More ‘Hood Happenings

Occasionally I feel moved to note goings-on in my neighborhood as a microcosm of the nation’s larger problems.

Today the update is on the hypothetical side. Unlike liberals and members of the shilling LameStream media, I’m going to admit that I’m just theorizing about this.

I DO NOT KNOW FOR SURE! But I’m fairly confident I’m on the right track.

It has to do with American Dream, my neighbor who earned that nickname when he told a neighbor he’s living the American dream having moved into the neighborhood.

He did so in what appears to be a house converted to Section 8 – government subsidized. At the time, he had no job, but did have a mate and a couple of kids, even a dog and cat. Life was great for him, as he told the neighbor, who then told me — with more than a trace of disgust.

For a brief time late last year, American Dream seemed to have joined the work force. Here and there someone would pick him up and subsequently drop him off. Dream was attired with one of those vests that workers at an international superstore chain that rhymes with Ball Smart tend to wear.

Those comings and goings seem to have stopped.

In their place is a veritable flood of deliveries. We’re not talking about the predictable increase of such visitations at the beginning of each month, one we suspect coincides with government benefits showing up in the household accounts.

This was a noticeable spike beyond that level. The wife observed seven separate deliveries just the other day and she probably missed some. They ranged from what seemed to be prepared food, to groceries and other assorted merchandise.

What gives? she asked.

EITC, said I.

To borrow from a Michael Jackson song: E-I-T-C, it’s easy as A-B-C; Feds send all your dough to me; And I spend it with great glee; A-B-C, just minimal work by me!

A cynic, and I qualify as one, would postulate that American Dream got a job and worked for a time in 2021 simply to quality for EITC, also known as Earned Income Tax Credit.

If you worked at all, not necessarily full-time or year-round, come tax time you can claim credits. Credits in taxspeak mean you can get back amounts well beyond what you actually paid in taxes.

Generally speaking, the less you earn, the more EITC you get.

A single person with no children, earning less than $21,430 for the year, can get up to $1,502 in earned income tax credits. Marriage and kids make that pot swell to the point at which a married couple with three or more kids, earning less than $57,414 in combined income, can get back up to $6,728 in EITC.

Makes those $2,000 COVID stimulus handouts seem like chump change.

Were a possible EITC recipient diligent, filing taxes as soon as the IRS would permit, he or she should have their EITC by now. Found money. Let’s order some stuff!

Multiply this by millions of taxpayers nationwide and you are talking a lot of money and a lot of excess demand in an already strained supply chain.

According to a table on IRS.gov, my state of Pennsylvania saw 843,000 taxpayers claim EITC for the 2020 tax year, resulting in $1.9 billion in payments. The average payment was $2,257.

California residents claimed $6.1 billion in EITC in 2020.

Even at that, this would just be redistribution of income in the best socialist tradition if the federal government didn’t come up short annually in terms of balancing tax revenue with expenditures.

But we do fall short in a huge way annually.

Despite what Bumbling Joe Biden and Marie Antoinette Pelosi have been barfing out in talking points – that government spending doesn’t cause inflation but actually lessens it – any time the government spends a lot more than it takes in, that is a problem.

When the government monetizes that debt by selling more treasury bonds and bills, or by just snapping its fingers and creating money for things like stimulus payments out of thin air, it increases demand for goods without increasing supply. That leads to price inflation, and blaming the Russians is just a diversion.

The bottom line is, American Dream and the millions like him, along with all those stimulus recipients, are aiding the rise in inflation as much as, or more than, Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine incursion.

That’s reality. We just are supposed to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist. I can’t, and I won’t.