Patterico's Pontifications

1/13/2022

The Biden Administration Is Getting Its Rear Kicked by Inflation [Updated]

Filed under: General — JVW @ 11:33 am



[guest post by JVW]

UPDATE: As Paul Montagu and DCSCA have pointed out, the Biden Administration also had their vaccine mandates for private employers smacked down by the Supreme Court today. As Paul Montagu writes, it is a big victory for federalism and an important loss for allowing unelected appointees and a federal bureaucracy to impose far-reaching regulations without the assent of Congress.

— Original Post —

The numbers are in, and they ought to be embarrassing to the Biden Administration who spent the past year insisting that its spending orgies would actually tame rather than exacerbate the rise in inflation:

Inflation plowed ahead at its fastest 12-month pace in nearly 40 years during December, according to a closely watched gauge the Labor Department released Wednesday.

The consumer price index, a metric that measures costs across dozens of items, increased 7%, according to the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. On a monthly basis, CPI rose 0.5%.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting the gauge to increase 7% on an annual basis and 0.4% from November.

The annual move was the fastest increase since June 1982 and comes amid a shortage of goods and workers and on the heels of unprecedented cash flowing through the U.S. economy from Congress and the Federal Reserve.

Even left-wing media outlets get that inflation is disastrous, and though they are loath to admit it, they are staring to understand the effect that pouring trillions of imaginary dollars into the economy over the past eighteen months has had in driving up prices. Naturally, the concern among the left isn’t so much for how rampant inflation affects working-class and poor families, it’s for how it might help Republicans and hurt Democrats in this November’s elections.

At National Review, Charles C. W. Cooke views the latest inflation news as proof positive that Joe Manchin was absolutely right in opposing Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.

The last year has been the tale of two Joes. There has been Joe Biden, whose core position on inflation has been that it wouldn’t dare interfere with his presidency. In July, Biden insisted that “there’s nobody suggesting there’s unchecked inflation on the way — no serious economist — that’s totally different.” In December, when inflation could no longer be denied, Biden alternated between insisting that inflation was about to go away and pretending that his plan to spend another $3.5 trillion would somehow prevent it from getting worse. Today, the White House is sounding equally schizophrenic. Inflation is peaking, says Jen Psaki, confidently. Oh, and also, it’s not real.

And then there has been Joe Manchin, who has not only seen inflation coming, but has clearly articulated the link between its pending arrival and our excessive government spending. In September of last year, Manchin explained that he wasn’t thrilled by the prospect of adding trillions more in spending to the World War II–sized figure that the federal government has approved since March of 2020, given the risks that such spending would pose. “Suggesting that spending trillions more will not have an impact on inflation,” he wrote, “ignores the everyday reality that America’s families continue to pay an unavoidable inflation tax.” In November, Manchin was even clearer. “I, for one,” he vowed, “won’t support a multitrillion-dollar bill without greater clarity about why Congress chooses to ignore the serious effects inflation and debt have on our economy and existing government programs.” “Elected leaders,” Manchin concluded, “continue to ignore exploding inflation, that our national debt continues to grow, and interest payments on the debt will start to rapidly increase when the FED has to start raising interest rates to try to slow down runaway inflation.”

Joe Manchin was right.

Mr. Cooke goes on to remind us that the Biden Administration, far from being chagrined at their woebegone economic forecasting, is doubling down on it. Roll Call reports that not only is the administration going to continue to agitate for at least $1.5 trillion in a new BBB bill, they are also going to push for yet another round of COVID “relief” spending to be distributed to schools (the federal government has to date spent at least $190 billion on COVID relief for education, which works out to be almost $1.5 million for each the nation’s 131,000 schools, or $14 million for each of the 13,500 school districts) and perhaps also used to fight the virus overseas. This despite the fact that Senate Republicans claim that over 70 percent of the funds already allocated still haven’t been spent. Even committed media progressives like Chris Hayes at MSNBC are left (bad pun there) wondering why education suddenly needs a new infusion of cash.

