Food Banks Straining to Meet Demand Show the Real Human Cost of Progressive Policies

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Families are seeing the pinch at home, but so too are the charities that pick up the grocery bill for those who can’t make ends meet.

Thanks to inflation, Americans increasingly cannot afford their grocery bills. Global food prices are projected to increase 23 percent this year, on top of the 30 percent they increased last year. And per usual, those already living on the margins are feeling the consequences the most.

Food banks are struggling to keep up with the increased demand they’re experiencing. Families are seeing the pinch at home, but so too are the charities that pick up the grocery bill for those who can’t make ends meet. Many are struggling to keep up with the increased demand on top of the increased cost of food.

Forgotten Harvest, which serves the metro Detroit area, said demand increased 25 to 45 percent since December. According to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index, grocery bills increased by 10 percent in March compared to the year before while restaurant charges went up by 6.9 percent.

Furthermore, Feeding America, one of the nation’s largest charities working to prevent hunger with over 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries, reported 85 percent of their food banks saw increased demand for food assistance.

Tim Fetsch, the chief operating officer of the St. Louis Area Foodbank, which provides nearly 400,000 meals per year, told the Wall Street Journal, “We have had to work harder to secure the food needed to support the community.” He went on to explain that his organization is grappling with supply chain issues, increased transportation costs, and the increase in food prices. And he pointed out that while retail stores used to donate heavily to their program, they too are facing many of the same challenges.

For its part, Feeding America has begun purchasing its food for the first time to make up for the loss in donations. However, their President and Chief Operating Officer Katie Fitzgerald indicated that might not be a permanent solution, telling the Journal, “We’re still trying to purchase that food, but now it’s costing us 40 percent more.”

How do you say “we told you so” in progressive?

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the left has mocked those of us who said the response to the coronavirus might be worse than the disease itself. We were called grandma killers, selfish, idiots. (Never mind the fact that Democratic governors actually killed grandmas by sending infected patients back into nursing homes.)

But every step along the way we have been horribly right.

In March of 2020, we at FEE.org published a headline that read, “Panic Has Led to Government ‘Cures’ That Are Worse than the Disease, History Shows.”

While the New York Times called for more stimulus spending, Tyler Goodspeed (a Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute) wrote in The Hill, “Back to ’70s inflation? How Biden’s spending spree will hurt your wallet.” That was in July of 2021. The Washington Post was advocating lockdowns even as recently as this past December writing, “Lockdowns can be necessary to slow the spread of the coronavirus.” Meanwhile, my colleague at FEE.org has been presciently pointing to the unscientific nature of such claims—reporting all the way back in May of 2020, “Sweden’s Top Infectious Disease Expert Says COVID-19 Lockdowns Are Not Based on Science. History Shows He Could Be Right.”

It’s been like watching a car crash in slow motion while being unable to intervene and stop it.

The response to the coronavirus was worse than the disease, which has a less than 1 percent death rate for the vast majority of people, and for which a vaccine was quickly developed.

There are myriad repercussions we can point to that stemmed from lockdowns and stimulus spending: increases in domestic abuse, loss of education, an increase in poverty, staggering inflation, increases in hunger. The list goes on.

All of these repercussions were predictable and predicted by many who understand the tendency of central planning to generate adverse unintended consequences. Kids can’t just make up for years of learning lost. Trapping people in their homes can be dangerous when their living situation is unstable. Shutting down the economy was always going to lead to supply chain disruptions and shortages, while printing trillions of dollars is bound to lead to inflation.

Our government decided to be truly detached from economic reality and pursue both lockdowns and money printing—meaning you had a huge increase in dollars chasing a decreased number of goods. That’s the specific recipe for high inflation and anyone who didn’t say that all along should probably revisit basic economics.

And lastly, it was clear all along we would see an increase in poverty and hunger as a result of pushing people out of work, limiting the supply chain, and creating high inflation. All of this goes hand-in-hand.

This is yet another example of how the left’s policies hurt the very people they claim to stand for the most. It’s good to care about the poor, but we can’t help them if we don’t understand the economic factors that actually lead to prosperity. A bleeding heart paired with an economically illiterate mind never lifted anyone out of poverty.

Regrettably, those who were already on the margins in our society are being pummeled by the reckless policies of progressives. And let’s be clear, there were plenty of Republicans in the progressive camp as well. Many supported stimulus spending and even lockdowns. Trump himself and many of his supporters even tried to have Representative Thomas Massie (R, KY) kicked out of the GOP when he stood against stimulus spending in 2020.

But saying “I told you so” doesn’t feel good when there are real lives on the line. This story is a heartbreaking one that represents countless children and parents going to bed hungry tonight.

As economist Murray Rothbard once said, “It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance.”

Those who waged economic war on the American people over the last two years need to stand down and let entrepreneurs and workers rebuild our ravaged economy.

