Over the weekend, this talking point about the massive spending plan the Democrats are putting forward started to trickle out. There was this idea that the $3.5 trillion bill would actually cost nothing at all. This was even played up by journalists because the lot of them are little more than stenographers for the Democratic Party at this point.

I was fairly certain I’d hallucinated the talking point as I could see no way anyone would take a look at everything in that bill and think it costs nothing. But, lo, the talking point comes from the President of the United States himself.

My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars.

Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America.

And it adds zero dollars to the national debt.

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 26, 2021

On the face of it, it’s absolutely absurd. We’ve had weeks of media coverage where they have called it the “$3.5 trillion infrastructure bill” over and over. The Democrats have spent zero effort rebutting that until this weekend and spilling into today. Why do you think that is?

It’s because Senator Joe Manchin has repeatedly brought up the cost in his public statements. Manchin’s constituents don’t want this much spending, so the rest of the party are rolling out this PR campaign in order to convince one state that it’s cool and their Senator should get on board.

It’s not going to work out, though, because no one is actually falling for it.

For weeks, we have heard what the bill will cost. We have heard what it will pay for. We know it’s going to cost something, but the Biden administration and the Democrats are out there trying to say it will have net zero costs. They are using a little creative wordplay to hide what they have been loudly proclaiming up until now: They are going to raise your taxes.

Their reference point is the Trump tax cut, which they say was nothing more than a major tax break for the rich and big corporations. However, after that tax cut went into effect, we saw middle class Americans keeping more of their money, too. And on top of that, the economy was going strong. The plan worked, and Americans had more money to spend.

But we can’t have more money staying in the hands of Americans, apparently. The Democratic party wants you and I to have less while claiming they are really sticking it to the rich and powerful. Except for themselves. And their friends.

A massive tax hike is going to be a bad idea, and it will hit an already sluggish economy in a bad way. All that extra tax revenue they think will come in because of that hike is really going to come from us, and it won’t be nearly as much as the bill will cost in the long run. They know all this, though. They know they’re not being honest, and they know that this won’t be the hit to the rich that they are claiming it is.

But hey, lie to advance an agenda, right? Truly, we have returned to norms.