This is just part-and-parcel of what happens when a feeble-minded old man who gives the impression of taking orders from — rather than giving orders to — his staff is put in a position for which he was always clearly unqualified and is sadly no longer even remotely capable of managing. Biden’s own blinkered view of history and tragic need to be considered worthy of a career which somehow seems to have just fallen into his lap leads him to flights of fancy which bear no relation to reality’s ugly interludes. As Charles Cooke points out, a administration which came into power with a very narrow House majority and an evenly-split Senate somehow thought it would ram through FDR-style sweeping legislation. That they have been as successful has they have in their first year has been a great misfortune to the American people, but at this point it would seem that their luck has finally run out. At least let us hope so.

CODA: Looks like Sen. Krysten Sinema has put in the nails in the coffin of the Democrats’ plan to change filibuster rules to ram through their voting nationalization bill. This follows Sen. Manchin’s declaration that any changes to the filibuster require the assent of 2/3 of the Senate.

– JVW

78 Responses to “The Biden Administration Is Getting Its Rear Kicked by Inflation [Updated]”

  1. Of course now that I have predicted doom for the Democrats, watch them somehow rally and enact a great deal of their agenda this spring. And it’s not out of the question that the Fed will find a way to tame inflation — Dominic Pino points out that new Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is not a fan of more stimulus and may provide the Biden Administration with the cover for an economic pivot — and that the Democrats’ election fortunes will improve in the summer and fall.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  2. CODA: Looks like Sen. Krysten Sinema has put in the nails in the coffin of the Democrats’ plan to change filibuster rules to ram through their voting nationalization bill. This follows Sen. Manchin’s declaration that any changes to the filibuster require the assent of 2/3 of the Senate.

    – JVW

    I read somewhere, yesterday, that the House Dems have a back up plan of taking some arbitrary bill that already passed the Senate and attaching the bill to it and use the same legislative trick that rammed Obamacare through after Scott Brown’s debut.

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  3. Apologies for hijacking, but breaking news.
    Biden also got his butt kicked on his private employer vaccine/testing mandates, thanks to the USSC, but they did carve out an exception for certain health care workers.
    It was a victory for federalism and against federal government overreach.

    Paul Montagu (55d04d)

  4. The Dems economic policy sucks and it’s no surprise it’s not yielding good results.

    Time123 (33cdfa)

  5. The Biden Administration Is Getting Its Rear Kicked by Inflation

    SCOTUS, too. They just shot sown his VAX employer mandates.

    Poor ol’ Joe…

    ‘This just isn’t you day, is it.” – James Bond, 007 [Sean Connery] ‘From Russia With Love’ 1963

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  6. Worst inflation since 1982!

    Ahhh, roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of– Reagan! 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  7. My house is going up in value.

    asset (c85e60)

  8. It was a victory for federalism and against federal government overreach.

    More like a long overdue smack to the kisser of an angry, loud-mouthed Irish-Catholic bum who can’t walk up stairs, stage whispers to TV cameras and believes only he can save “the soul of America” like some pillaging, crusading pope.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  9. But hey, Orange Man is gone, and no more mean tweets! The Republic is saved!

    Horatio (47545f)

  10. #2 —

    That allows Schumer to put the bill on the floor and yack about it. I’m sure that will help CSPAN’s ratings, but it does not get the law passed with less than 60 votes.

    Appalled (1a17de)

  11. I read somewhere, yesterday, that the House Dems have a back up plan of taking some arbitrary bill that already passed the Senate and attaching the bill to it and use the same legislative trick that rammed Obamacare through after Scott Brown’s debut.

    Assuming that Manchin and/or Sinema voted for that Senate bill, they could move for reconsideration and probably force another vote which would then presumably fail with either Senator switching sides. But I’m sure the Democrats will scour the rulebook and engage their army of activist lawyers looking for some magical way to force this bill into law. I also have a great deal of faith that Cocaine Mitch McConnell has accounted for all of these possibilities and has his counter-moves ready to go.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  12. Biden also got his butt kicked on his private employer vaccine/testing mandates, thanks to the USSC, but they did carve out an exception for certain health care workers.