AUTHOR

Hannah Cox

Hannah Cox is the Content Manager and Brand Ambassador for the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The 3 Greatest Economic Threats Facing America in 2022 [and Beyond]

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An academic and an entrepreneur outline three of the most problematic issues of 2022.

As 2022 unfolds, there’s much concern regarding the US economy and our geopolitical standing. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United States was once again the world’s largest economy in 2021, producing an estimated $22.94 trillion or 24.4 percent of global GDP. The number is especially impressive given the population of the US. at just over 333 million people, which is a per capita GDP of roughly $68,700, among the highest in the world.

However, we are concerned with the size, growth, and state of the US economy when comparing its transition from 1960 to date. In 1960, the US produced $543 billion in GDP, or just under 40 percent of the world’s $1.367 trillion global economy. When adding Canada and Mexico, North American GDP totaled $597.42 billion or 43.7 percent of the world’s GDP. In comparison, China in 1960 produced a GDP of $59.72 billion or 4.39 percent of global GDP.

Today, North America comprises only 27.9 percent of global GDP while China, now a country of 1.445 billion people, generates a GDP worth $16.86 trillion (17.8 percent). Including India, Japan, South Korea and all of Asia, total 2021 Asian GDP was 33.7 percent of the $94 trillion global economy. Clearly, North America has been outpaced by Asia since 1960.

While the reasons US competitiveness has declined since 1960 are many, we’ll focus on three of the issues that have been the most problematic, and if not remedied, will continue to be for decades to come.

The month of December saw US consumer price inflation at 7 percent on an annualized basis and the Producer Price Index up a record 9.7 percent on the year. As 2022 begins, many experts predict food inflation will increase 5 percent for the year. US holiday sales were partially fueled by stimulus checks and the child tax care credit that will no longer exist in 2022, thus presenting a potential major decline in retail sales in Q1 2022, but not necessarily accompanied by lower prices.

In addition to food inflation, we expect a high level of wage inflation across all labor markets in 2022. There is a clear shortage of labor in the United States, as evidenced by rising wages in 2021 for jobs from truck drivers to airline employees and $180,000 bonuses for many Apple employees. Perhaps the telltale sign of higher wages to come in 2022 is that the US unemployment rate has declined to 3.9 percent with 6.3 million Americans unemployed, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and roughly 11 million job openings available. We believe the US chip shortage will improve in 2022 but remain an economic factor through early 2023, continuing to put upward price pressure on automobiles and electronic devices.

Our preliminary estimate for inflation in 2022 is 8 percent as inflation indicators like the 10-year Treasury Bond Yield, gold and oil are up in January. We believe, as did Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, that inflation is caused by government monetary policy. The Federal Reserve, through its open-market operations, must eliminate its years of quantitative easing by tightening the US money supply to bring inflation under control before it becomes an even larger and more difficult problem.

The US federal government continues to threaten to break up America’s largest companies. Should it?

Consider: On Jan. 4, 2022, the stock market value of Apple was worth more than Walmart, Disney, Netflix, Nike, ExxonMobil, Comcast, Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, McDonald’s, ADT, Goldman Sachs, Boeing and IBM — COMBINED. For a brief period during the trading of Apple stock on Jan. 3, 2022, Apple’s market cap or stock value surpassed $3 trillion … marking the first time in the history of global stock markets a company achieved a value at or above $3 trillion. Is the fact that only a few stocks — Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Tesla, Meta, Nvidia — seem to control the size, scope, and fate of the S&P 500 a problem? Is the index concentration of the S&P 500 itself a risk for the market? Is it a problem that the seven largest mega cap stocks account for nearly a third of the entire S&P 500 market value? Or are these companies simply among America’s finest companies in the areas of invention, innovation, and entrepreneurial leadership setting the stage for growth and change within the economy, making them companies government should laud and encourage rather than break up?

Simply stated, the top seven S&P 500 Stocks outperformed the remaining members of the S&P 500 by 33 percent in 2021 because American consumers and consumers around the world felt they had more to offer and purchased their goods, services, and stocks at record levels. Apple alone represented roughly 7 percent of the S&P 500 estimated market value of $42.5 trillion on Jan. 3, 2022. This market share was due to many factors, including the millions of devices, such as phones, watches, and iPads in use around the globe and the broad range of entertainment provided by Apple streaming services.

For the most part, we believe the “magnificent seven” are evidence of the best and brightest ideas and minds business has to offer. It would be counter to the short- and long-term best interest of the US to break these companies up. It is outdated for US antitrust laws to only regulate a company’s size, scope, and influence in the US rather than globally. As noted earlier, America no longer dominates the global economy as we once did.

Still, US companies should compete without government protections, favors or subsidies, to promote successful entrepreneurial activity, improve lives, and safeguard America’s position as an economic powerhouse.

