Have you noticed that all of the negotiations on the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package have been behind closed doors without any public hearings or townhall meetings? We noticed. That is why we we put out a release earlier this week calling on Congress to stop all negotiations on the $3.5 trillion (or whatever amount it ends up being) until public hearings are held. The American people are looking to their elected officials in Washington for real leadership as economic uncertainty continues to grip the nation. Taxpayers deserve a fiscally responsible budget, which helps mitigate the economic damage inflicted over the past year, not a $3.5 trillion spending and taxing spree. It is unacceptable that there hasn’t been one public hearing or townhall meeting to discuss this massive package.
Winter is Coming… Are You Ready for Higher Energy Bills?
In case you missed it,
Game of Thrones ended more than two years ago, but a common theme of the HBO series is currently on many Americans’ minds and that is winter. The famous tagline is true, winter
is coming. And much like the people of the fictional Westeros and Essos, the U.S. is facing a very dark winter, especially if Democrats in Washington get their way. While the U.S. isn’t facing a situation like zombies and a dark night taking over, many consumers will be facing a surge in the cost of energy bills, namely to heat homes during the coming winter. Unfortunately, jammed in the trillion-dollar reconciliation package are disastrous proposals that would further increase energy bills. In mid-October, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its 2021
Winter Fuels Outlook which reported that “retail prices for energy are at or near multiyear highs in the United States.” If it’s colder than average by 10 percent, these prices are expected to increase by 50 percent and if it’s 10 percent warmer than average, households can expect a 22 percent increase. Price increases are also expected for consumers that use electricity, propane, and heating oil to heat their homes. The reconciliation bill has a provision to “impose and collect a fee” on owners and/or manufacturers of facilities that are “required to report methane emissions.” The fee would apply to offshore and onshore petroleum and natural gas producers, as well as other producers of natural gas. That’s the same natural gas that nearly “half of U.S. households rely on” to heat their homes. Much like the poor folks of Westeros, should this package go through, Americans can expect to pay even more than what the EIA is expecting and it will be
longer than just this winter.
Any fee on gas and oil producers will ultimately trickle down to consumers and unduly burden lower income persons. According to a September 2018 report by the EIA, in 2015 an estimated “one-third of U.S. households reported facing a challenge in paying energy bills or sustaining adequate heating and cooling in their homes.” Further, “about one in five households reported reducing or forgoing necessities such as food and medicine to pay an energy bill.” A 2020 research report from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy “found that low-income, Black, Hispanic, and Native American households all face dramatically higher energy burdens — spend a greater portion of their income on energy bills — than the average household.” The report’s authors also found that even prior to COVID-19, “1 in 4 households struggled with high energy burdens” and that “more than 1 in 10 [had] energy costs consuming more than a tenth of their household budget.”
Much like the infighting in
Game of Thrones (or any power-centric television show), winter is coming regardless of who is in office and holding congressional power. The U.S.’s version will not be fantastical flesh-eating creations of George R. R. Martin’s imagination, but a stark reminder of the COVID-19 recession. While it’s not a guarantee that energy prices will continue to rise after this winter, many Americans, understandably, want to know when the “rightful” leaders will step up and address these costs and explore more options to reduce the cost burden on consumers.
Antitrust Failure
When a member of Congress offers a piece of legislation there is an expectation that they are trying to “fix” something. In 2017, tax reform fixed a tax code that hadn’t been updated in 30 years. Individual and corporate tax rates were lowered. The economy took off as millions of Americans received bonuses and corporations returned to the U.S. to do business. Now, there is a move in Congress to “fix” antitrust laws. The latest offering is by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) which would ban America’s most successful technology firms from engaging in practices that are commonplace in the offline world, such as self-preferencing. Self-preferencing means that a company preferences its products over others. You see this all time in grocery stores and other large retailers such as Target and CVS. What Sen. Klobuchar’s legislation would do is fundamentally alter the internet and personal devices such as smartphones, dramatically harming consumer convenience and security.
The least of the concerns for American consumers now are Amazon Prime, cheaper generic goods, preloaded iPhones, Google Maps, and seamless interoperability between Facebook’s services. Klobuchar’s legislation threatens all of these modern day conveniences that make Americans’ lives easier. All of these are products that consumers have demanded from these companies and Congress wants to take them away. Under the ruse of promoting competition, a bipartisan group of senators have given in to pressure from lobbyists of less-successful technology companies to use antitrust law to destroy the products and services Americans have chosen as the most convenient and valuable in favor of their own. It’s absolutely shameful to craft antitrust law to only limit the most successful competitors above a certain, arbitrary market-cap in a narrowly-defined market such as the tech space. Legislating to punish specific firms versus crafting laws that apply to all businesses is not the proper role of government. Companies in the tech sector should be able to engage in the same practices that brick-and-mortar retailers have done since the dawn of that industry. There’s no reason to ban them from doing so other than to rig the game. There’s nothing pro-competition about that.
BLOGS:
MEDIA:
October 18, 2021: Townhall.com ran TPA’s op-ed, “FDA’s Negligence Led to Youth E-Cigarette Use, Worse for Adult Smokers.”
October 18, 2021: In These Times quoted TPA in their story, “Postal Banking Is Finally a Reality in (Some of) the United States.”
October 19, 2021: The American Spectator ran TPA’s op-ed, “Winter Is Coming – And a Dark, Cold Night is Likely If Democrats Get Their Way.”
October 19, 2021: Real Clear Policy ran TPA’s op-ed, “Attack on Roth IRAs Is an Attack on Careful Savers.”
October 20, 2021: I appeared on the David Webb Show on Sirius/XM to talk about how Congress wants to change Individual Retirement Accounts.
October 20, 2021: Real Clear Markets ran TPA’s op-ed, “Congress Should Say No To An IRS Power Grab.”
October 20, 2021: The Colorado Springs Gazette (Colorado Springs, Col.) quoted TPA in their story, “Blowback to Biden's banking hustle.”
October 20, 2021: VP of Policy Patrick Hedger appeared on The KWOS Morning Show with Austin Petersen and John Marsh on KWOS 950 AM/104.5 FM (Jefferson City, Mo.) to discuss the IRS monitoring of bank accounts and the reconciliation package.
October 21, 2021: The Center Square ran TPA’s op-ed, “Warren’s investment regulations are a recipe for economic disaster.”
October 21, 2021: WBFF Fox45 (Baltimore, Md.) interviewed me about COVID relief spending in Baltimore.
October 21, 2021: I appeared on WBOB 600 AM (Jacksonville, Fla.) to talk about the potential change in Individual Retirement Accounts.
October 21, 2021: I appeared on WHO 1040 AM (Des Moines, Iowa) to talk about the $3.5 trillion budget bill.
Have a great weekend!