    On a Thursday afternoon before a government holiday weekend in Washington…

    An ‘early bird special’ for ol’Joe.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  13. UPDATE: As Paul Montagu and DCSCA have pointed out, the Biden Administration also had their vaccine mandates for private employers smacked down by the Supreme Court today. As Paul Montagu writes, it is a big victory for federalism and an important loss for allowing unelected appointees and a federal bureaucracy to impose far-reaching regulations without the assent of Congress.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  14. My house is going up in value.

    And the money you get when you sell it will have far less purchasing power.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  15. Oh that traitorous SCOTUS! Looks like it’s ‘on the side of Bull Connor, Jeff Davis and George Wallace,’ eh, stage-whisper Joe?

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  16. @14. 1982 Reaganomics!! 😉

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  17. If only one of those robotic insect spy drones was let loose by the intel crowd to be a literal ‘fly on the wall’ in the WH to record when angry Joe goes into his staff tirades! Oh. Wait…

    … and Putin smiled.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  18. They split the baby. Need to read their reasoning to see how they pretended it was legal for 17% of the economy, but not the rest.

    NJRob (5cf750)

  19. Russia threatens military deployment to Cuba and Venezuela as Nato talks falter
    US says ‘drumbeat of war is sounding loud’ as talks with Russia over Ukraine head towards dead end

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/13/russia-says-talks-with-nato-over-ukraine-are-hitting-a-dead-end

    Echoes of 1962 in 2022, eh, Joey!?!?

    When we’re “eyeball-to-eyeball” this time, expect Squinty McStumblebum to blink.

    … and Putin smiled.

    “And the hits just keep on coming.” – Lt. Kaffee [Tom Cruise] ‘A Few Good Men’ 1992

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  20. I was a bit disappointed to see Thomas’s wing of the court oppose the Medicare vaccination requirements. They go on at some length about the “irreversability” of the vaccination but do not seem to worry so much about the irreversability of death or serious injury from contracting Covid in a hospital. They may be right that the government would fail to prove their case on the merits later, but they may be wrong too — there is such a web of regulation on medical providers that accept Medicare that it would be difficult to show any bright line whatsoever.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  21. #16

    C’mon, you know that inflation was the legacy of Nixon, Ford, Carter. The fact that the recession in 81-82 was especially brutal could be blamed on the Gipper, if you want. But not the inflation…

    Appalled (1a17de)

  22. the irreversability of death or serious injury from contracting Covid in a hospital.

    Desantis explains in a short video:

    https://mobile.twitter.com/robbievmyers/status/1481732292653551623?cxt=HHwWjsC4ve3qlZApAAAA

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  23. Worst inflation since 1982!

    Ahhh, roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of– Reagan!

    In Reagan’s time that 7% was on the way down from the double-digit inflation he inherited, on its way to the less-than-2% range a year or so later.

    Today, it is on the way UP to ???, from the less-than-2% range that Biden inherited.

    Comparing the two as you did is, well, Troll-like.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  24. The fact that the recession in 81-82 was especially brutal could be blamed on the Gipper, if you want. But not the inflation…

    It should be blamed on Volker; Reagan was upset in the extreme, knowing it would cost him at the midterms.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  25. An InstaPundit commenter made a good observation:

    Fairly predictable given that healthcare workers for facilities that accept Medicare already had a Hepatitis-B vaccine requirement.

    So it looks like the Supreme Court didn’t seek to break precedent on that issue, but some folks would rather not “read their reasoning”.
    Over at Reason, Somin has a little more on the healthcare worker carve-out.