As the US national debt has grown over the last 50 years, interest on the national debt is now among the top 10 items in the annual US federal budget.

The national debt recently eclipsed $30 trillion, which is almost $90,000 per US man, woman, and child, and roughly $239,000 per taxpayer.

Today, the US national debt is 127.55 percent of today’s roughly $23.4 trillion GDP, up from 53.33 percent in 1960 and even higher when compared to 34.5 percent in 1980. In addition, the current debt figures do not include the more than $3.25 trillion in state and local government debt.

Much of our current national debt is due to excessive government spending on unnecessary items. If the massive spending continues into 2022 and beyond, U.S. credit ratings will decline, while adding trillions of dollars to an already unsustainable budget deficit.

In 205 years, from 1776 to 1981, the total US national debt went from $0 to $998 billion. With an accumulated national debt of less than $1 trillion over the first 205 years of American history and a debilitating additional $29 trillion since 1982, perhaps there are lessons for Congress to learn related to a.) budgeting; b.) public policy; and c.) Consensus building in Congress prior to 1982 — lessons that will help restore the American competitive, free enterprise system and enhance opportunities for an ever wider range of Americans and investors from abroad.

COLUMN BY

Timothy G. Nash

Timothy G. Nash is the Director of the McNair Center for the Advancement of Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at Northwood University.

Donald S. Gottwald

Donald S. Gottwald is an entrepreneur based in Indianapolis, Indiana.

RELATED ARTICLE: Harvard Medical Prof. Says the Government’s Pandemic Response ‘Failed Miserably,’ Ignored Consequences of Its Policies

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

INFLATION EXPLODES: Consumer Prices Skyrockets 7.5% Higher, Worst Inflation in 40 Years

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After they stole the election, the Democrats declared asymmetric war on the American people. They are killing us. literally and figuratively.

So 39 percent of Americans approve of this? As well as skyrocketing crime, and a chaotic Southern boarder, and mask mandates, and the stability of the world in a freefall. Bull S***! Millions of Americans voted against President Trump, because the corrupt media elites told them to do so. Today, millions of Americans are paying the price. Literally.

Consumer Prices Explode 7.5% Higher, Worst Inflation in 40 Years

By Breitbart, February 10, 2022

U.S. consumer prices jumped by the most in nearly four decades as the new year started, sapping the savings of American families, diminishing the purchasing power of worker paychecks, and putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates beginning in March.

The consumer price index climbed 0.6 percent from a month before, the Department of Labor said Thursday. Compared with January of last year, consumer prices are up 7.5 percent.

Economists had expected prices to rise 0.4 percent on a monthly basis and 7.2 percent above a year ago’s prices.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW CUSUMER PRICE INDEX CHART #1 AND CHART #2

In December, consumer prices rose 0.6 percent compared with November. For the full year, prices were up seven percent in 2021, the worst annual inflation since 1982.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, so-called core prices rose by 0.6 percent. The measure soared six percent from a year earlier. Both exceeded economist estimates.

Although many economists and anti-Trump journalists claimed President Donald Trump’s tariffs would raise prices, consumer prices remained low throughout his administration. Trump’s tariffs turned out not to be taxes on consumers. Instead, they were absorbed by Chinese producers and exporters and the profit margins of most large U.S. companies.

Inflation only began to accelerate last March after years of coming in below the Fed’s two percent target. The Fed had decided to keep interest rates low although the economy was recovering at a faster than expected rate. What’s more, the Biden administration pushed through billions of dollars of deficit spending in the American Rescue Plan. These combined to fuel demand for goods and services faster than supplies could expand, pushing up prices.

Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell, following the advice of many of the economists on the central bank’s staff, initially claimed that inflation was due to transitory factors. Fed officials forecast that inflation would fall in the latter half of 2021, predicting that supply chains would swiftly unsnarl and a rebalancing of consumer demand from goods to services would relieve pricing pressure. The Biden administration, under the tutelage of former Fed chair and now Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, largely followed suit and continued to press for even more spending.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

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$200 Million in Somali Welfare Fraud Paid for Trips to Mecca

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Rep. Ilhan Omar’s favorite restaurant claimed to be feeding 6,000 kids a day.

Feeding Our Future, the Minnesota food charity sponsor whose offices have been raided by the FBI over allegations of massive fraud that some estimates have placed in the hundreds of millions of dollars, claimed that it wants to make “the world a better place for all”.

10 members of FOF’s staff boast of speaking Somali, others of Arabic and related languages often spoken by Muslim minorities, but only 3 speak Spanish and only 1 knows Chinese. The organization’s Manager of Operations, Food Program Coordinators Manager, Food Program Support Manager, and multiple administrators, all appear to be Somali.

The contact page is decorated with a photo of a woman in a hijab chowing down on a burger.

