More evidence the economy is being held up on wobbly stilts by government spending and hiring. Once again, the new jobs report for June shows health care and government hiring outpacing every other sector.
This comes on the heels of the report we highlighted a few weeks ago in the Hotline, showing that government employees make almost 40% more money than comparably skilled private workers.
How long before everyone has a cushy government job? And who's going to pay their salaries?
2) In Britain the Conservative Party Moves Left and Gets Crushed in the Election
The Conservative Party received a sound drubbing in yesterday's British election. The Tories won just 121 seats, losing 244 seats from the 2019 result.
One big reason for the voter rejection of the Tories was they increasingly embraced big government.
The Adam Smith Institute report on Tax Freedom Day (when people start working for themselves instead of the government), shows it has been pushed further back under the last five British Prime Ministers (all Conservatives, not including, of course, Lady Thatcher). It is a dismal record and no wonder voters shouted: ENOUGH.
The Techne UK poll for the Independent newspaper, found that while 36 percent of voters trusted Labour leader Keir Starmer on the tax issue, only 16 percent trusted Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
There's a warning in this for some of our friends here at home who want the GOP to embrace National Conservatism (which is a euphemism for Big Government Conservatism). Abandon your free-market principles and voters will abandon you!
In 180 of the seats, the Reform vote exceeded the margin of defeat. If Reform had not run and those votes had gone to the Conservatives, they would have won over 300 seats. A majority is only 326 seats so the Tories would almost have won with the Reform votes. There would have been a hung parliament with no party having an overall majority.
This is a particularly important warning because in Britain turnout fell to 58%, the second lowest since the 1880s, because a lot to Tory voters stayed home.
One piece of good news: The Reform Party won 14% of the vote and four seats, including one for rabble-rouser Farage himself – the man who engineered the Brexit campaign eight years ago.
4) Will Democrats Jump from the Frying Pan to the Fire If They Replace Joe?
Vice President Kamala Harris has passed her boss in the betting odds of who will be the Democratic nominee this year. She gets 42 percent of punter support, versus just 35 percent for Joe Biden.
Biden's position has weakened significantly in the last couple of days, with 72 percent of democrats wanting a change in the ticket. Democrats running for House and Senate seats are terrified of having to share the ticket with a visibly diminished Biden. James Carville, the former top strategist for Bill Clinton, told a conference call with top Democratic donors that they should refuse to give the party any more money unless there is a change in the ticket.
However, several donors are resisting Kamala as a replacement.
Dmitri Mehlhorn, a top adviser to LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, told the call that Harris "is more threatening to those swing voters (that we need) than a dead Joe Biden or a comatose Joe Biden."
An online meme promoted by Republicans shows Harris during her failed 2020 primary campaign for president calling for an end to private health insurance, higher taxes, and a form of racial quotas in hiring.
RealClearPolling averages show that Vice President Harris trails Donald Trump by 6.6 percentage points, while Biden is behind by only 1.5 points.
5) Biden's New Plan to Fight High Grocery Prices: Price Controls and Free Food
Biden wanting a $2000 hike in food stamp spending as an anti-inflation measure is parody-level stuff. Reminds us of the Saturday Night Live bit with Jimmy Carter saying he'll just print more money.
Tackling inflation by... INCREASING federal spending. Hello! Will someone remind Joe and Kamala that this is what caused inflation in the first place?
He also blames inflation on grocery stores and is threatening price controls and fines for "price gouging" if they raise prices. Why not? This worked so well for Jimmy Carter.
We do like one part of his plan – that middle bullet point where he says more stores should be like major non-union grocers Target, Walmart, and ALDI.
