July 5, 2024
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
If Biden is replaced, the new candidate will still inherit Biden economy as unemployment up 1.1 million since Dec. 2022
By Robert Romano
The U.S. unemployment rate ticked up once again to 4.1 percent in June, according to the latest data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in what is surely bad new for President Joe Biden and whomever might be considered to replace him on the ballot as the Democratic nominee should he step aside.
No matter what, whether it’s Vice President Kamala Harris or someone else, that person would inherit the Biden economy, which has seen unemployment increase by 1.1 million since Dec. 2022 to its present 6.8 million level. Another 162,000 became unemployed in June alone.
Meanwhile, when inflation was peaking in 2022, the growth of consumer credit peaked at 9.9 percent annually in April 2022, but in April 2024 (the most recent reading) that growth rate has slowed down significantly to just 1.9 percent growth of consumer credit.
This is what typically happens after peak employment as the economy overheats, the American people max out their credit and curb purchases, and inflation cools. Eventually this leads to layoffs and upheaval, and has been seen the unemployment rate rise from its April 2023 low of 3.4 percent now up to 0.7 percent to the current 4.1 percent.
Meaning, whether it’s President Biden in the White House and on the ballot, or Harris, a slowing economy will definitely be weighing on voters’ minds, who are still reeling from the inflation seen the past few years.
That might make Harris or whoever else Democrats come up with as not much more than a sacrificial lamb. Besides the obvious economic concerns that might make holding onto the Presidency more difficult for the incumbent party, the sheer chaos of replacing a sitting president potentially against his will — there is talk of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the enfeebled Biden — will almost certainly not be seen by the American people as a vote of confidence in the current administration.
Even a voluntary resignation by Biden, yielding the White House to Harris, might not quiet concerns, especially if Biden’s health problems have been widely known for some time now, as questions will shift to the new president about what she knew and when she knew it.
Even on policy, when questions about the economy come up, assurances by Harris that the economy remains strong and unemployment relatively low may ring hollow and unauthentic. If Harris could not properly evaluate the President’s mental fitness when under the 25th Amendment that’s her job, how can she be trusted to properly evaluate the lingering impacts of inflation and their aftereffects on the economy including labor markets?
Harris would be forced to say that she supported Biden’s policies 100 percent, including all the spending that has fueled the inflation as the M2 money supply grew by almost $7 trillion during and after Covid amid a spending, borrowing and printing binge by Congress and the Federal Reserve.
In other words, Democrats including Biden and whoever might replace him, own the economy, own the inflation and own any future unemployment that ensues. There’s already 1.1 million more jobless since peak employment, and the situation might not improve much before November for the incumbents. As usual, stay tuned.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
Lowest Number Ever for Biden Among Young Voters? New Poll is Terrifying for Democrats
By Manzanita Miller
The fact that President Joe Biden has suffered a catastrophic loss of support among swing voters is something we have covered since the president’s lackluster and halting debate against former President Trump last week. However, a new poll shows that Biden’s debate performance may have utterly tanked his numbers among young voters, a group he desperately needs in November.
A new poll from AtlasIntel, a polling group which was heralded as highly accurate in the 2020 election, has found that Biden trails Trump by 14.6 percentage points with voters under thirty, and less than a third of young people intend to support Biden for president.
Biden’s numbers among young voters have been cratering for months now, as we have extensively covered, but this is perhaps the lowest number on record for Biden among voters under age 30, a group who supported him by 24 percentage points in 2020.
The AtlasIntel poll shows Biden earning a mere 27 percent of the youth vote, while Trump is earning 41.6 percent of their vote. This is a massive 33-point decline for Biden among young voters, and a modest 5.6-point gain for Trump.
Where are the rest of these young voters going? According to the poll, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been the beneficiary of most of the youth vote turning away for Biden, with Kennedy earning 27.7 percent of young voters in the poll. However, it is still worth noting that Trump is beating Kennedy by around 14 percentage points among under thirties.
It also worth noting that the poll was taken the day before and after the debate, meaning the poll did not fully capture Biden’s fallout from the debate. In other words, his standing among young voters could be even worse than the poll is showing.
We know that a majority of Americans say Trump won last week’s debate, appeared more “presidential” than Biden, and more clearly communicated his vision for the country, and young people feel this way strongly.
A YouGov poll conducted after the debate found that young people say Trump won the debate by 19 points, 42 percent to 23 percent, and young people say Trump appeared more presidential (26 percent) than Biden (22 percent) during the debate.
This is in complete contrast to how young people viewed the debate winner in the final debate of the 2020 election. At that time, young pope maintained that Biden beat Trump in the debate by a resounding 39 points. Young people went on to support Biden in November by 24 points.
Biden has been struggling with young people for well over a year now, with pre-debate polling from GenForward showing only 33 percent of young Americans under age 40 plan to support him, a striking decline compared to previous elections.
Biden’s halting performance at the debate last week has only driven those numbers down even further. Currently, well under a third of young people are comfortable supporting Biden for president, and while the vast majority have shifted toward Robert. F. Kennedy Jr., Trump is still ahead of both competitors by fourteen points. Frankly, these numbers are not surprising. Haunting clips of Biden’s dazed split-screen stare and endless parodies of his difficulty communicating have been circulating among young people since the debate, and many appear utterly shocked that Biden was allowed to, or bullied into, running again.
Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/07/lowest-number-ever-for-biden-among-young-voters-new-poll-is-terrifying-for-democrats/
Government Growth Leads June Job Gains
July 5, 2024, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement on the latest jobs numbers:
“70,000 of the reported 206,000 jobs gained in the economy were from increases in government. The only category of workers that gained more was ‘health care and social assistance’ effectively an adjunct to our government run health care system, where private sector social assistance is typically done by government contractors acting on behalf of the government.
“See anything wrong with this ‘economic growth picture’?
“Meanwhile, the unemployment rate continues to rise, now reaching 4.1 percent, with the number of employed only 195,000 more than a year ago. In spite of all the talk about jobs gained by the Biden administration, the number of people actually employed is basically the same over the past year. Meanwhile the number of unemployed has risen by 814,000. On top of the stagnant job growth, the initial unemployment claims numbers continue to climb, with continuing claims (meaning those who are on unemployment but have not dropped off due to finding a job) came in at the highest level since the pandemic.
“Apparently, government or government dependent workers are doing great under Bidenomics. No wonder no one in DC can figure out that the economy stinks everywhere else.”
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2024/07/government-growth-leads-june-job-gains/