The pandemic destroyed lives, hundreds of thousands died, millions lost their businesses and jobs, but a great river of government money flowed to those who knew how to play the game.

As The Counter notes,

“In the early months of the pandemic, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) acted quickly to loosen rules governing how child nutrition programs had to operate. Gone were the strict nutrition guidelines, the group dining requirements, and the in-person inspections. Instead, the agency focused on cutting red tape as part of a broad effort to keep snacks and meals accessible to hungry families while mitigating the spread of Covid-19.”

In 2019, Feeding Our Future distributed $3.4 million in taxpayer food aid funds to the non-profits it was sponsoring, In 2020, that shot up to $42 million and then up to $197 million in 2021.

These were impressive numbers for a charity that seemed to focus on Somalis in Minnesota.

While there may be some hungry Somali Muslim kids in the Gopher State, $197 million would buy them all meals at five-star steakhouses before jetting them away from the snow to Vegas.

According to a lawyer for Aimee Bock, FOF’s founder, who isn’t Somali, but whose lawyer previously represented a Somali ISIS recruit, “all Ms. Bock did was feed children.”

When over 200 FBI agents converged on the offices of various non-profits, their search warrants claimed that the Somali aid groups received “tens of millions of dollars” but that “almost none of this money was used to feed children.” The FOF’s Minneapolis offices were near the Somali Abu Huraira mosque and not far from a multitude of Somali community organizations.

Some of the money allegedly went to Bock and her boyfriend, Empress Malcolm Watson Jr., apparently a bail bondsman tracking wanted fugitives, who had previously been arrested for domestic violence, and whose construction company received $600,000 from her non-profit.

The only client listed on its site has the first name, “Aimee”.

Bill Glahn, a reporter for American Experiment who has been investigating the case, noted that Empress Malcolm Watson, Jr. “has an impressively long list of encounters with local law enforcement. 4 felony convictions, one for theft by swindle and one for domestic assault” which is even bigger than the rap sheet of his revered father, Empress Malcolm Watson, Sr.

From there it gets quite complicated.

Abdikerm Abdelahi Eidleh, a Feeding Our Future employee, according to the FBI documents, controlled multiple target premises, opened over 20 bank accounts in the name of his various entities, and “solicited and received kickbacks” from the groups receiving child nutrition cash.

According to Feeding Our Future, the organization’s “extensive knowledge of the USDA Child and Adult Care Food Program” helped “child and adult care programs maximize their reimbursement”. These were the groups on whose behalf it acted as a sponsor.

Feeding Our Future was getting a 10% administrative fee off the top. But that wasn’t enough.

Safari Restaurant, which boasts “traditional Somali cuisine” like french fries and safari chicken quesadilla, where Rep. Ilhan Omar had celebrated her victory party, applied to participate in the Federal Child Nutrition program.

When the money was denied, Feeding Our Future complained that “minority-owned businesses serving almost exclusively economically disadvantaged children of color” were being denied the right to serve “culturally relevant foods” to “youth” during a “national emergency”.

Crying racism worked and at its peak Safari claimed to be feeding 6,000 children a day. That’s a lot of children. Documents note that the Somali eatery claimed to be serving a comparable number of meals to “the entire St. Paul public school district.”

Safari was just one of the many providers who claimed to be feeding thousands of children.

Glahn in American Experiment found that, “Feeding Our Future had 312 authorized sites for the program, approved for a maximum of 126,000 children.” That’s a lot of hungry Somali kids.

Oliver Twist, eat your heart out.

He also noted that, “Five of the sites are religious centers.”

The Feds staked out various Feeding Our Future meal sites and found no one at the places that were supposed to be feeding 50,000 children. According to the FBI, the money being stolen wasn’t used to feed children, it went into various shell companies and fronts operated by Somalis and was used to buy everything from a Porsche to African properties.

According to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press, S&S Catering led by Qamar Ahmed Hassan received $13.8 million in federal funds. The FBI warrants note that,

“Qamar Ahmed Hassan wrote approximately $27,000 in checks from S&S Catering bank accounts… to Amax Travel, a travel agency that specializes in Haji travel packages.”

Haji is the Islamic obligation for every Muslim to visit their holy city of Mecca.

Amax offers trips to the Saudi cities of Mecca and Medina, that non-Muslims are banned from entering, five-star hotels, and tours led by Imams.

One of the non-profits associated with FOF, Stigma-Free International, was incorporated by Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman. The Somali politician is a political ally of Rep. Ilhan Omar and has been photographed with her. He had previously been featured in a Project Veritas undercover investigation which appeared to show his brother “rifling through piles of ballots strewn across his dashboard” and declaring, “just today we got 300 for Jamal Osman.”

The man in question had also allegedly worked on Omar’s political campaign.

