Remember when Biden was boasting about reducing the deficit by $1.4 trillion?
Never mind.
The latest monthly report from Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is filled with grim numbers.
The budget deficit for the first half of FY 2023 has already reached $1.1 trillion - in just six months. Earth to Washington: Covid is over. Why in the world are we spending and borrowing so much money? The red ink is running more than $400 billion HIGHER than at this stage last year. THAN LAST YEAR.
What explains this deterioration? Spending is up 13 percent while receipts are down 3 percent.
Former Fed Board member Larry Lindsey predicts the deficit this year will come in at $1.75 trillion, or nearly 7% of GDP.
What a financial disgrace. And all the more reason for House Republicans to hold firm on debt ceiling negotiations. Sorry, Joe. No unlimited credit card for you.
2) More Than Three Years Since COVID and Blue States Still Have Much Higher Unemployment
The good news is that the national unemployment rate is very low. But the blue states still have unemployment rates about two percentage points higher than red states. Fewer businesses are hiring in these states and fewer workers are going back on the job.
More evidence that strict blue state Covid lockdowns had very little impact on health, but they did substantial and lasting harm to the business environment in these states.
3) ...and Big Blue Cities Still Haven't Recovered From COVID
The combination of lockdowns and the urban crime surge have kept some cities a shell of their former selves, as this chart from University of Toronto researchers shows.
The study measures mobile phone visits to “points of interest” like restaurants and stores in each and calculates the change of activity from late 2022 compared to the same period before Covid in 2019.
Salt Lake City has had the fastest recovery. What is fascinating is some of the cities at the bottom of the list, including Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Portland, and Detroit.
4) Susan Rice Leaving the White House - Now Who’s Going To Be President?
You may not have noticed because of all the Tucker Carlson hullabaloo, but Susan Rice announced on Monday she would be leaving as President Biden’s domestic policy adviser. She has been long-thought to be the acting president.
She also served as National Security Advisor under Barack Obama (with some major blunders).
Rice was a key player in the disastrous Iran nuclear deal of 2015, granting concessions to Castro’s Cuba with no human rights reform in exchange, and the Paris Agreement on climate change that would have significantly shut down U.S. industry.
Under Biden, she was one of the officials who dismissed warnings that Biden’s reckless spending would fuel inflation and that Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act was becoming a green pork barrel.
With the all-powerful staffer Susan Rice gone, who will be running the country?
First, it was $10 an hour for minimum wage. Then $12, then $15, then $18 and now airport workers in L.A. are agitating for $30 an hour.
A bill before the Los Angeles City Council would hike all wages at the LAX Airport and nearby hotels to $30/hour. Already, six of the council’s 14 members are behind it and none of the remaining eight have opposed it.
The increase would apply to all hotel workers plus security guards, janitors, baggage handlers and food service workers.
The wage hike is a sneaky way to reward the unions whose campaign cash elected the “woke” LA City Council.
