"President @realDonaldTrump's "bloodbath" comments yesterday were clearly referencing what will happen to the auto industry if Joe Biden wins in November," tweets Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana). "It is shocking that the media continues to push such easily disprovable lies to smear Trump."
President @realDonaldTrump’s “bloodbath” comments yesterday were clearly referencing what will happen to the auto industry if Joe Biden wins in November. It is shocking that the media continues to push such easily disprovable lies to smear Trump.
— Steve Daines (@SteveDaines) March 17, 2024
There is no evidence to support a notion that the current economic calamity befalling the U.S. will not continue if President Joe Biden is reelected. There is no evidence to support a notion that the already calamitous economic situation will not grow worse if President Biden is reelected. What there is evidence to support is that the current economic situation, fraught with rising prices through persistent inflation, is unsustainable.
Biden’s America:
— GOP (@GOP) March 17, 2024
Grocery prices are up 21.2%
Baby food is 29.6%
Rent is up 20%
Electricity is up 28.4%
Public transportation is up 20.8%
Affordability is becoming outmoded. The push by Democrats is to spend more, tax more, regulate more, and grow government.
Inflation is the measure of price increases of goods and services in an economy. The Consumer Price Index, a figure published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics that measures inflation, was 3.2 percent as of February 2024 from February 2023. That CPI measurement indicates that the same goods and services are priced 3.2 percent more expensively than they were a year ago. That is more than a percentage point higher than the figure that the Federal Reserve has repeatedly stated is its goal for inflation, 2 percent. There have been 36 CPI figures published measuring the inflation situation since Biden assumed office. Of those 36, 7 were 8 percent or higher; 12 (a full year) were 7 percent or higher; 17 were 6 percent or higher; 21 were 5 percent or higher; 26 were 4 percent or higher; and only one was below 3 percent.
One would be hard-pressed to come up with enough negative adjectives, even with the aid of a dictionary, to describe the high inflation that has occurred since President Joe Biden took office, and the problem of it has persisted because of failed economic policies. Democrats, who have wielded most legislative ability in the federal government over the past three years, have not attempted to apply working solutions to remedy what is an economic calamity. If high inflation is too much money chasing too few goods and services, then it stands to reason that cutting government spending would be a solution to it. But Democrats have pushed more spending.
They could have cut taxes to reduce the financial burden on everyone (consumers, employees, and employers), but they have continued to push tax hikes. High taxes affect everyone and everything in an economy. An employee will take less of his earned income home from work due to a higher tax rate. If a person is living paycheck to paycheck, that person will be forced to make basic, survival-based decisions due to higher taxes. The hiring options for an employer will be fewer and more constrained due to a higher tax rate. A consumer will be forced to eliminate purchases from her budget because the dollars that would have otherwise been used for such purchases will have been paid in taxes, something that will produce a ripple consumption-reduction effect throughout the economy. The quality of goods produced or services offered by a business will be impacted because less money will be available to be spent on the quality of goods and services. Options for consumption and employment will be more limited because investors who would otherwise put capital behind innovative and entrepreneurial endeavors and start-ups will be paying more of that capital in taxes.
There is also the regulatory environment to consider as a contributing factor to inflation. If a business has to allocate more money, more time, more manpower, and more resources to comply with federal regulations, some of which are highly questionable, that business will be left with less money, less time, fewer resources, and less hiring ability. The inevitable result will be fewer jobs, fewer goods produced and services offered, and reduced quality goods and services.
A major problem is that Democrats seem to approach all societal issues through the lens of government. They seem in love with the idea of redistribution. Beyond safety nets for those who very much need help, they have banged the drum of taking from the wealthiest in a confiscatory manner and redistributing it to those who are not considered to be wealthy. But that is not investment. It may be psychologically soothing to think of redistributing the wealth of some to others, but that is not a serious and long-term solution.
Democrats would have been better served to have used their political capital to cut wasteful federal government spending, to reduce taxes across the board, and to eliminate regulatory red-tape.
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