Biden has attempted to put price controls on many products to try to stop inflation, including most recently on prescription drugs and credit and debit card fees.
We’ve shown the evidence over and over that price controls almost always have two effects: reduced production and then shortages.
Then, when the price controls are lifted, prices initially rise but then the increased production ends the shortages and eventually prices fall. We’ve seen this with financial services, trucking, airlines, energy, and many other industries.
Our co-founder Arthur Laffer just published this chart, showing the remarkable success of deregulating the oil and gas industry when Reagan came into office in 1981. Prices initially rose but then when the higher production kicked in, prices went on a decade-long decline – falling by more than 60%.
Our old friend and mentor Dick Armey used to put it simply: markets are smart and government is dumb.
We’re all for making sure that people don’t go hungry at night in a rich country like the United States. But whatever happened to helping those who help themselves? And we don’t mean help themselves to the taxpayer's wallet.
Food stamp spending has declined only slightly from its towering pandemic-era heights, still up roughly 60% from 2019 after adjusting for inflation. It has more than tripled in real terms from pre-Obama levels.
Budget expert Matt Dickerson with the fiscal watchdog group EPIC, finds that more than half of food stamp recipients are of working age and are able-bodied but aren’t working. New modest federal work requirements have begun to kick in, but most blue state pols aren’t enforcing that law or have waived the mandate. Democrats view food stamps as an economic stimulus and/or virtuous income redistribution.
The villain here is the Biden administration (and Congress) that refuses to mandate work for welfare. This was a hallmark of the Clinton administration reforms in 1996. Now work requirements are regarded as cruel.
3) Biden to Battleground States: I’m Showing You the Money
The Biden White House is getting desperate. CNBC reports that Biden’s four $1 trillion spending bills have begun shelling out more than $500 billion in grants to the states. Guess where a lot of the “infrastructure” money is showing up? As CNBC put it: Several of the biggest awards went to battleground states that will be pivotal to the 2024 presidential election.”
This is how much pork spending has gone to the toss-up states for green energy, infrastructure, and electric batteries, so far:
4) Democrats Pulling the Fire Alarm Over Biden's Self-Destruction
We’ve argued for over a year now that liberals wouldn’t be dumb enough to run Old Joe for President again and that they’d trade him in before or at the Democratic National Convention for a younger model with less Bidenomics baggage. Six weeks ago it looked like we were dead wrong – and we sincerely hope we are.
But now we’re not so sure.
In just the last week, three leading liberal political voices have issued dire wake-up warnings that Biden is in clear danger of losing.
First up was James Carville, Bill Clinton's strategist in the 1990s. He warned that: “Everything that we’re throwing [at Trump] is spaghetti at a wall, and none of it is sticking... We’ve got to try to think of something different because what we’re doing is really, really not working.”
Next was Mark Penn, who served as Bill Clinton's pollster and now runs the Harris poll. He told The New York Times: "If Biden wants to serve another four years, he has to stop being dragged to the left and chart a different course closer to the center that appeals to those voters who favor bipartisan compromises to our core issues, fiscal discipline and a strong America."
Finally, there was Fareed Zakaria, one of Biden's favorite CNN hosts. Zakaria admitted: “Trump is now leading in almost all the swing states” and Biden has to do “something bold” like challenging the left wing of his party to rescue his re-election.
Speaking of liberals who may be tapped to take Biden’s place at the top of the ticket, we turn to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
A few days ago, at a press conference, as he was fumbling over explaining how a state went from a $100 billion surplus to a $73 billion deficit so quickly, Newsom said a major factor was “climate change” – including “rain bombs and atmospheric rivers” that prevented the state from collecting taxes. He went on to say that it all proves that “climate change has impact well beyond those often promoted.”
Uh-huh. This man has a serious case of climate change derangement syndrome.
We wonder when Biden will try to blame his $6 trillion debt bomb on global warming.