    In Biden v. Missouri, a 5-4 Court upheld the the CMS health-care worker vaccine mandate. Chief Justice Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberals in the majority. Here is the key passage in the majority opinion, which I largely agree with:

    Congress has authorized the Secretary to impose conditions on the receipt of Medicaid and Medicare funds that “the Secretary finds necessary in the interest of the health and safety of individuals who are furnished services.” 42 U.S. C. §1395x(e)(9).* COVID–19 is a highly contagious, dangerous, and—especially for Medicare and Medicaid patients—deadly disease. The Secretary of Health and Human Services determined that a COVID–19 vaccine mandate will substantially reduce the likelihood that healthcare workers will contract the virus and transmit it to their patients. 86 Fed. Reg. 61557–61558. He accordingly concluded that a vaccine mandate is “necessary to promote and protect patient health and safety” in the face of the ongoing pandemic.…

    The rule thus fits neatly within the language of the statute. After all, ensuring that providers take steps to avoid transmitting a dangerous virus to their patients is consistent with the fundamental principle of the medical profession: first, do no harm. It would be the “very opposite of efficient and effective administration for a facility that is supposed to make people well to make them sick with COVID–19.”Florida v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 19 F. 4th 1271, 1288 (CA11 2021).

    The States and JUSTICE THOMAS [in his dissent] offer a narrower view of the various authorities at issue, contending that the seemingly broad language cited above authorizes the Secretary to impose no more than a list of bureaucratic rules regarding the technical administration of Medicare and Medicaid.

    But the longstanding practice of Health and Human Services in implementing the relevant statutory authorities tells a different story. As noted above, healthcare facilities that wish to participate in Medicare and Medicaid have always been obligated to satisfy a host of conditions that address the safe and effective provision of healthcare, not simply sound accounting.

    When asked at oral argument whether the Secretary could, using the very same statutory authorities at issue here, require hospital employees to wear gloves, sterilize instruments, wash their hands in a certain way and at certain intervals, and the like, Missouri answered yes… Of course the vaccine mandate goes further than what the Secretary has done in the past to implement infection control. But he has never had to address an infection problem of this scale and scope before. In any event, there can be no doubt that addressing infection problems in Medicare and Medicaid facilities is what he does.…

    Vaccination requirements are a common feature of the provision of healthcare in America: Healthcare workers around the country are ordinarily required to be vaccinated for diseases such as hepatitis B, influenza, and measles, mumps, and rubella… As the Secretary explained, these preexisting state requirements are a major reason the agency has not previously adopted vaccine mandates as a condition of participation.

    Paul Montagu (a4f7d0)

  26. @22: It is really hard to pack that many lies into s short tweet, but I guess he’s had practice.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  27. Need to read their reasoning to see how they pretended it was legal for 17% of the economy, but not the rest.

    Short answer is that hospitals and other health clinics benefit from Medicare and Medicaid, ergo OHSA has the right to dictate work conditions there. Roberts and Kavanaugh joined the three lefties in that decision; I would like to read what the other four thought about it.

    JVW (ee64e4)

  28. It was a short video as well. With subtitles.

    Is it lie that some states are having vaxxed Covid positive health care workers report to work because of shortages?

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  29. The reason that so-called “natural immunity” is not accepted is that 1) people will lie about their past infection; 2) people will be wrong about their past infection; 3) the ability of testing to determine the degree and/or efficacy of this “natural immunity” does not exist and there is no database to refer to. The efficacy of the vaccine is known fairly well.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  30. That is dandy. But what about sending Covid positive healthcare employees back to work?

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  31. @27

    Short answer is that hospitals and other health clinics benefit from Medicare and Medicaid,ergo OHSA has the right to dictate work conditions there. Roberts and Kavanaugh joined the three lefties in that decision; I would like to read what the other four thought about it.

    JVW (ee64e4) — 1/13/2022 @ 1:25 pm

    I’m sure that should be “ergo HHS” has the right…

    whembly (36ab5f)

  32. Is it lie that some states are having vaxxed Covid positive health care workers report to work because of shortages?

    Those area’s stupidity does not mean that the rules they are flouting are also stupid. Their Medicare/Medicaid funding should be (and probably will be) cut off if they persist.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  33. I’m sure that should be “ergo HHS” has the right…

    The Secretary of Health and Human Services administers the Medicare and Medicaid programs, which provide health insurance for millions of elderly, disabled, and low-income Americans. In November 2021, the Secretary announced that, in order to receive Medicare and Medicaid funding, participating facilities must ensure that their staff—unless exempt for medical or religious reasons—are vaccinated against COVID–19. 86 Fed. Reg. 61555 (2021).Two District Courts enjoined enforcement of the rule, and the Government now asks us to stay those injunctions.Agreeing that it is entitled to such relief, we grant the applications.

