealth tax on clean-burning natural gas.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The bill slaps an escalating tax on methane emissions by oil and gas producers that will reach $1,500 per ton by 2025. The fee is meant to be President Biden’s contribution to the recent Glasgow vow to reduce global methane emissions 30% by 2030. The tax is estimated to raise $8 billion over 10 years.

That $8 billion will be promptly flushed down the toilet by flinging it away in foreign aid, paying people not to work, and rewarding campaign donors after laundering the cash through green energy boondoggles of the type Obama made infamous.

Producers will naturally pass the cost of the tax along to customers. Some 180 million Americans use natural gas to heat homes and run appliances, while some 5.5 million businesses use it to run their workplaces and manufacturing facilities.

That means prices go up for everybody, yet again.

Even without this new tax, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is warning that about half of U.S. households that primarily heat with natural gas will pay 30% more this winter than they did a year ago—50% more if this winter is cold. The American Gas Association estimates the methane tax could add another 17% to an average customer’s bill.

The little people have to make sacrifices so that Biden and his Climate Czar John Kerry can impress their globalist peers with their pious devotion to the Cult of Global Warming.

As for the posturing by elitist Democrats who pretend to champion the average worker,

This is also a regressive tax that hurts low-income families without a financial cushion. The Department of Energy notes the average energy burden for low-income families is three times higher than for more affluent households. A 2015 EIA survey found that some 25 million households reported scrimping on food and medicine to pay for higher energy costs.

Zillionaires like Biden, Kerry, and Pelosi are literally taking food out of American mouths so as to preen on the global stage in front of their fellow frauds. Estimated impact on the supposedly problematic climate: absolutely none.

So much for Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000. That was a lie from the beginning, as the inflation created by excessive government spending is a regressive tax on everyone who holds so much as a penny of US currency.

The stealth tax is bad enough to begin with; however,

Once the tax is in place, it will be easy to raise over time, further squeezing producers. The Administration is also planning to issue new methane regulations. The combination would make oil and gas producers the first industries subject to federal taxes and regulation for a greenhouse gas. Industry groups are warning this tax could also result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

This is not a bug but a feature. Fewer jobs = more government dependency = more votes for Democrats.

If America’s worst enemy were to impose this on us, it would be an act of war — and Democrats are America’s worst enemy.

On a tip from Varla.

On a tip from Occam’s Stubble.