Madness of Democrat Spending on Full Display This Tax Day

In a nation bitterly divided along political, social, and cultural lines, perhaps nothing is more unifying in the U.S. in 2024 than Americans’ universal loathing of Tax Day. For decades, the April 15th deadline has left Americans of every political, financial, and socioeconomic stripe in a state of dread as they become bogged down in an endless sea of paperwork and fork over their hard-earned dollars to the federal government—often with few insights into where and how their money is being spent.

Under Joe Biden, the American people have all the more reason to be outraged. For the past three years, Biden and congressional Democrats have raided the pocketbooks of hard-working families to finance some of the left’s most radical—and most expensive—political pipe dreams.

Among the most egregious schemes our tax dollars are now being spent on are programs to provide housing, welfare, and even pre-paid debit cards for illegal aliens.

According to a recent congressional testimony by Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the lifetime fiscal drain—or taxes paid minus costs—for every illegal alien in the U.S. is approximately $68,000. Given that at least 7,000,000 illegal aliens have entered our country under the Biden administration, the bill for American taxpayers has gone up by a staggering half a trillion dollars.

Government data estimates that 59 percent of households headed by illegal aliens use at least one major welfare program, a far cry from only 39 percent of households who use welfare headed by American-born citizens. To top it all off, as Camarota notes in his testimony, illegal aliens receive “$42 billion in benefits, or about 4 percent of the total cost of the cash, Medicaid, food and housing programs examined in our [CIS] study.”

And of course, in addition to funding welfare for illegals, American taxpayers are also suffering the complete breakdown of law and order and flood of crime and drugs as a result of Biden’s border crisis.

Americans’ tax dollars are also now being diverted toward the left’s ultra-expensive environmental agenda, including Biden’s effort to force drivers into electric vehicles.

The Biden administration, for instance, has already provided more than $200 billion in electric vehicle subsidies, in addition to the hundreds of billions more “green” spending contained in Biden’s so-called “Inflation Reduction Act.”

Although Democrats regularly tout the supposed benefits of Biden’s $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles, as AMAC’s Rebecca Weber has noted, it ultimately serves as “a massive benefit for wealthy individuals who can afford to pay upwards of $50,000 for a new car.” Meanwhile, “it provides no relief to lower-income Americans who are pinching pennies to repair or replace old cars.”

In essence, Biden’s electric vehicle subsidies are nothing more than veiled handouts to his rich cronies, well-off friends, and wealthy political donors—a giant federal redistribution scheme that forces rank-and-file Americans to pick up the tab for wealthy elites to buy expensive electric vehicles (many of which are built with parts sourced in China) which the overwhelming majority of Americans cannot afford.

Of course, these are just two examples from the long list of federal programs and spending packages greenlighted by Biden and Democrats in Congress.

This spring, American tax dollars will also be used to pay for far-left green slush funds, DEI programs in the federal government, taxpayer-funded abortion costs, and even more handouts to Ukraine with no accountability for how the money is spent—among countless other ways that a majority of the American people undoubtedly do not support.

As CNBC reported last month, under Biden’s leadership, the U.S. debt is rising by a mind-boggling $1 trillion approximately every 100 days—a testament to the irresponsibility of Biden’s fiscal policy. From fiscal year 2021 to the present, the federal government has spent upwards of $23.48 trillion—far more than it spent even during the pandemic era in 2020 and early 2021.

Naturally, these reckless spending patterns have turbocharged inflation, imposing a hidden tax of anywhere from 20 to 30 percent on every American taxpayer—amounting to virtually the same tax rate most Americans will fill out on their annual tax forms. Though Biden and his allies have refused to acknowledge it, each and every American is paying this hidden tax every time they go out to buy groceries, restock their refrigerators, or pay their rent.

As Americans finalize their taxes on April 15, they would do well to remember what—and who—is triggering their exorbitant bills. But above all, they should be angry that in every tax bill they pay, they are actively subsidizing Joe Biden’s open border agenda, Green New Deal radicalism, and sky-high spending spree that is corrupting American culture, weakening the American way of life, and sending the American economy into a destructive tailspin.

For as many issues as Americans will inevitably disagree on this election season, most can certainly agree that Tax Day is far from a high point in their year—and this Tax Day in particular will be among the most maddening of them all.

Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C.