The scale and scope of the alleged fraud is as vast as the network that perpetrated it. The FBI warrants list numerous people, the vast majority of them Somali Muslims, a dizzying variety of non-profits that received the money, and a wide variety of destinations for the cash. The fraud was lubricated by false accusations of racism and discrimination by FOF and its recipients.

During the initial controversy, a video in support of Feeding Our Future at the Safari restaurant featured numerous local politicians, including Senator Omar Fateh, the first Somali Muslim in the state senate, who had been backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.

A Deputy District Director for Rep. Ilhan Omar gave what was described as an “impassioned speech” declaring, “This community is tired. It’s tired of the bulls—”

But it’s Americans who have every right to be tried.

Open borders migration is not feeding our future. It’s stealing our future away.

COLUMN BY

DANIEL GREENFIELD

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Bridge Collapses In Pittsburgh Before Biden Is Set To Visit To Talk About Infrastructure

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A bridge in Pittsburgh collapsed Friday morning hours before President Joe Biden is set to visit the city to give remarks about infrastructure.

Pittsburgh Public Safety confirmed the bridge collapse, tweeting a photo of the snow-covered structure and warning residents of “a strong smell of natural gas in the area.”

The president heads to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Friday to visit Carnegie Mellon University’s Mill 19, a research and development hub incorporated into the bipartisan infrastructure plan passed in 2021. 

Biden will then give remarks “on strengthening the nation’s supply chains, revitalizing American manufacturing, creating good-paying, union jobs, and building a better America, including through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” at Mill 19, according to the White House schedule.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted that Biden was made aware of the bridge collapse. “Our team is in touch with state and local officials on the ground as they continue to gather information about the cause of the collapse,” she said.

“@Potus is grateful to the first responders who rushed to assist the drivers who were on the bridge at the time. The President will proceed with trip planned for today and will stay in touch with officials on the ground about additional assistance we can provide,” Psaki added.

Pennsylvania has 3,353 bridges in poor condition, the second-highest in the country, according to ABC News. Pittsburgh Public Safety added in a tweet that there will be a news conference about the bridge’s collapse.

COLUMN BY

SHELBY TALCOTT

Senior White House correspondent. Follow Shelby on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Fleeces Floridians in Favor of Blue States

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The Biden administration announced Florida would get significantly less money than other states for bridge repairs!

Governor Ron DeSantis highlighted this week how Florida is receiving less than $245 million for bridge repairs out of the almost $27 billion for bridges nationally through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The formula used to calculate the amount given to states penalizes Florida for doing its job and successfully maintaining the infrastructure that Floridians require to live and work every day. But even then, Florida’s small amount still does not add up.

“The Biden Administration continues to punish states that are succeeding,” Governor DeSantis said. “Despite obstacles created by the Biden Administration, the State of Florida continues to thrive and foster an environment that draws new residents and tourists every single day. By doing so, Florida has continued to grow, and our infrastructure must be able to keep up the pace. The Biden Administration though is short-changing Florida yet again.”

The federal government claims the funding is based on the number of bridges in disrepair. But states with a similar or fewer number of bridges in disrepair are frequently receiving more than twice as much funding as Florida. Florida has more than 12,500 bridges statewide, and the Bridge Formula Program has identified 408 bridges that are in poor condition and provided $245 million for those.

Under the same formula, Washington State has 416 bridges identified as in poor condition, similar to Florida’s 408, but Washington State is set to receive $605.1 million from the federal government. Connecticut has 248 bridges identified as in poor condition and is set to receive $561.4 million in funding, over twice as much as Florida is receiving with 160 fewer bridges to repair. Biden’s home state of Delaware will receive $225 million, just $20 million less than Florida, but has only 19 bridges to repair according to the formula.

This is just another attempt to harm Floridians because our leaders have rightly criticized the Biden Administration’s reckless policies, and Florida stands out as a leader in job creation and economic growth while the nation, as a whole, suffers under Democrat mismanagement.

Americans see it all. Destructive Democrat policies have created a wave of new Florida arrivals. Between July 2020 and July 2021, Florida added 220,890 new residents from other states, the largest net gain in the country. People are fleeing other states for the free and growing state of Florida, and all of them will need access to quality infrastructure that was not available in the states they left.

Governor Ron DeSantis Awards More Than $20 Million to Repair Water, Sewer and Stormwater Infrastructure Damaged by Hurricane Michael in Panama City

PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Today, Governor Ron DeSantis announced more than $20 million has been awarded to Panama City through the Department of Economic Opportunity’s (DEO) Rebuild Florida Mitigation General Infrastructure Repair Program. The funding will be used to make repairs and replace 2.4 miles of water lines, 2.4 miles of stormwater lines and 3 miles of sewer lines that were damaged by Hurricane Michael. These improvements will fully restore water quality, functioning stormwater drainage and dependable sewer for the area.