    Way down in the first sentence of the decision.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  34. Yeah… about those stupid stupidheads. They are following CDC guidance:

    Hospitals and long-term care facilities are so short staffed that many are compelling Covid-positive doctors and nurses to return to work, arguing that bringing back asymptomatic or even symptomatic staff is the only way they can keep their doors open amid a spike in hospitalizations.

    The practice, allowed by the most recent CDC guidance, underscores the dire situation in which many facilities find themselves as more than 120,000 people nationwide are now hospitalized with the virus — almost three times the total from Thanksgiving when Omicron was first detected.

    https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2022/01/10/doctors-covid-staff-shortage-526842

    Do the get to keep their Medicare money now?

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  35. A concise summary from French on federal overreach and existing law.

    The pandemic neither expands the power of the executive branch beyond its statutory limits nor creates cause to contract it.

    Paul Montagu (a4f7d0)

  36. JVW,

    The short answer is that they did not think that mere “administrative” powers reached to vaccines and that the myriad authorities in the law(s) to “ensure health and safety” of patients and workers were too disparate to form a clear power to do so. Apparently the laws are balkanized wrt hospitals, private practices, care facilities, etc, and do not have all that much common language. Thomas did not see that the, um, penumbra was sufficient.

    HHS case: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a240_d18e.pdf
    OSHA case: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21a244_hgci.pdf

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  37. My read on this, correct me if I’m wrong, is that this was about the “stays” of the cases, not the merits.

    The HHS case, the one with the mandate still in place, can still be overturned later on merits as it navigates through the court. Right?

    whembly (7e0293)

  38. Do the get to keep their Medicare money now?

    OK, you win. By your argument they are doing the right thing. Note that these are not unvaccinated people, nor are they likely to be working in close contact with non-covid patients.

    If you don’t understand why this is important, consider the cancer patient who has to go in for his Chemo treatment. He has no immunity even if he’s had Covid twice and 17 shots. Maybe you don’t care because “he’s a deader” or something.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  39. 37: right. Thomas thought they did not show a likelihood to win on the merits and focused on the irreversibility of the vaccine.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  40. Note that these are not unvaccinated people,..

    Indeed. They are contagious vaccinated people. That’s better?

    .. nor are they likely to be working in close contact with non-covid patients.

    You might want to read the concerns listed in the article.

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  41. In my state the legislature sued the governor over who got to decide how the stimulus funds would be spent. And we haven’t even gotten to the infrastructure money or the BBB “plan.”

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  42. I oppose Biden’s spending but question whether that is the prime driver of inflation

    WSJ
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-inflation-cause-stock-market-11637623703#:~:text=The%20current%20bout%20of%20inflation,them%20linked%20to%20the%20pandemic.&text=Energy%20prices%2C%20including%20gasoline%2C%20have,led%20to%20supply%2Dchain%20disruptions.

    Forbes
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2021/08/18/inflation-surge-to-continue-here-are-3-reasons-why/?sh=22fac72f690a

    PBS
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/how-the-supply-chain-caused-current-inflation-and-why-it-might-be-here-to-stay

    Forbes will include the impact of Biden’s deficit spending…and I suppose would be equally chagrined by Trump’s deficits as well. Certainly Biden proposed more stuff…and that stuff still might get through….but it’s not a certainty….so any market anticipation would be a little wary. Supply and demand and an economy gradually opening from the pandemic are the more straight-forward explanations.

    AJ_Liberty (ec7f74)

  43. BuDuh, I really cannot comment on this because the devil is in the detail. It is made to seem like hordes of zombies are converging on hospitals, when it might only be a few workers at a few sites.

