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We have a family tradition of visiting a local restaurant every Sunday after church. It’s all around fun: a nice family outing while supporting a local business that treats us well. The fact that we’ve enjoyed it so much made it extra hard when we chose to cut it, along with many other things, out of our budget.
Despite shopping at Walmart, Sams and Aldi and not changing our lifestyle, its now increasingly more difficult to pay the credit card every month. After this last month, I dug through the last years worth of bills and noticed an ugly trend: the food bills steadily going up. What used to be a 40 or 50 dollar Walmart visit has turned into 100 dollars. Between that and gas, any sort of buffer we normally had is now gone.
So we’re cutting. Biden-flation is now responsible for screwing over our local restaurant because we simply can’t afford to eat there anymore. Most of our friends are simply racking up credit card debt. Long term, I know that’s not going to work, so I move money around and find ways to pay it off, but its becoming harder and harder each month. Forget about planning a vacation, we’re just trying to make each day work. At some point, if it doesn’t stop, we’ll simply be slaves to ever increasing debt.
So yeah, inflation isn’t just some interesting news story to me. Its very real, and I’m watching it gut the hard working middle class, especially those that have large families and can’t just stop expenditures like buying groceries.
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Every time Americans shop at a supermarket, they are reminded of a de facto tax on their spending power–inflation. The classic definition of inflation is too many dollars chasing too few goods, which, President Joe Biden and his apologists, jumped on last year when they deemed inflation as “transitory,” pointing at the supply-chain crisis and the backlog of freighters at America’s major seaports. Left out of Biden and Company’s explanation was his $1.9 trillion stimulus package, which the president signed into law in early 2021, when the economy was clearly already recovering from the COVID lockdown.
But the supply-chain crisis was in fact a couple-months long hiccup. After all, if the supply-chain crisis was such a concern, why did we only find out after the media began asking questions on the whereabouts of the person in charge of our ports, secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg? Only then was it revealed that Buttigieg was on paternity leave.
The semiconductor chip shortage has driven up the price of new automobiles. The lack of chips is tied to the worldwide COVID lockdown. I’ll discuss cars in a bit.
Over the past 12 months, according to the September figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation soared, again, to a level not seen in four decades, at a rate of 8.2 percent. Despite what appears to be, for real, a transitory drop in gasoline prices. But fuel prices are dramatically higher than when Donald Trump was president because of the Biden administration’s anti-fossil fuel polices. Food and housing prices are way up. Agriculture is a major user of energy, and many fertilizers are derived from fossil fuels. And those increasingly expensive loaves of bread you see on the shelves of your local supermarket don’t arrive there by way of osmosis, nor by electric trucks.
But don’t worry, Biden recently signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. Insert The Simpsons’ Nelson Muntz “haw-haw” here.
The new car shortage has led to a used car shortage. All vehicles are more expensive. To fight inflation, the Federal Reserve, continues to hike its key interest rate, which drives up all lending. Most people don’t pay cash for cars, they finance.
Then there is housing. Maria Bartiromo, on Fox and Friends this morning, laid the truth on the line when she said, “People who are going to buy a home are realizing that their mortgage payment now going to be going to be hundreds and hundreds of dollars more than they thought every month.”
Okay, no big deal, you might say, “I can always rent a place to live.” But rents are up too.
Now, if you are a Beltway insider, then you need not worry. Washington is recession proof. And the capital’s response, particularly when Democrats are in charge, is always more government. If you are a DC insider, you are well paid. You’re not sweating about food prices going up and you can afford an electric vehicle and the expense of installing a car charger in your garage.
But to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, “Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Joe Biden loses his.”
Outside of sheer incompetence, a theme has emerged from the Joe Biden administration. When they need help, the White House calls on people they deem to be experts.
Here’s a dirty secret of politics, or if your prefer, of advancing a preferred narrative. Anyone can find an “expert,” more on them in a bit, to support any opinion. It works in journalism too, the media wing of the Democrat Party.
When the discovery of the Hunter Biden laptop was revealed by the New York Post nearly two years ago–the mainstream media, social media, and of course the Biden campaign immediately moved to denounce it. The casus belli for journalists, Facebook, Twitter, and the like–Biden brought this up in a presidential debate–was that its emergence three weeks before Election Day in 2020 had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,” according to 51 former national security experts, led by James Clapper, a director of National Intelligence under Barack Obama. Every one of these “experts” either lied, signed on to something they knew little about, or just simply wanted to do whatever it took to prevent the reelection of Donald J. Trump.
Eighteen months later, the New York Times admitted Hunter’s laptop, which provided voluminous evidence of his influence peddling centered on his being the son of a powerful politician, was authentic. The 51 experts can expect subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee next year, assuming the Republicans take control of the House. Every one of these “experts” should have their security clearances permanently revoked.
Biden of course won the election. As a result of his policies, such as cancelling the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, blocking new permits for drilling on federal land, gasoline prices soared and remain high. Although the economy was well into recovery mode two years ago, Biden signed into law the unfunded American Rescue Plan. Many experts at the time claimed it would not fuel inflation. They were wrong. Just as those national security “experts” were wrong on Hunter’s laptop.
When inflation began its ascent, the White House cited 15 Nobel laureates in economics who said that Biden’s Build Back Better bill, enacted in late 2021, would not fuel inflation. They were wrong too. Inflation is now at levels not seen since the early 1980s. Last year Biden and other “experts” were saying inflation was “transitory.” Liberals reading this post will blame inflation on the War in Ukraine, you know, “Putin’s price hike.” Sure, the war likely has an effect on inflation, but the scourge was with us before Russia’s invasion Ukraine.
