Gas Prices, Inflation & The Literal Cost of Joe Biden – Top 3 Takeaways – April 11th, 2023
- We’re continuing to literally pay the price for Joe Biden every day. The highest gas prices of the year are here and they’re not likely to head lower anytime soon. But then again, what we’re paying at the pump and elsewhere has been par for the course since Joe Biden first became president. The highest interest rates in 16 years? Check. The highest rate of inflation in 40 years and now for two years? Check. And it’s all directly attributable to Joe Biden being President of the United States. And that’s both the good news and the bad news. The good news is that poor policy and poor leadership have brought us to this place. That’s good news because it means our problems can be remedied through good policy and good leadership. That takes to the obvious bad news which is it won’t be happening anytime soon as Joe Biden will remain President of the United States for at least another 22 months. So, in the meantime, we’ll continue to literally pay the price daily for having Joe Biden as president. But of course, high gas prices and high inflation aren’t exactly new. It’s now been two years since inflation began to take off as the impact of President Biden’s week one executive actions to kill the Keystone XL Pipeline, ban the harvesting of energy on federal land and to issue onerous regulations on existing producers led to the US no longer being energy independent. That was combined with the signing of his first major law, the American Rescue Plan, which was anything but. Those two major policy moves are what first brought about 40+ year high inflation and the subsequent 16-year high, and rising, interest rates to attempt to combat it. But now there’s a difference. Year two of the Biden inflation story isn’t so much about his poor hard policy decisions like executive orders and laws. It’s about...
- How weak he is. And the best way to illustrate the price of Biden’s weakness is first through a reminder about what his predecessor did. Remember when President Trump took on China with tariffs to combat their abusive practices? Remember how we were told prices would rise and the economy would suffer but instead inflation remained at 1%, the US economy grew at greater than 3%, while we experienced 50-year low unemployment with record wage gains relative to inflation? And remember how we didn’t worry about OPEC because for the first time in modern American history the United States became energy independent? And you might even recall Trump playing tough with our allies in NATO, ensuing they’d finally pay their fair share as opposed to our taxes effectively paying for the defense of the entire Alliance. Now contrast those foreign policy positions with what we have today. It’s not just that President Biden’s feckless leadership on the world stage has led to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s current threat to conquer Taiwan, it’s led to market manipulations as well. The market manipulations China, which is actively working to usurp the United States as the world’s leading superpower, is rapidly succeeding with. With Iran, Russia, Venezuela and now Saudi Arabia all under their thumb, China now has direct influence over more than half of the world’s energy. And it’s that influence which they’re now wielding over us which has led to once again having the highest gas prices in eight months with prices that are 25 cents higher in Florida than a month ago. But here’s the big difference. Last August, when gas prices were this high, interest rates were half of what they are today. And the compounding rate of inflation is 2% higher today. So, in reality, the impact of the rising price of gas hits harder today because the cost of life is much higher now. In eight months, interest rates have doubled. The net inflation rate is 2% higher than the already 40-year high rate of inflation and gas prices are back to where they were. The first year’s 40+ year high inflation rate was the price we paid for President Biden’s policies. The second year of 40+ year high inflation is the price we’re paying for President Biden’s weakness. Meanwhile in Florida...
- Newly proposed election reforms, but still no move to change Florida’s resign-to-run law. What has 98 pages, numerous proposed changes to conducting elections in Florida and had numerous news outlets briefly in a tizzy? It’s Florida’s newly proposed Senate Bill 7050. When filled last week as a working bill, meaning language was to follow, many DeSantis watchers thought it would finally be the one. The bill which would be a certain indication that a presidential bid was imminent. But then the language came. As mentioned, it has 98 pages, it is about elections, however no it doesn’t include any provisions pertaining to tweaking Florida’s resign-to-run law. That doesn’t mean Governor DeSantis’ plans have changed. But what it does mean is that if he intends to run for president, the legislature only has 24 more days to act on it. While some are surprised it hasn’t happened yet, I’ve suggested right along they’d all wait until the end of the session so it wouldn’t distract from the rest of the state’s agenda. Though if the bill never comes, that would be a surprise as it would signal DeSantis’ intent not to run. As for what is in the elections bill... I’ll cover it on tomorrow’s show.