Fixes for Inflation & Biden's Economic Mess
A deluge of dismal data over the last 10 days clarifies the challenge. Here are solutions...
“Another big miss here.” That was CNBC’s reaction to the Jobs Report for December that was released this January 7th. Even the corporatist broadcasters, dutiful mouthpieces for the heavily Democrat-leaning NBC family of networks owned by Comcast, conceded just how disappointing the payrolls number was, coming in at less than half of expectations for job creation. That awful Jobs Report kicked off a 10 day deluge of almost impossibly dismal data under the failed economic stewardship of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer.
Calamity always creates opportunity, though. With amazing rapidity, Biden plunges America into an economic quagmire. But this imbroglio of stagnation also presents a chance for policy renewal and for answers on broad prosperity from the America First movement.
Before we delve into policy solutions, though, a quick rundown of the profound damage already inflicted by Biden. We must assess the damage to properly institute the triage.
Following the depressing Jobs Report, we learned of more terrible evidence of out-of-control Inflation, for the first time in over a generation in America. Consumer Prices hit a four decade record at +7% year-over-year, as revealed in CPI, and Producer Prices hit an all-time record at +9.7% annually.
So, taken together, the deceleration in hiring coupled with a marked rise in broad prices in the economy reveal the reality of Stagflation, a toxic combination of slower growth with soaring prices. It represents the worst kind of putrid economic stew, a phenomenon unseen in America since the doldrum days of malaise under Jimmy Carter.
Adding to the gloom on the deceleration, we also then learned of a huge disappointment on Retail Sales for the key Christmas spending month of December. Total sales dropped -1.9% for the month, far below expectations and the worst read in 10 months.
Given this steady barrage of economic despair, unsurprisingly last week finished with a significant drop in Consumer Confidence, as reported by the widely-watched University of Michigan Sentiment Survey. It dropped well below projections, and 2 of the past 3 months now register the lowest readings of the last decade for that important poll. In fact, the Michigan number now sits well beneath the previous Confidence lows from the lockdowns of Spring of 2020. Moreover, the that survey is no outlier, as the latest poll from The Economist/YouGov reports that a paltry 18% of Americans now say they are better off today than they were a year ago, before Biden took office. Even worse, among working-class people, those “better off” numbers are more miniscule. For non-degree holding white women, only 13% report they are doing better financially, and only 9% for Hispanics.
So given this economic misery, what solutions make sense? How does the America First movement reignite the American economy and rightly earn the support of the electorate in the 2022 midterms to deal with Biden’s Inflation nightmare? Here are fixes -- two of them immediate, and one more structural:
1. Stop Biden’s Gargantuan Borrowing and Spending. Even a cursory look at charts of Inflation displays that as soon as his lavish and wasteful spending spree commenced, so too did runaway inflation. President Trump’s economic policies proved that high-speed growth, especially for personal incomes, does not need to generate inflation. Trump turbo-charged incomes both before the pandemic and then in a hard-charging recovery off the lockdown lows, without any material inflation. But Biden put Washington borrow-and-spend ways on steroids, pouring capital into an economy that did not need new money, thereby discouraging work and fueling massive inflation. Sadly, Minority Mitch and other Senate GOP collaborators were only too willing to play along, including with a mammoth so-called “infrastructure” package. So, the first solution: apply the fiscal tourniquet. Slow the inflation trajectory. Stop spending. Now.
2. Repeal All Medical Mandates. The Supreme Court thankfully struck down Biden’s illegal and capricious mandate upon larger employers, but tens of millions of American workers are still subject to medical apartheid requirements simply to earn a paycheck. These outrageous incursions into the private health decisions of laborers have been a huge hurdle for getting America fully back on the job and supply lines functioning at complete capacity again. The GOP Congress can stop extending the debt ceiling unless Biden agrees to suspend all remaining mandates, including frontline healthcare workers as well as the military. In addition, red states across America must make all private sector mandates illegal.
3. Immigration Moratorium. During this pandemic, despite a choppy and turbulent recovery and surging inflation, Biden has thrown open America’s front door and instigated a bull rush of illegal migrants into our homeland. Right now, Real Wages crash in America, because pay cannot keep pace with Biden’s vaulting Inflation. In fact, wage gains have lagged Inflation increases for 10 straight months under Biden. In this predicament, the worst possible idea is the mass importation of new workers to flood the labor market and depress wages even further. No American citizens should be forced to compete for pay against hordes of illegal migrants that Biden and Harris simply wave into America. But the GOP should go beyond shutting down unlawful migration and promise to suspend even legal migration to America. It is long past time for a pause, so that America can properly assimilate the immigrants already here, allow wages to rise apace, and make certain that future immigration once again serves, first and foremost, the interests of legal citizens of the United States.
These are dark economic times in America. Biden has wrought misery in an incredibly brief time frame. The pain particularly afflicts working-class Americans. The America First movement must provide answers – and the policy mix of populist economic nationalism will lay the groundwork for what President Donald Trump described at his Arizona rally as a “comeback the likes of which nobody has ever seen.”
Steve, You are making too much sense. The Dems would have to reverse every one of their fiscal policies and spending bills in order to turn the US Economy around. As we have seen in the past, they NEVER admit they were wrong - even with all they did in 1979 in order to get Reagan elected. It going to be a really rough next 3 years.
Other than hopeful future votes for Dems and current cheap labor for donors, is there ANY reason to allow/promote unregulated open borders? Biden's (non)handling of our borders is ridiculous and dangerous.