“Since the beginning of my administration, we have remained committed to helping Northwest Florida recover from Hurricane Michael, and today I am proud to award another $20 million to help Panama City’s recovery,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “This project will make a real difference by restoring water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure in the city.”

“In a state that often experiences unpredictable natural disasters, we are fortunate to have the leadership of Governor DeSantis to support these recovery efforts,” said Secretary Dane Eagle of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. “We are very pleased to be able to assist the people of Panama City with this award and will continue to strengthen Florida by fulfilling the needs of all communities.”

The program, administered by DEO allows local governments to develop large-scale infrastructure projects to make communities more resilient to future disasters. DEO is the governor-designated state authority responsible for administering all U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) long-term recovery funds awarded to the state. Rebuild Florida uses federal funding for Florida’s long-term recovery efforts from the devastating impacts of natural disasters. For more information, visit RebuildFlorida.gov.

Yesterday, Governor DeSantis also announced $17 million for the City of Bonita Springs in Lee County through the DEO Rebuild Florida Program to make infrastructure repairs related to Hurricane Irma.

For more information, visit RebuildFlorida.gov.

©Republican Party of Florida. All rights reserved.

Single Payer: A Toxic Brew of Politics and Medicine

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The Left’s dream of socialized medicine is still kicking around.  The Left has been salivating for single payer for a hundred years, and they’re not about to give up now.

A single payer healthcare proposal made it out of a committee in California’s legislative Assembly earlier this week.  Governor Gavin Newsom campaigned on single payer in 2018, but a separate measure would have to be put to the voters to fund the gargantuan program with huge tax increases.  Even then, the tax increases being proposed would only bring in less than half of what single payer was estimated to cost when it was considered in 2018.  Unsurprisingly, there are no cost estimates this time, because the idea was shelved in 2018 after Californians realized how much it would cost.  The same reality check occurred some years ago in Vermont.  Single payer died there when it became known payroll taxes would have to consume 25 percent of everyone’s paycheck to pay for it.

The radical California Nurses Association is pushing single payer, holding a ‘Day of Action’ in 15 California cities last Saturday.   Leftists elsewhere in the country also continue to agitate for single payer.  A nationwide march for single payer was also held last Saturday in all 50 states.   Far-left publications recently urged their readers to continue to fight for single payer, although the publications are split on whether to fight at the national or state level.  The Yale School of Medicine ran an editorial praising single payer and the resolution New Haven passed last August supporting Medicare for All for the entire country.

Similar resolutions passed in several New Jersey cities and Duluth last year.  Single payer proposals are also kicking around in New York, Oregon, and Ohio.  The idea has not been abandoned at the national level, either.  Joe Biden’s Build Back Better proposal would put more building blocks in place by creating a public option for health insurance, increasing Obamacare subsidies, and ramping up Medicaid.  Critics say this is just a stone’s throw away from single payer.

But no matter how you get there, single payer is still a bad idea.  The stratospheric cost is reason enough to oppose single payer, not to mention the experience of the National Health System in Britain which shows such programs are continually broke and always pleading for more money.  There’s never enough money for single payer and, when more money isn’t forthcoming, single payer is forced to ration your healthcare even more than it usually does.  Long wait times and rationing, that’s the fate of anyone on single payer.  It takes three years to get a tooth removed in Britain.  Is that what you want?

Horror stories about rationing and long waits are familiar.  But there’s another aspect of single payer that’s just as insidious that doesn’t get nearly enough attention.  Healthcare would become completely politicized under single payer and, if private medicine is banned, you won’t have anywhere else to go.  Look what’s happened recently in the pandemic.  The federal government told Florida to pound Daytona Beach sand when the state asked for more monoclonal antibody treatments.    The Woke FDA is saying life-saving COVID treatments should be doled out based on skin color.  That’s despicable.  We also have the spectacle of public health authorities falling all over themselves lately to tell everyone they need an N95 mask.   Maryland’s going to give out 20 million of them.  In case you haven’t figured it out yet, what this really means is everything you’ve been told about cloth masks for the last two years has been a lie – that cloth masks work and should be mandated.  You’ve been fed a line of bull for political reasons.   What do you think’s going to happen when the government gets its hands on all of healthcare under single payer?   Every single aspect of medicine will become politicized.  You will be told what healthcare you can have and no more.  You will be told how to behave and what rules you must obey in order to get it.  Too bad for you if Washington decides it doesn’t like your diet or your lifestyle choices.  When rationing isn’t enough, we will have to bring the hammer down to make sure you don’t cost the government too much money for your healthcare.

And, of course, the politicians who pass single payer and implement it will exempt themselves from whatever rules they impose on the rest of us.  That’s what happened in Obamacare with the congressional exemption.  It’ll happen again in spades if you fall for single payer.  You’ve been warned.