    There is apparently a shortage for whatever reason (I expect it is mostly that people are calling in sick to avoid being exposed, not because they are really sick). I would hope that they hold a few locations out as Covid-free (no Covid patients, either). That they are allowing this does not mean they WANT to do this, or even they think it is a good idea, just the least bad one.

    It really does not call into question any other policy that they have, like you seem to think it does.

    There is a law against 14 year-olds driving cars. But if mom is having a baby unexpectedly, they are not going to cite the 14yo who drives mom to the hospital. Allowing that does not call into question the general policy about 14yo kids driving cars.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  44. Sirhan Sirhan’s parole cancelled by Newsom. NFW, he explained.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  45. Drunk drivers can drive if there are pregnant women in the car.

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  46. @23. No, Kevin, just Reaganomics.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  47. Terrible day for Team Brandon and his Coalition of the Shilling.

    But a grrrreat day for America.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  48. “My house is going up in value.”

    Probably the only direction it could go, asset.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  49. ‘This is just part-and-parcel of what happens when a feeble-minded old man who gives the impression of taking orders from — rather than giving orders to — his staff is put in a position for which he was always clearly unqualified and is sadly no longer even remotely capable of managing. Biden’s own blinkered view of history and tragic need to be considered worthy of a career which somehow seems to have just fallen into his lap leads him to flights of fancy which bear no relation to reality’s ugly interludes.’

    And– he’s a bum; and how:

    “You’re everything we’ve come to expect from years of government training.” – Zed [Rip Torn] ‘Men In Black’ 1997

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  50. Oooh, gooodie! This means Mr. The Real President Donald Trump will move back into the White House this coming January 20! Let’s go Brandon!

    nk (1d9030)

  51. Inflation is another word for devaluation. The f-word o-word was trying to devalue the dollar since the first day he got into office. It took Biden to do it for him.

    nk (1d9030)

  52. The Biden Administration Is Getting Its Rear Kicked by Inflation

    1982… ahhh, those rich Reagan days & nights full of Dallas, Dynasty and seconds on hot bowls of ketchup soup for dinner!

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  53. The law does not require the doing of a futile act. If vaccination does not prevent transmission, then at least let the lamebrains earn a few bucks so they’re less of a waste of lebensraum.

    nk (1d9030)

  54. Da cellar dweller needs to fill up on embalming fluid.

    mg (8cbc69)

  55. One feeble and despondent President needs to be 25th to the Cukoo’s Nest.

    mg (8cbc69)

  56. Tom Elliott
    @tomselliott
    · 4h
    Biden, appearing to admit defeat on ending the filibuster & nationalizing elections, randomly starts shouting: States’ voter reform laws are “about who gets to count the votes! Count the vote! Count the vote!”

    *********
    Christina Pushaw 🐊
    @ChristinaPushaw
    ·
    21m
    Why is a President who won 81 million votes shouting that he doesn’t trust some states to count votes … so he needs to change “who counts the votes”?

    https://twitter.com/ChristinaPushaw/status/1481778698001043461?cxt=HHwWisC-oYD4qpApAAAA

    The Bigger Lie??

    BuDuh (4a7846)

  57. The dolt is ours, BuDuh.

    mg (8cbc69)

  58. Something in common besides 7% inflation:
    Reagan: hair-dyed; Biden: hair-died.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  59. @56. Come on man! This is malarkey! Don’t you love the country the lefties are trying so hard to create by ripping this one up?

    frosty (f27e97)

  60. I oppose Biden’s spending but question whether that is the prime driver of inflation

    Yes, right. And if you’ll notice, I was very careful in the post to say that the Biden/Democrat spending had “exacerbated” inflation, not caused it. Certainly COVID and various restrictions associated with it (which, by the way, are generally approved of and encouraged by President Biden and his party) have contributed, and there are other factors that go back to the Trump and Obama years which are coming into play. But I think it is pretty clear that at best the Biden spending in 2021 has done nothing to tame inflation, and it is very likely that it has helped to make it worse. As every physician knows, the first rule is “Do no harm.”

