“Entering Bernie and AOC Country”: Pat Buchanan Blasts Democrat Spending Bills as “Great Leap Forward into Socialism”
Evan James
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Paleoconservative political commentator Pat Buchanan has blasted Democratic infrastructure and omnibus spending bills as a “Great Leap Forward into socialism.”
In his Tuesday column, Buchanan noted that Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, signed in March, passed the House and Senate “without the vote of a single Republican”—and the same could happen for a $3.5 trillion package to “remake America” via budget reconciliation.
“This $3.5 trillion measure would expand social and environmental programs, extend the reach of education and health care, tax the rich and take on the challenge of the century—climate change,” Buchanan writes. “Among programs funded are universal prekindergarten for all 3- and 4-year-olds, two years of free community college, clean energy mandates for utilities and lower prescription drug prices. Medicare benefits would be expanded and amnesty extended to millions of illegal migrants.”
What’s more, Mitch McConnell and 16 other GOP senators have signed off on a $1 trillion infrastructure bill called the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal.” Although it’s expected to pass the Senate, the deal might not face a vote in the House until the Senate passes the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, per House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Buchanan thus acknowledges that the reconciliation bill is less likely to pass than the infrastructure bill. But if it were to pass, he says that it would “constitute a quantum leap in the number of Americans dependent on the federal government for the necessities of life” and “increase America’s ratio of tax consumers to taxpayers.”
“Passage of that $3.5 trillion omnibus bill would represent the triumph of Great Society liberalism over Reaganite conservatism,” he lamented.
Altogether, the $1.9 COVID relief package, the $3.5 trillion omnibus package, and the $1 trillion infrastructure plan would “enlarge federal spending by $6 trillion,” Buchanan claims.
“This would constitute the greatest leap forward toward socialism of any American president, with Biden’s only rivals being previous record-holders Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s’ New Deal and Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s,” he said. “If the terrain looks unfamiliar, that is because we are crossing a new continental divide. We are entering Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez country.”
Read Buchanan’s entire op-ed here.
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