Build Back Better was originally part of a much larger bill, the green energy stuff was split off and later discarded after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said he wouldn’t support it. Well, Build Back Better Part Two is back, laughably renamed the Inflation Reduction Act. And to bolster its support, the Biden White House has–are you ready?–called on experts, this time, four former Democratic Treasury secretaries and one Republican, who claim, among other things, that the Inflation Reduction Act will “fight inflation” One of those ex-Treasury secretaries is Larry Summers, who warned last year the Biden White House, “We’re taking very substantial risks on the inflation side.”
A good journalist would track down Summers and ask him specifics on why this bill really will fight inflation.
Earlier I mentioned that journalists have a role in advancing political narratives. For example, at Forbes,Rhett Buttle offers a slobbering French kiss of propaganda, which is accompanied by this headline, “Experts Agree: The Inflation Reduction Act Accomplishes A Lot For Small Business And Working Families.” While late in the piece Buttle manages to write about the bill, “some who represent select corporate interests in Washington don’t completely agree” with the hype. But if Buttle was truly a journalist, he would have tracked down opponents of the Inflation Reduction Act and presented a balanced article.
Then again, real journalism is dead. Twenty years ago such a piece as the one written by Buttle would contain the sub-headline, “news analysis,” assuming a magazine like Forbes would even publish it. I took some journalism classes at the University of Illinois. If I turned in such an article for an assignment, a professor would have deservedly given me an “F,” enhanced by this underlined comment written in red ink, “This garbage reads like a press release.”
But Biden’s new batch of experts have spoken: The Inflation Reduction Act, which the Senate will vote on Sunday afternoon, will “fight inflation.”
Watch your wallet. Watch the cash in it lose its value.
Disclosure: This blog post should be classified as “news analysis.”
UPDATE 5:15pm EDT: The Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act passed the Senate.
A few months ago, I praised Senator Joe Manchin for standing strong against the Democrats’ plans to fundamentally transform the United States into socialist third world hellhole. With this article I am now singing a different story because just this past week Joe Manchin announced that he will now join forces with the Democrats in the destruction of the economy of the United States when he declared support for the ironically named Inflation Reduction Act.
First, the bill proposes $433 billion in new spending programs, including $369 billion for “energy security and climate change” and $64 billion (at least) for more Obamacare subsidies.
Given the fact that energy prices have been soaring ever since Biden entered the Oval Office and declared war on American energy production, doubling down on green energy policies by throwing another $369 billion in subsidies for renewable energy is an unwise decision. It will have no effect on bringing down the price of energy for the vast majority of Americans, which is one of the key drivers of inflation throughout the economy.
Inflation is commonly defined as too much money chasing too few goods and services. When the federal government increases spending, the money supply increases. When the money supply increases, the value of each dollar in circulation decreases. Hence, inflation. This is not rocket science.
Second, the bill calls for $739 billion in new taxes, including a 15-percent hike in the corporate minimum tax. But here’s the thing: corporations do not pay taxes; people do. When the government raises taxes on corporations, people end up footing the bill via higher prices, lower wages, less availability of goods and services, and reduced research and development.
In other words, increasing taxes on corporations compounds inflationary pressures because it deters production; therefore, we get less in goods and services.
This pile of refuse will also cripple the economy of the United States by raising taxes, despite the protestations of the factually challenged Democrats who wrote this bill, which is nothing more than a lighter version of the Green New Deal.
The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation found that taxes would jump by $16.7 billion on American taxpayers making less than $200,000 in 2023 and raise another $14.1 billion on taxpayers who make between $200,000 and $500,000.
During the 10-year window, the average tax rate would go up for most income categories, the Senate GOP said, citing the data from the joint committee. And by 2031, new energy credits and subsidies would have people earning less than $400,000 pay as much as two-thirds of the additional tax revenue collected that year, the release said.
“Americans are already experiencing the consequences of Democrats’ reckless economic policies. The mislabeled ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ will do nothing to bring the economy out of stagnation and recession, but it will raise billions of dollars in taxes on Americans making less than $400,000,” said Sen. Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican who sits on the Senate Finance Committee as a ranking member, and who requested the analysis.
As always, the Democrats can only claim the Inflation Redaction will be beneficial to the economy of the United Stated by playing fast and loose with the truth.
Democrats are at it again using budget gimmicks and fake sunsets to create savings on paper – just like they did in the $5 trillion Build Back Broke bill that passed the House last year – while in reality delivering more spending, more inflation, and more debt. In total, the Democrats’ current inflationary reconciliation bill will spend $728 billion and add $114 billion in new debt. It will dump more fuel on the inflation fire while layering on top billions in new taxes that will hit middle class families and U.S manufacturers. One has to ask a simple question, how will this do anything to help lower prices?
I always wanted to do something I could for my country, and this is all about my country,” Manchin outlined. “It’s not about my politics or someone else’s politics or my friends on the Republican side or my friends on the Democrat side or whoever is upset with me. It had nothing to do about any of us. This is about what can we do for the country.”
He continued, “And right now, inflation is the greatest threat that we have. It’s hurting every West Virginian, I can assure you, at the gas pump, at the food store, and their energy bills, and just their daily lives. And if we have a chance — and I’ve said this all along — if I ever had a chance to have an energy policy that was balanced and we could basically make sure we were producing more energy for what we have rather than going around the world asking other people to produce for us, shouldn’t we do that? That’s something we all wanted, and that’s what we got out of this. It’s a great bill.”
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