By now you’ve probably heard about our just-released study, which analyzed the private sector business experience of the current administration. We found:
The median years of business experience is zero.
62% of the Biden appointees dealing with economic policy, regulation, commerce, energy, and finance have no practical experience working in the private sector.
The vast majority of the Biden economic/commerce team consists of professional politicians, lawyers, community organizers, academics, lobbyists, and government employees.
Yesterday, the consumer price index reported the worst inflation rate in 40 years. So what is the Democratic plan to deal with the crisis of runaway spending?
This throwaway line from a major news outlet reporting on the Democratic House strategy session yesterday morning encapsulates why the wheels are coming off our economic engine:
→ “Inflation wasn’t a main topic of conversation in a House Democratic Caucus meeting this morning.” Punchbowl News
Apparently Nancy Pelosi, et al, were too busy conspiring about how they would raise hundreds of billions of taxes and spending to worry about higher prices.
We keep hearing that the Fed is reducing its near $9 trillion balance sheet. But here is the latest chart from Laffer Associates. This looks to us like the peak of Mt. Everest.
Most of these trillions of dollars of “assets” are Treasury bonds, but there are also an estimated $1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities in the Fed portfolio.
Rather than raising interest rates directly, we’d prefer the Fed to stop distorting credit markets by buying up treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities. These direct interventions into markets by the Fed distort investment decisions. Instead the Fed should start selling off these bonds. This will raise interest rates for sure, but the bond-selling should continue until inflation gets below 4% and hopefully closer to the 2% Fed target.
Scandals such as Alaska’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” led Congress to put curbs on earmarks – specific local pork projects inserted at the last minute into spending bills.
The new Democratic Senate did away with its limits on earmarks when it began In January 2021. So earmarking is back big time, and the abuses have come fast and furious: $1.6 million for “equitable shellfish aquaculture” in Rhode Island, $3 million for an art collection in Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn, N.Y., and $500,000 for horse management in Nevada.
GOP Senator Mike Braun of Indiana joined with Senators Rick Scott of Florida and Steve Daines of Montana to inject a little sanity in the process. This week they was able to get some minor concessions, that will end the practice of inserting earmarks into a bill just hours before they voted on and with little scrutiny.
We will take even small steps to stop the spending, but the real battle will take place next January when – if Republicans take control of the Senate. Will a GOP Senate restrict pork? Probably not, but hope springs eternal.
Really? After two and half years of New York being COVID panic ground zero... the Times is celebrating "the most New York of attitudes." Congrats, we guess?
