Season 3 Podcast 197 The Inflation Reduction Act for Dummies Pt I

The Inflation Reduction Act for Dummies Pt IIn this Podcast, Part I, I shall give a working man’s definition of The Inflation Reduction Act. In Part II, Podcast 199, I shall give a Congressman’s definition of The Inflation Reduction Act as influenced by Zeno’s Paradox.  In Part III, I shall give a Congressman’s definition of The Inflation Reduction Act as influenced by the Dirac Equation. In this podcast, however, I want to simplify what inflation reduction means to the common man. I know the common man already understands it. I call it The Inflation Reduction Act for Dummies because I want members of Congress to understand it too. If the language appears oversimplified remember that the primary audience is Congress.   I will use myself as an example of the average taxpayer. My wife is in her early seventies.  I just turned eighty-years-old. We are retired. We live on a fixed income. Our income is the same this year as it was last year. It will be the same next year as it is this year. It is a modest income but was comfortable under the Trump administration. We have simple tastes but enjoy life.  It is a second marriage for us both. I have six children.  She has seven. The combined families equal thirteen children, all grown; 43 grandchildren, and 5 great grandchildren. Our parents came out of the depression and taught us spending habits based on necessity; therefore, Linda and I, through the example of our parents, live beneath our means, meaning that regardless of what we do without, we spend less than we have. For example, yesterday we went to Walmart. I have a serious sweet tooth. I went to buy my favorite candy, M&Ms. I was astonished, even at Walmart the bag of M&Ms was almost $10. Never had I paid that much.  I went home without the M&M’s. We needed milk. I picked up a gallon of 2% without looking at the price and put it in the cart. My wife, who pinches pennies, immediately plucked the gallon of milk out of the cart and put it back on the shelf. She said, “We are not paying $5 dollars for a gallon of milk.”  She searched the shelves until she found one for under $4 and put it in the cart.  I shall use that example to define inflation for dummies.  In the first example we met inflation reduction by doing without the M&M’s. It was a luxury item. People on a fixed income understand what it means to do without though Congress doesn’t since they do not have to balance a budget. To Congress there is no connection between how much money they have and how much they spend.  For example, our nation has a $30 trillion dollar debt yet Congress just allocated billions of dollars to change the climate and called it the Inflation Reduction Act for no other reason than it sounded better than calling it the Inflation Doubling Act. They don’t have to consider practical consequences such as the fact that when they give money away, we the taxpayers must give up things that we have grown accustomed to such as M&M’s. Some, of course, also have to give up milk, but what is that to Congress. They grow richer as we grow poorer, but I will explain that in later podcasts.