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©Christopher Wrights. All rights reserved.

Fake Students, Vacations for Random Koreans, and Fattening Up Eels: Rand Paul Exposes 8 Insane Ways the Feds Wasted Our Money in 2021

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Yet again, taxpayers are footing the bill for some truly crazy expenditures.

Every holiday season, Senator Rand Paul honors the fictional Seinfeld holiday “Festivus,” an annual airing of grievances, with a report exposing how the federal government wastes taxpayers’ money. The libertarian-leaning Kentucky Republican just released his latest report for 2021 and its findings are even worse than expected.

And that’s saying something.

Senator Paul’s office documents $52.6 billion in waste, which is equivalent to wasting the taxes of 3.43 million Americans! The full 43-page report covers far too many egregious examples of government waste to list in one article. But here are 8 of the most outlandish ways the federal government wasted our money according to this year’s report.

The federal government’s COVID-19 efforts were a scammer’s dream. The Paycheck Protection Program was meant to help struggling small businesses stay afloat during the pandemic, but it sent an astounding $4.29 billion to ineligible businesses or duplicate loans. It even sent $3.6 billion of that money to businesses explicitly on the Treasury Department’s “Do Not Pay” list—which includes known scammers—yet, it didn’t bother to check!

So, too, countless billions were lost to unemployment fraudsters during the expanded pandemic benefits system.

Apparently, the federal government gives out more than $9,000 in federal funding per student in Baltimore, Maryland. One school evidently decided to take advantage of this system, claiming $1.27 million in funding for 140 students who were not actually enrolled and whose “whereabouts were unknown.” According to the report, “A City of Baltimore investigation found some administrators were changing grades and padding enrollment with ‘ghost students’ who were not actually attending the school in order to get more funding.”

The federal government’s multi-trillion-dollar COVID-19 “stimulus” efforts flooded the coffers of state and local governments with more money than they knew what to do with. This resulted in many absurdly wasteful programs, like one in New York City where Mayor Bill de Blasio used federal taxpayer money to set up a “City Arts Corps” paying artists to create public art and “resurge the cultural scene.”

Senator Paul’s report documents billions wasted on jaw-droppingly dumb expenditures in Afghanistan. The US reportedly allowed foreign nations to use military aircraft for free at a total expense of $773 million and spent $549 million on planes that were later scrapped and sold for parts. The federal government also apparently wasted $2.4 billion on constructing buildings in Afghanistan that were left unused as well as $88 million invested in building irrigation systems for Afghan farmers—only 2.7 percent of which were later used properly.

There’s a hot debate in American politics about how much money the federal government should spend securing our southern border. Yet apparently we are already spending hundreds of millions on border security—in other countries.

“$250 million of your taxpayer dollars are going to building borders in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman,” the report notes. “While Americans may be divided on how to solve the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, we should all agree that using our taxpayer money to fix someone else’s border is not the best idea.”

Many Americans could use a vacation but can’t afford one right now. Well, rest assured that the federal government is using their tax money to send random South Koreans on climate change vacations.

“Partnering with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United States Embassy in Seoul is allocating up to a $150,000 grant to send ten Koreans aged 15-30 to Washington, D.C. for two weeks to learn about climate change activism,” the report notes.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reportedly gave $337,500 to a Canadian company to fatten up eels for human consumption in an effort to boost the… eel market?

“This is corporate welfare, driven by somebody at the FDA who must really like eating eel,” the report notes. “Someone should remind the FDA that there are other fish in the sea.”

At least the federal government is carefully stewarding our retirement money, right? Yeah, about that…

According to Senator Paul’s report, the Social Security Administration made “100,766 overpayments totaling nearly $4.2 billion that may not be fully recouped until 2049. Of this, the Administration completely deleted and could not account for over $1.2 billion due to an error in their system.”

Rest assured, this list is hardly exhaustive. The full depths of waste across trillions and trillions of dollars in federal expenditures can’t be captured by one report or one senator’s office. The above items and $52+ billion are just the tip of the iceberg, indicative examples that remind us how wildly irresponsible the government is with our money. But as Nobel-prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously explained, that’s a feature of the government, not a bug.

Why? Friedman identified four ways money can be spent. We can spend our money on ourselves, in which case we have every incentive toward frugality and quality assurance. We can spend our money on someone else or someone else’s money on ourselves, like buying gifts or spending a gift card. In either scenario, some incentive toward frugality still exists.

Yet Friedman outlined a fourth scenario, wherein someone spends other people’s money on other people. In that scenario, there’s really no incentive at all to spend frugally or wisely. And that scenario perfectly describes most government programs.

The takeaway here is clear. There’s only one way to get the government to waste less of our money, and that’s to give them a lot less of it in the first place.

