(FREE) PAINE IN THE MORNING: What you need to know this Monday – August 15, 2022

Here’s what you need to know today, Monday– August 15, 2022.

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Congress Just Passed the Inflation Reduction Act. It Will Hike Taxes on Some Middle-class Households. – Congressional Democrats have put the finishing touches on a questionable bet: that higher taxes will help tame rising prices, and that voters will reward the effort.

On Friday afternoon, the House of Representatives approved a $300 billion tax hike with a party-line vote, 220–207, sending the Inflation Reduction Act to President Joe Biden’s desk. It passed the Senate with a similar party-line vote on Sunday. – READ MORE

Report: Congressional Budget Office Contradicts White House on IRS Expansion Bill – A Congressional Budget Office report found that the Internal Revenue Service will collect billions of dollars from auditing low- and middle-income Americans under the White House-backed “Inflation Reduction Act,” contradicting Biden administration claims, according to Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Fox News confirmed the report, finding the CBO informed congressional Republicans that, under the act, audits of taxpayers making under $400,000 will account for about $20 billion in additional revenue. – READ MORE

Analysis suggests Inflation Reduction Act will reduce annual inflation by only 0.1 percentage points – The Senate-passed Inflation Reduction Act is expected to have almost zero impact on inflation, according to a new analysis.

A University of Pennsylvania Penn Wharton analysis released Friday revealed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 would do little to reduce the annual rate of inflation in the midst of the economic recession. The bill would only reduce annual inflation by 0.1 percentage point over the next five years. – READ MORE

158 House Members Proxy Voted for $700 Billion ‘Inflation Reduction’ Act – The House of Representatives on Friday voted to pass the $700 billion “Inflation Reduction” Act, which would not reduce inflation, and 158 of the lawmakers voted by proxy.

The 158 lawmakers decided to vote by proxy at a time when there has been controversy surrounding the capability, as the Senate still required its members to vote in person. – READ MORE

While Recession Looms, New Defense Spending Bill Adds Billions for Unwanted Projects – With recession fears looming large over the landscape of the 2022 midterms and inflation impacting families across the country, the Senate Appropriations Committee just pumped four billion taxpayer dollars into the Navy’s budget that the Navy never asked for — and much of the excess was never approved by the House Armed Services or Appropriations committee.

As news of the excessive spending breaks, 70% of the American people consider inflation to be “a very big problem” facing the country according to Pew Research, 51% considered the growing deficit to be “a very big problem” as well. – READ MORE

No more quarantines or test-to-stay in schools, CDC reveals sweeping changes to COVID-19 guidance – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Americans no longer need to quarantine if exposed to COVID-19, a sweeping announcement that rolls back several of the agency’s pandemic recommendations.

In new “streamlined” guidance released Thursday, health officials removed the distinction between vaccinated Americans and those who are not up to date with COVID-19 vaccines, meaning the CDC’s guidance is now the same for everyone. – READ MORE

Bidenflation’s Latest Victim Is Breakfast as Food Prices Skyrocket to Highs Not Seen Since 1979 – As the inflation crisis continues, the price of breakfast foods are now on the rise.

In July, the price of eggs reached a 46.8 percent price increase since last year, according to the analytics from Information Resources Inc. – READ MORE

Second-Largest U.S. Aluminum Mill Idles Due to ‘Untenable’ Energy Prices, Laying Off 600 American Workers – The second largest aluminum mill in the United States has idled operations, laying off about 600 American workers, due to “untenable” electricity and energy prices.

In June, Century Aluminum Co. executives announced that they would idle the Hawesville, Kentucky aluminum mill for about 9 to 12 months as a result of skyrocketing prices to merely keep the plant’s lights on. – READ MORE

Dozens Of Whole Foods Stores Allow Customers To Pay With Palm Print Biometric Data – Amazon’s palm-reading payment technology will expand to dozens of Whole Foods locations across California. Shoppers will be able to pay for groceries by scanning the palm of their hand at checkout devices instead of using cash or card, as this is more evidence of the emergence of a cashless society.

The Verge reported that 65 Whole Foods stores in California would soon get the new payment technology. This is the most extensive rollout by the e-commerce giant since announcing the payment system in 2020. – READ MORE

What happened the last time Biden had billions to blow on the green agenda? – The passage of the Democrats’ $369 billion climate package will allow President Joe Biden to pour billions of taxpayer money into green energy infrastructure and climate change prevention; despite the failure to effectively administer billions in green funds when he was vice-president during the Obama administration.

The ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’, passed in 2009 during President Barack Obama’s first term, included $90 billion for similar environmental measures, according to White House archives. Then-Vice President Biden was placed in charge of overseeing the Recovery Act’s funds, which did not lead to development but instead the loss of massive sums of taxpayer money, according to Biden’s campaign website. – READ MORE

UK To Reverse “Accidental” Ban On Edible Insect Farming – Propaganda push is selling eating bugs as usual, and suggests the UK is just going back to normal…

Good news guys, UK companies will soon be free to start producing and selling several species of “edible insects” again. – READ MORE

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey Laments Socialists ‘Taking over’ Major American Institutions – Whole Foods Market CEO John Mackey recently expressed his worry that “socialists” are seizing major institutions within American society while noting that certain liberties are “under threat.”

“My concern is that I feel like socialists are taking over,” Mackey told Reason Magazine in a podcast interview on Wednesday. “They’re marching through the institutions. They’re…taking over education. It looks like they’ve taken over a lot of the corporations. It looks like they’ve taken over the military. And it’s just continuing.” – READ MORE

WEF Adviser Yuval Harari: ‘We Just Don’t Need the Vast Majority of the Population’ in Today’s World – Yuval Noah Harari, historian, futurist, and World Economic Forum (WEF) adviser, said, “We just don’t need the vast majority of the population” in the early 21st century given modern technologies’ rendering human labor economically and militarily “redundant.”

Harari’s remarks were made in an interview with Chris Anderson, the head of TED, published on Tuesday. He assessed widespread contemporary disillusionment among “common people” as being rooted in a fear of being “left behind” in a future run by “smart people.” Such fears are justified, he added, given his projection that emerging technologies will displace economic needs to many categories of existing work – READ MORE

Public Trust In The FBI Is Plunging – The FBI raided former U.S. President Donald Trump’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, where they reportedly opened up a safe, following a search warrant for classified documents believed to have been removed from the White House.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck notes, the raid has fueled anger from Trump’s supporters, dozens of whom gathered outside the Mar-a-Lago home that night. Several Republicans have condemned the investigation body, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy – READ MORE