    JVW (ee64e4)

  61. Joeflation/2024

    mg (8cbc69)

  62. Will they let Kamala remain Vice President and succeed Biden when he’s 25thed, do you think, or replace her sooner rather than later?

    nk (1d9030)

  63. i’m just taken aback that we’re talking about the current president on this blog

    JF (e1156d)

  64. @62. Her demoralized gaze said more than the babble from her mouth in that interview today w/NBC. To save her career and any thread of personal credibility, don’t be surprised if she resigns as VP. But unless Joe suddenly joins Reid, Dole, Bull Connor, Strom Thermond and Jefferson Davis for an eternal game of poker, she’ll be following Quayle into the history books.

    DCSCA (f4c5e5)

  65. Here’s some more butt-kicking on Biden, this time from Peggy Noonan, who knows a thing or two about speech-writing.

    It is startling when two speeches within 24 hours, neither much heralded in advance—the second wouldn’t even have been given without the first—leave you knowing you have witnessed a seminal moment in the history of an administration, but it happened this week. The president’s Tuesday speech in Atlanta, on voting rights, was a disaster for him. By the end of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s answering speech on Wednesday you knew some new break point had occurred, that President Biden might have thought he was just crooning to part of his base but the repercussions were greater than that; he was breaking in some new way with others—and didn’t know it. It is poor political practice when you fail to guess the effects of your actions. He meant to mollify an important constituency but instead he filled his opponents with honest indignation and, I suspect, encouraged in that fractured group some new unity.

    The speech itself was aggressive, intemperate, not only offensive but meant to offend. It seemed prepared by people who think there is only the Democratic Party in America, that’s it, everyone else is an outsider who can be disparaged. It was a mistake on so many levels. Presidents more than others in politics have to maintain an even strain, as astronauts used to say. If a president is rhetorically manipulative and divisive on a voting-rights bill it undercuts what he’s trying to establish the next day on Covid and the economy. The over-the-top language of the speech made him seem more emotional, less competent. The portentousness—“In our lives and . . . the life of our nation, there are moments so stark that they divide all that came before them from everything that followed. They stop time”—made him appear incapable of understanding how the majority of Americans understand our own nation’s history and the vast array of its challenges.

    By the end he looked like a man operating apart from the American conversation, not at its center. This can be fatal to a presidency.

    That was the beginning of her takedown, and the middle was just as harsh, and here’s her ending, which is so true about liberal Democrats.

    When national Democrats talk to the country they always seem to be talking to themselves. They are of the left, as is their constituency, which wins the popular vote in presidential elections; the mainstream media through which they send their messages is of the left; the academics, historians and professionals they consult are of the left. They get in the habit of talking to themselves, in their language, in a single, looped conversation. They have no idea how they sound to the non-left, so they have no idea when they are damaging themselves. But this week in Georgia Mr. Biden damaged himself. And strengthened, and may even have taken a step in unifying, the non-Democrats who are among their countrymen, and who are in fact the majority of them.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  66. @23. No, Kevin, just Reaganomics.

    This is why people call you a troll.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  67. Will they let Kamala remain Vice President and succeed Biden when he’s 25thed, do you think, or replace her sooner rather than later?

    The magic date is Jan 21st, 2023. On that day or after, the new president can run twice for re-election. Of course, it might be AOc the way we’re going. We’ll see who gets elected Speaker in 2023.

    Kevin M (ab1c11)

  68. Unvaccinated glenn beck gets relapse of covid-19 says its in his lungs and can’t breathe.

    asset (0ab4f5)

  69. Replace her with Pelosi,nk.
    Joeflation/Pelosi/2024

    mg (8cbc69)

  70. @68. So unvaccinated Glenn Beck got Covid (again). Having whatever natural immunity there is for the strain that previously sickened him. And?

    If he was vaccinated, and boosted, he could still be contracting Covid as well (as a whole host of prominent people recently report having happened to them).

    Sounds like a crap shoot. Young and healthy better at fighting it off abs recovering. Old and infirm hardest hit. A bad flu.

    Should we lock down perpetually and throw ourselves into a worldwide depression because we’re scared of it?

