1) The Truth About Trump Vs Biden on COVID Response
President Biden continues to hammer Trump on his response to COVID, so we thought now would be a good time to compare their records.
The ad shows clips of Trump downplaying the then-nascent COVID-19 pandemic and the rapidly increasing deaths from the virus.
There’s only one problem with the ad. It turns out from the government’s own statistics that MORE Americans have died from COVID under Biden than Trump. That’s pretty amazing given that the most virulent strain of the virus occurred in the first months of 2020 and that the vaccine was released at the END of the Trump presidency.
The truth is that neither president did a good job in responding to COVID, as our recent landmark CTUP study on the “Lessons Learned from COVID” shows.
The study concludes that nearly every governmental response had a negative effect. One of the few policies that worked was Operation Warp Speed, which got the vaccine out by the end of 2020. (Vaccine mandates were an unforgivable mistake.)
One other statistic that we think every American should know is that lockdowns and stay-at-home orders killed more people (because of delayed health care, loneliness, drug abuse, alcoholism, and other deaths of despair) than they saved. Here are the numbers:
2) Voters Have Little Confidence in Federal Government/Congress – Gee We Wonder Why
The latest Gallup poll shows a near-record percentage of voters have little or no confidence in the federal government or Congress to do the right thing. By about a 2 to 1 margin, voters have little or no confidence in Washington in solving problems.
By contrast, Gallup found that trust in local governments is roughly twice as high.
We at CTUP want a total devolution of nearly all federal programs to the states. Even though all levels of government can be drenched in corruption (look at Chicago today!), it is still true that governments closest to the people are most citizen-responsive.
Dick Durbin's efforts to impose price controls on credit card swipe fees are supported by the CFPB and the Department of Transportation, who disparage the charges as “junk fees.”
But, whoops. Durbin and the federal regulators have run into a big PR problem. It turns out that if you put out price controls on the fees, then popular reward programs go away and consumers won’t be too happy about that.
CEI's Iain Murray explains:
The Director and Secretary of the respective agencies heard from a variety of what are these days called stakeholders, such as spokesmen of industries, labor unions, and people who claim to speak for consumers.
The reason for the Department of Transportation’s involvement is that airlines and their labor unions are keenly aware that the proposed bill threatens credit card reward programs. Airlines get approximately 20% of their revenue from selling air miles to banks to offer as part of their rewards programs.
If this bill results in significantly reduced income from credit card transactions, rewards programs will be the first thing hit. Airlines won’t be able to sell as many miles, which means a big hole in their revenue streams. That will mean fewer flights, fewer jobs, more crowded flights, and higher fares.
It’s a classic example of how well-meaning government interventions in the market almost always leave consumers worse off. Will the politicians ever learn?
The market for electric vehicles is continuing to short-circuit.
Mercedes-Benz is responding to a slump in EV sales by rolling back its pledge to become fully electric by 2030. The company introduced that goal with a marketing strategy called “The Economics of Desire.”
But now Mercedes is recognizing consumers aren’t sharing that desire.
The company acknowledged it would be making fossil fuel-powered cars “well into the 2030s,” with CEO Ola Källenius ruefully admitting that “the (electric) transformation might take longer than expected.”
More bad news for the greens: Renault shelved the stock market launch of its EV business Ampere. GM also cut EV production targets due to slowing demand. Ford Motor Co. is retrenching its EV strategy by reducing spending by $12 billion on battery-powered models, delaying new EVs, and postponing and shrinking planned battery plants.
Hello! You can’t sell cars that people don’t want.
5) CTUP AND Ted Cruz Score Big Win on Expanding Flights to Reagan Airport
Regular readers know that we took on United Airlines and the Washington Metro Airport authority on the issue of allowing more long-haul flights to western cities to and from Reagan National Airport. The bureaucracy was fiercely against it and United was trying to force flyers to commute out to Dulles Airport where it has the most flights. This was a big win for consumer convenience and for more competition – which LOWERS prices.
It’s a small victory in the grand scheme of things, but we will take them when we get them. We thank and congratulate Ted Cruz for his leadership.
