Tag Archives: political economy

The Biden Panic-Mongering

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In a Wall Street Journal article about the European Union’s failure to deal with its Wuhan Virus situation in any serious way, there are a couple of graphs that bear on our own situation. The first one concerns the number of confirmed Wuhan Virus cases (which is much less than the number of actual infections).

Notice that. At our worst, there were only some 75 cases per 100,000 people, a roughly 0.075% case rate in our population. (The EU was much better at that time, more on that below.)

The second graph concerns our Wuhan Virus mortality rate.

Notice that: at our worst, our mortality rate was around 1.5 per 100,000, a roughly 0.0015% mortality rate in our population. A back-of-the-envelope bit of arithmetic indicates a roughly 0.02% mortality rate given a confirmed case (and even lower given an actual infection). (Here, too, the EU fared better.)

This is the exaggeration of the Biden administration—and of the Progressive-Democrats in Congress—regarding our virus situation.

It’s time to throw off the chains (to use a term of art) of overreaching government and go back to going about our normal daily business.

No more lockdowns. Businesses full open, workers back to work, out of work workers freely able to find work, consumers freely able to consume.

Children back in school in person, K-12 sports and other extra-curricular activities back in full swing, teachers who continue to refuse to go back to in-person teaching fired for cause (which would open up some jobs for actual teachers).

So it is, in the EU. Despite the EU’s incompetence in vaccinating, its case rate and its mortality rate are vanishingly small. Quite apart from the EU’s and its constituent nations’ governing personages needing to get off their dead behinds and get the vaccinations rolling, they need simply to open up and let their citizens’ lives return to normal.

No more excuses.

The Wuhan Virus “Relief” Bill

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…that the Progressive-Democrats rammed through on strictly Party lines (after President Joe Biden (D) so piously promised bipartisanship and the Progressive-Democrat Senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, so loudly proclaimed that he would not support any bill that did not have input and support “from my Republican friends”): it was prosyletized by Congressional Progressive-Democrats as desperately needed to revive our sagging, struggling economy.

Here’s how badly our economy was sagging and struggling:

Household net worth—the difference between assets and liabilities—ended the fourth quarter at $130.2 trillion, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. That was up 5.6% from the third quarter and 10% from the end of 2019.

That fourth quarter value is the highest household wealth level on record.

Struggling. More Progressive-Democrat newspeak.

Promises of Progressive-Democrats

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The Biden administration (or, as they like to style it, the Biden-Harris administration (can anyone remember the last administration that was referred to as the President-Vice President administration? The Kennedy-Johnson administration? The Carter-[mumble] administration?)) is making economic recovery promises. Here’s one from his brand-spanking new Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellon:

I’m anticipating, if all goes well, that our economy will be back to full employment—where we were before the pandemic—next year, and the Congressional Budget Office estimated that without this, it could probably take until 2024.

Yeah. Obama made similar promises regarding unemployment post his Panic of 2008 “stimulus.” The levels of unemployment embodied in those promises weren’t matched–his promises went unfulfilled–until some years after his promised date. Those failures were at least in part due to the explosion of regulations the Obama administration wrote.

Biden is making the same promise, through Yellen, engaging in the same regulatory explosion, and adding the fillip of overt attacks on our energy industry. And our economy will suffer the fate, exacerbated by that attack on our energy.

Progressive-Democrat Power Grab

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It turns out their Wuhan Virus “relief” bill, of which 9% actually contains money for dealing with the virus, has a blatant, deliberate attack on the federal structure of our nation. It’s an attempt to dictate to the States, individually and severally, that they’re not allowed to reduce their taxes [emphasis in the original].

The bill explicitly bars states from cutting taxes. States “shall not use the funds,” the bill says, “to either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue” that results “from a change in law, regulation, or administrative interpretation during the covered period that reduces any tax (by providing for a reduction in a rate, a rebate, a deduction, a credit, or otherwise) or delays the imposition of any tax or tax increase.”

All of us need to remember this assault on our nation in the fall of 2021.

Imagine That

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Sometimes, a Federal stimulus isn’t necessary. Sometimes, a recovery is already in progress before Congress can get around to acting, even with the basely partisan Progressive-Democrat-controlled Congress and a Progressive-Democrat White House.

Like with the present “stimulus” bill, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.

See the figure just below.

Of the top 10 performing States by overall recovery and tax revenue increases for 2020 over 2021, seven are Republican run, and one—Vermont—is split, with a Republican Governor and a Progressive-Democrat Legislature.

Of all of the 24 States with increases, Ohio, Tennessee, Mississippi, South Carolina 12 are Republican-run, 2 are split with Republican Governors and Progressive-Democrat Legislatures, and 3 are split with Progressive-Democrat Governors and Republican Legislatures.

This is another demonstration that the Wuhan Virus “relief” bill—ARP—that the Progressive-Democrats rammed through Congress on strictly partisan lines is just another Blue State Bailout. Progressive-Democrats are masquerading their bill as necessary to bring our economy fully out of the downturn Federal and State governments created in their responses to the Wuhan Virus situation.

Never mind that the recovery is in full bloom already, and will stay that way until the Biden administration’s exploding regulation-writing and energy industry limitations start taking effect.