    You do you. But leave me alone.

    DenZel (5a7c58)

  71. If he was vaccinated, and boosted, he could still be contracting Covid as well (as a whole host of prominent people recently report having happened to them).

    Even with Omicron and imperfect vaccines, if he were vaxxed, the odds are better from contracting it, from getting hospitalized, from dying.
    But I generally agree, he can be as big a fool as he wants to be, and he’s responsible for his own bad choices. The problem is that he has listeners and viewers to disinform and unnecessarily imperil.

    Paul Montagu (5de684)

  72. @70, it is a crap shoot, but hospitalizations happen on a 2 or 12 if you’re vaxed and boosted. (very rough mental math using a 15x higher rate of hospitalization among the unvaxed. Anyone that wants to take a sharp pencil to it welcome to)

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  73. @67, there’s no way to force her to step down and what can anyone possible offer an ambitious politician that would get them to turn down the presidency.

    Time123 (9f42ee)

  74. Let not asset/Perry lead you into temptation. He has always been superannuated hippie gadfly and his crush on AOC has made him worse.

    nk (1d9030)

  75. Nk, not me – asset always comes off like Animal from the Muppets/Muppet Babies mixed with Rasputin and Nostradamus.

    urbanleftbehind (812b8e)

  76. Biden shouting:

    States’ voter reform laws are “about who gets to count the votes! Count the vote! Count the vote!”

    There is some of that but that’s not the main thrust of Democratic attacks on those bills. Biden was responding to criticism here that this aspect of things was being ignored.

    But it doesn’ change the fact that the Democrats’ proposed bills don;t do much about that, and that it would be possible to get agreement from members of both parties (including Mitch McConnell) for a remedy to this.

    Also this is only taking place in a limited number of states, and in some of those sates, the efforts to make miscounting of the votes easier is half-hearted.

    What;s going to happen next.

    Normally opponents of a bill get two chances to filibuster it. First, to take up the measure and second to vote. The first can be avoided if a bill passed by another House is brought to the floor. So the plan is to finda shell bill and then “amend” it by replacing the language with the contents of two different voting bills passed by the House (HR 1, which is grab bag of election law provisions, and the John Lewis bill, which restores pre-clearance requirements.)

    This (amending a shell bill) by the way is the way in which the Senate manages to get around the provision in the constitution that all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House) They “amend” a House bill in the Senate in that case.

    Anyway, this procedure, says Senator Schumer, will force the Senate to debate the bill(s)

    It still won;t get him to 50 votes, let alone 60. Maybe Manchin and Sinema can be persuaded to let there be an extended discussion on these bills.

    The grab bag: Making Election Day a federal holiday, and a 15-day minimum number of days for early voting in federal elections, and no-excuses absentee voting in every state, and I think permission to mail absentee ballot applications to every voter – they now can be mailed by politicians and what are supposed to be anti-gerrymandering provisions, and maybe other things news stories neglected to mention,

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  77. Oh also, election day registration, maybe limited ID required. Now the whole point of registration is that it is done in advance,

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)

  78. 60. JVW (ee64e4) — 1/13/2022 @ 5:27 pm

    But I think it is pretty clear that at best the Biden spending in 2021 has done nothing to tame inflation, and it is very likely that it has helped to make it worse.

    The only way this could be argued , aside from maybe driving up energey and transportation prices, is that income has been maintained or even supplemented, while employment has gone down (but thats alot of the Covid policies)

    Extra demand for goods could be made up by imports, but there are supply problems. I don;t know if there is in fact more demand than in 2019, but they can’t even do what was done in 2019 everywhere.

    All this is temporary just not as temporary as Biden thinks. There is also the fact that there is change in buying patterns,

    Reucing demand by decreasing disposable income cannot be a good thing to do. And reducing demand by raising interest rates is suicidal for the economy and can spiral into hyperinflation in order to service the government debt.

    Much better would e patiently waiting for the supply curve to overtake the demand curve, and eliminating obstacles to employment.

    Sammy Finkelman (c49738)


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