Tag Archives: politics

Let it Fail

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Progressive-Democrats are moving to attach a debt ceiling increase, or “temporary” waiver to the debt ceiling, to a continuing resolution that would fund the Federal government for a few more months. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D) and Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D):

The legislation to avoid a government shutdown will also include a suspension of the debt limit through December 2022 to once again meet our obligations and protect the full faith and credit of the United States[.]

This proposal is both unnecessary and disingenuous. It’s unnecessary because as the Schumer Shutdown and the Obama Shutdowns both showed, the Federal government isn’t all that necessary in its present size. Indeed, some agencies and departments, forced to furlough employees due to the length of those closures, discovered that as many as 90% of their employees were unneeded, at least in those short- to mid-term periods.

The proposal is disingenuous because the debt ceiling needn’t be raised at all were Federal spending reduced to fit within existing revenue collections. The Progressive-Democrats, though, are hell-bent on passing their splendiferously wasteful multi-trillion-dollar reconciliation bill.

If the Progressive-Democrats insist on shutting down our government in favor of their out-of-control spending, let them. If their continuing resolution contains a debt ceiling raise or waiver, let the bill fail. Let a “clean” continuing resolution fail, too.

There’s an election coming up.

Update: Late last night, the House passed their version of a Continuing Resolution and debt ceiling raise bill along party lines: 220-211. Shamefully, the House Progressive-Democrat managers stripped out $1 billion that would have gone to Israel to replenish its Iron Dome system, depleted during the last terrorist rocket attacks from Gaza. Then Party voted down a resolution that would have restored the billion dollars to the bill.

That election….

Affordable Housing

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People’s Republic of China style.

The PRC is cracking down on excessive debt in the country’s housing industry, or so it claims. The government also claims it wants

to lower inequality and keep housing affordable for the masses.

But it just blew up 15 high rise apartment buildings. Those were already built, their cost sunk. Those complexes could have been at the core of the Communist Chinese Party’s claim of affordable housing.

Oh, wait—nobody wanted to live there.

That’s centrally planned economics in action. And a lesson for us, were our politicians interested in learning.

More Foolishness

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This time it’s from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. He’s finally getting around to talking about dealing with the 12,000, or so, illegal aliens camping out under a bridge in Del Rio, TX, most of whom are Haitians. Recall that months ago, he talked about telling Haitians not to come to the US illegally as they wouldn’t be allowed in. They came anyway (I guess he doesn’t consider Del Rio’s bridge, on the US side of the Rio Grande, to be US territory).

Now Mayorkas is talking about deporting those under the bridge, seven flights daily to Port-au-Prince and to Cap-Haitien.

Those flights will leave from San Antonio and maybe El Paso.

But why? Why would these illegal aliens be bused 160 miles to San Antonio or 430 miles to El Paso to be put on a flight to Haiti? The Del Rio International Airport is just down the road a piece from the bridge—6 whole miles, or less, depending on the route the bus would take.

And when? So far, this is just more Mayorkas chit chat.

Further, what health risks are being inflicted on us Americans by routing these illegal aliens—10% of whom, by CBP estimates, have Wuhan Virus symptoms—all around Robin Hood’s southern barn to get to a runway instead of deporting them directly from Del Rio?

And these questions: what favored special interests are Biden-Harris and Mayorkis paying off for taking this artificially and unnecessarily circuitous route for deportation? What transportation companies are being paid off for taking part in this circuitous inefficiency?

A Very Deep Bow

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Last Thursday, our illustrious Secretary of State, Antony Blinken tweeted out a straightforward, plain-spoken message of support for Hong Kongers following the People’s Republic of China’s disqualification of seven of Hong Kong’s local district councilors from holding the offices to which they were elected.

The PRC’s Foreign Ministry’s Hong Kong office objected to Blinken’s tweet, as summarized by the South China Morning Post.

strongly opposing “irresponsible comments from certain US politicians” on Hong Kong, saying that “no US slanders” would deter the nation’s determination to enforce “patriots administering Hong Kong”.

Blinken promptly deleted his tweet and put out this much milder effort:

Talk about bending down. Wow.

Inflation

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The subheadline on a recent wall Street Journal editorial claimed

Voters know how much prices are rising even if politicians don’t.

As some might expect, I have a couple things to say about that.

One thing is that politicians certainly do know prices are rising, and they know the rate of rise; they just don’t care.

The other thing is that there is a world of difference between price rise, inflation, and price level, what we actually pay.

It may be the case that price rise/inflation is abating, and to the extent it is, that’ll be useful for us consumers’ planning for our future expenses. But until price levels return to the status quo ante Wuhan Virus, we’ll still be paying those higher prices, and that still will continue damaging our pocketbooks.