Unleash Prosperity Hotline – Weekend Edition Issue #852
09/08/2023, 09/09/2023, 09/10/2023
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1) To Infinity and Beyond!
The very latest Congressional Budget Office report reveals this gloomy news about the fiscal situation in Washington:
“The federal budget deficit was $1.6 trillion in the first 10 months of fiscal year 2023, CBO estimates—more than twice the shortfall recorded during the same period last year.”
When the final numbers are in for August and September the deficit will exceed $2 trillion for FY 2023, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. This borders on criminal fiscal negligence.
Someone needs to ask Karine Jean-Pierre at the next White House press secretary: What did the president know, and when did he know it?
Because it was only weeks ago the President was foisting one of the greatest lies ever to the American people when he was boasting: ”I’ve cut the deficit by $1.7 trillion?” He even preposterously claimed that “I have cut the deficit by more than any other president.”
Would you ever buy stock in a company that LOST twice as much money this year as it did last year? In a company whose expenditures are up 11%, and its revenues are down 10? It’s a perfect storm of financial meltdown.
2) Biden’s Every Child Left Behind Education Policy
One of the four or five greatest calamities in American history was the shutting down of the schools for almost a year and a half in many cities and states. How did this tragedy happen?
Liberal Atlantic writer Franklin Foer's new book reports that it was not only CDC director Rochelle Walensky who gave union president Randi Weingarten veto power to keep schools closed month after month, but President Biden personally gave her the green light too.
"For the sake of avoiding conflict, especially conflict with an ally, the Biden administration trimmed its goal of returning kids to school to a fraction of what had been promised on the campaign trail," Foer wrote.
Weingarten was invited to meet with First Lady Jill Biden at the White House and, according to Foer, President Biden personally called her seven days later to say: "I am not abandoning you on schools. I want you to know that."
Let us translate the mendacity of what he was telling the union boss: I’m not abandoning the unions; I’m abandoning millions of American kids. An entire generation of kids paid the price in lost learning and emotional isolation and depression. Oh, and taxpayers paid $150 billion for schools whose doors were locked shut.
3) Democrats Block Vance Bill to Ban Mask Mandates
We mentioned in yesterday's Hotline the JD Vance “Breath Free” bill to end mask mandates. Seemed a no-brainer to us given the science shows virtually no health benefits.
The objection came from the scientifically illiterate climate obsessive Ed Markey of Massachusetts. Wait. Aren’t people from Massachusetts supposed to be smart?
Sounds like we won’t be visiting his office any time soon – if ever.
The other day we had a cartoon in the Hotline depicting the domed Capitol in Washington D.C. as a nursing home. I was funny because it’s unfortunately becoming accurate.
Recent health issues surrounding Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and California Senator Dianne Feinstein should make us worry about the gerontocracy that sits atop America’s government.
The median age of a U.S. Senator is now 65.3 years old. That’s up from 62.4 years old as recently as 2017, the first year of the Trump presidency. More senators have been eligible for Social Security than not for years.
Mike Kim, owner of Grubb’s Pharmacy in Washington, DC, told STAT News in 2017 that he routinely ships medication for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia to members on Capitol Hill through a contract he has with the Office of the Attending Physician of the United States Congress.
We desperately need a three or four term limit for House members and a two term (of six years each) limit on the Senate. As our co-founder Steve Forbes has always said: “a pond needs constant fresh water or it develop algae.”
5) Affluent Chicago Suburb Highland Park Cancels “Poverty Simulation” Event
You may have heard the news that wealthy liberals in Highland Park, IL were planning an event this Saturday at a posh country club where participants would spend a few hours ”role playing what it is like to live in poverty.”
Here’s a sad update: The virtue-signaling “simulation” event had to be cancelled because other progressive groups took to social media sites and trashed the planned gathering as a “tone deaf” stunt and a sign of “white privilege” – which for a rich liberal is akin to being called a serial killer.
The event that was “designed by social service professionals” was trashed as a “way for rich people to feel good about themselves” – which seems to us completely unfair since just about everything progressives do is mostly about feeling good about themselves. In any case it looks like it will be back to the golf course or the spa this weekend in Highland Park.
Here’s our advice to the folks in Highland Park: if you really and truly want to help the poor: skip the role-playing and help them get a job.
