It’s been a busy week in politics to say the least! The 2024 presidential election keeps delivering unprecedented twists and turns.
Hi there,
It’s been a busy week in politics to say the least!
The 2024 presidential election keeps delivering unprecedented twists and turns. And President Biden’s exit from the race so late in the year is just the latest.
While there is still time for more surprises (the Democratic National Convention is still a month away), President Biden’s endorsement of his Vice President, Kamala Harris, seemingly locked down the Democratic nomination.
But what would a Harris presidency actually look like? And what are its public safety implications?
Fortunately, for a career politician like Kamala Harris, who was a San Francisco DA, the California AG, a US Senator, and Vice President of the United States, we know a lot about her approach to public policy and can make predictions based on her track record.
Unfortunately…if the past is prologue, the future isn’t looking good.
What did Harris do when she was DA & AG?
When she was a District Attorney in San Francisco, Harris made headlines by threatening to imprison parents.
As California’s Attorney General, Harris undertook a host of policies, prosecutions, and power broking that limited basic freedoms, and furthered corruption:
Challenging the right of law-abiding citizens to obtain right-to-carry permits;
Defending prosecutors who committed perjury, falsified evidence, and engaged in other “egregious, outrageous” conduct;
Employing an aide who, along with other members of the “Masonic Fraternal Police Department,” was charged with impersonating a police officer;
And forcing an educational foundation and public interest law firm to reveal its list of donors.
So what happened when she became AG?
Vice President Harris kept pushing an agenda that…
Attempted to ignore the right to bear arms,
Violated charities’ right to free speech and privacy,
Supported union abuse of public sector employees,
Helped Planned Parenthood cover up unethical conduct, and
Attempted to expand the use of civil asset forfeiture to take private property without due process of law.
Needless to say, Kamala’s record isn’t the best on public safety and law enforcement issues. And we haven’t even discussed her time in the Senate.
So...we’ve got a theory...giving economic development incentives (handouts) reduces economic growth
To offer these incentives, we have to take money from other projects to fund one (politically favored) business
It disadvantages local businesses that don’t get the same incentives
It fosters corruption among politicians and perverse incentives to businesses
i.e., it incentives businesses to lobby state and local politicians so they can get bigger handouts (or keep the ones they have)
There’s not enough accountability, when a business doesn’t meet its job creation promises there are no real consequences from policy makers
What does the data say?
Since 1987, NC state and local governments have given 16,000 incentives to businesses worth $13.5 billion!
Only five other states provided more welfare to corporations
NC’s two biggest programs (One North Carolina Fund and the Job Development Investment grant) promised 204,000 jobs… and so far they have delivered 95,000...that’s a 46.57%. When I was in grade school, that was considered usually a failing grade!
Has it gotten better recently?
Unfortunately, it has not… since 2009 Apple got $1.3 billion in potential subsidies from NC
This is more than all other subsidies combined!
A few years ago we offered $1.2 billion to Vinfast…but two years later, construction hasn’t even started (and they recently announced it will be delayed another three years)
So, if corporate welfare doesn’t work, what should we do?
We need to create a business- friendly environment that acts as a level playing field
The U. S. Supreme Court ruled in Murthy v. Missouri that the plaintiffs lacked standing in their claim that federal officials violated their rights under the First Amendment by convincing social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to suppress their speech about topics like; the efficacy and safety of mask mandates, lockdowns, various Covid treatments, and so forth.
Thus, the Court did not issue an injunction ordering the government to stop suppressing their speech.
Why does this matter?
The Murthy opinion will encourage collusion between government agencies and corporate media to suppress unwanted speech of all kinds.
Such suppression doesn’t just have to be about Covid; the Biden White House also persuaded media outlets to suppress speech about Hunter Biden’s laptop, as well as irregularities in the 2020 election.
Thankfully, an earlier Supreme Court case this year, NRA v. Vullo, gave an unanimous opinion confirming that the First Amendment forbids even indirect attacks on Americans’ expressive rights.
Hopefully the Court will use the NRA case for precedent moving forward, rather than the Murthy one.
In the past year, 1.8 million people got part-time jobs. Sadly, 1.5 million full time jobs also disappeared.
In fact, net job creation during the last year has been ALL part-time
But it gets worse. This past June, full time jobs fell by 28,000 while part-time positions grew by 58,000 (more than 2X the number of full-time jobs lost!)
But what about all those “blockbuster” monthly jobs reports you keep seeing?
This is drawn from the “establishment survey”...
This counts the # of people on payroll from a survey of businesses.
The other big survey by the Bureau of Labour and Statistics conducts a household survey which counts the number of people with jobs.
Because when all the full-time jobs disappear, sometimes people have to work a few of them.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a significant divergence between the two surveys. And as McMaken of the Mises Institute has pointed out, that divergence is now 4.3 million.
That means 16 million jobs were created…but only 12 million people are working them…
All of this suggests that Biden’s record on creating good jobs for hard working Americans isn't quite as good as he claims…
