Tag Archives: economics

Progressive-Democratic Party Welfare Cliff

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I’ve written about this on a few occasions. The New York Post has current data, and they’re even worse. Here’s a table illustrating the matter (as usual, right click|Open in New Tab to get a bigger image).

And some specific data:

  • In 24 states, unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies for a family of four with no one working are the annualized equivalent of at least the national median household.
  •  In a dozen states, the value of unemployment benefits and Obama­Care subsidies exceeds the salary and benefits of the average teacher, construction worker, electrician, firefighter, truck driver, machinist or retail associate.
  •  In New Jersey, a family of four can receive benefits equal to an annualized earned income of $108,000 with no one working.
  •  In Connecticut and New Jersey, a family earning $300,000 a year can receive ObamaCare subsidies
  •  New Jersey is a state where a family can earn the equivalent of $100,000 a year if both parents are collecting unemployment benefits and ObamaCare subsidies for health care. In Connecticut the benefits can reach $80,000.

Party is bent on keeping average Americans trapped in Party’s welfare cage and dependent on Party largesse in return for votes.

Decreasing Rate of Inflation

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It’s still inflation, and it’s still growing. Wall Street Journal editors point out that

The 12-month inflation rate fell to 7.1% in November, which is down from 7.7% in October and is the fifth annual rate drop in a row since inflation peaked at 9.1% in June.

That decline, though, is against a higher rate of inflation that year ago—2021—than in 2020, the last year of the prior administration, which also was the last year of our economic burgeon.

In addition, greatly mitigating any beneficial effects of that reducing inflation rate, the prices generated by that inflation persist, and they will into the future. Those prices will be paid—into that same future—out of real wages that have shrunk by 3% year-on-year.

All of which suggests the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has good reason to stick to its leaked intention to lift rates by another 50 basis points on Wednesday.

No. The Fed should have stuck to its 75 basis points (0.75%) benchmark interest rate increase pattern, instead of its meek .50% increase of last Wednesday. Kill this inflation spiral. Kill it dead. Dragging things out only runs up the costs for us average Americans who continue to pay those increasing prices with shrinking dollars.

Even those editors seem to agree:

The better policy is to break inflation now and return sooner to the Fed’s target of 2%. That’s a stronger foundation for growth and a rising standard of living for workers whose budgets have been savaged by inflation.

The Editors’ headline is spot on: Inflation Isn’t Vanquished Yet.

Far from it. And neither are its pocketbook effects.

How Much

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Progressive-Democratic Party politicians constantly and loudly insist that they need to raise taxes so that the rich actually pay their fair share.

Here are some data on what Americans actually pay at various levels of tax remittances.Notice, too, that the Federal Poverty Guideline for a family of four in 2020 was $26,200 for the Lower 48 and DC.

And there’s this, showing the progressing progressiveness of our tax code.Even as that marginal tax rate has come down, the percentage of total income taxes paid by those Evil Rich has gone up.

This is why those Progressive-Democrats steadfastly refuse to say how much is that “fair share,” whether in dollars or in rates.

Some Questions Arise

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The just-achieved ability to get more energy out of a controlled fusion process than was put into the process is a tremendously positive step in generating power for our economy.

Some questions arise, though, that want answers before this achievement can be brought to actual, economic, widespread fruition.

  • What is the efficiency of released energy capture? If the energy actually captured is less than the energy input, the process (so far) wouldn’t seem economically feasible.
  • How long did the test last—not so much in terms of time, but over how many hydrogen fuel “pellets” in the stream fed into the process?
  • Did the energy budget measured include the energy required to generate, preserve, and deliver to the reaction process those hydrogen “pellets?” Strictly speaking, that’s not ordinarily included in measuring the success of the process itself, but it is important in assessing the end-game economics of the matter (think of the energy budget of a gasoline or battery car when measuring efficiency—those don’t ordinarily include the energy costs of getting the fuel/electricity inputs out of the ground and delivered to a gasoline/recharging station, but they’re important to the overall economics)

Problems to be solved a bit later include emergency shutdown procedures

  • Shutting the lasers as gracefully as possible so as to “merely” extinguish the fusion reaction
  • Handling the energy release from a failure of the fusion containment process

Still, to repeat, this is a terrific step forward for man-controlled fusion and for energy generation generally.

This is Why

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Georgia recently won a court case in which the Biden administration had—illegally, as it turns out—blocked its program to expand Medicaid eligibility to individuals making up to 100% of the federal poverty line ($13,590 for singles) while conditioning benefits on working, going to school, or volunteering 80 hours a month.

However, under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020, States are unable to remove able-bodied Medicaid folks—i.e., folks who are fully capable of working but who choose not to—from their Medicaid rolls as long as the Wuhan Virus emergency remains in effect. The CDC conveniently continues to extend that “emergency,” even though no less a light than our Progressive-Democrat President, Joe Biden, has said the emergency is over.

Alternatively, Georgia could remove those folks and the Federal government could withhold hundreds of millions in federal funds. In all, the Federal government mainlines $130 billion in additional Medicaid funds into all the States’ veins.

As The Wall Street Journal‘s editors put it,

The emergency is a Faustian bargain for states….

This is why it’s at best idiotic for any State to take Federal (our taxpayer) money under any circumstance. The dollars don’t come with strings attached; they represent yokes around the States’ necks.