WATCH: Rand Paul: What’s REALLY Behind Disastrous Inflation? (Interview)

COLUMN BY

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

FLORIDA: Governor DeSantis Vows ‘We Will Not Let Anybody Lock’ Floridians Down or ‘Take Their Jobs’

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Under Governor DeSantis, the state of Florida is the envy of the country. Everyone and their mother wants to move there. And for good reason. People want freedom, safety, and prosperity. Everything that Florida represents today. We love President Trump, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine Governor DeSantis not being our candidate in 2024. We are going to have to wait and see what happens.

Watch below.

DeSantis SAYS ‘NO’: Gov Vows ‘We Will Not Let Anybody Lock’ Floridians Down or ‘Take Their Jobs’

By The First, December 20th, 2021

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis defended freedom in the Sunshine State Monday; saying he will not let the federal government “lock” anyone down or “take their jobs.”

“Floridians know we will not let anybody lock them down, we will not anyone take their jobs, we will not let anyone ruin their businesses, and we will not let anyone close their schools,” said the Governor.

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ELECTION INGETRITY MAP: Understanding the Good, the Bad and the Ugly in Your State!

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The Heritage Foundation for America (HFFA) has put out some is some excellent information on Election Integrity. As we are entering 2022, and the mid-term elections, every American voter needs to understand where their state stands on election integrity.

As you already know, to their SHAME the 14 RINOs listed below led by Mitch McConnell joined all Senate Democrats to increase the Debt Ceiling thereby helping Democrats fully fund all of their previously approved social welfare programs disguised as infrastructure.

Lisa Murkowski of Alaska; Joni Ernst of Iowa;  Mitch McConnell of Kentucky;  Susan Collins of Maine; Roger Wicker of Mississippi; Roy Blunt of Missouri; Thom Tillis of North Carolina;  Richard Burr of North Carolina;  Rob Portman of Ohio;  John Thune of South Dakota;  John Cornyn of Texas;  Mitt Romney of Utah; Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and John Barrasso of Wyoming.

– Heritage Action For America Update –

The House and Senate were in session this week, marking the last time either chamber will meet until 2022.

We’ve got some important legislative updates for you… but first we wanted to introduce you to The Heritage Foundation’s newest tool for election integrity!

Election Integrity Scorecard

On Tuesday, The Heritage Foundation released the Election Integrity Scorecard that ranks states based upon their election laws.

This awesome new tool will allow you to dive deep into your state’s election integrity measures so you can see how good your state’s laws are and where there is room for improvement. Check it out here!

Georgia is the state with the highest score––which is no surprise given the tireless efforts of Heritage Action Sentinels to pass election integrity reforms in the Peach State.

Florida and Texas aren’t too far behind––two states that our Sentinels have also worked tirelessly to pass election integrity laws.

While this scorecard shows us the great work you have all accomplished this year, it also shows us where we need to improve to ensure it’s easy to vote, but hard to cheat across the country.

That’s what Executive Director Jessica Anderson talked about when she stopped by our podcast studio Thursday for the latest episode of On Air with Heritage Action.

On Air with Heritage Action is the perfect podcast for conservative activists––it will help you stay in the loop with what’s going on in Washington and give you very useful ways to actually take action. The best part is you get all of this in 5 minutes or less!

Check out Jessica on the latest episode and be sure to subscribe (wherever you get your podcasts!).

  1. LISTEN to the latest episode
  2. WATCH the latest episode
  3. SUBSCRIBE here

TEXT “PODCAST” to 51776 to receive updates on the podcast

The Good and the Bad: NDAA and Debt Limit

As we broke down for you in last week’s Saturday Summary, Congress agreed to terms late last week on both the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and a debt limit increase.

This week, Congress officially passed both bills, one of which is GOOD for the country and one of which is BAD for the country.

The Good––NDAA:

  • Increased military funding by $30 billion compared to the previous year. This ensures our military is fully funded and ensures our service members are paid well.
  • Thanks to your efforts, the “Draft our Daughters” provision was removed
  • And a problematic “red flag” provision related to gun rights was also removed!
The Bad––Debt Limit:
  • In a near party-line vote, Congress agreed to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 TRILLION, pushing it to $31.4 TRILLION. Make no mistake––this $2.5 trillion debt ceiling increase is to pay for Congressional Democrats’ past, present, and future spending addiction. This much debt without reforms to address the issue is very, very bad for the country.
  • Filibuster carveout––Democrats bypassed the filibuster to raise the debt ceiling with the help of Senate Republican leadership. It sets a bad precedent for filibuster exceptions in the future.

The Left’s disastrous “Build Back Better” bill––more accurately described as the “Build Back Broke” bill––looks to be in major jeopardy in the Senate as Democrats delayed voting on the bill until next year.

Adding to Democrats’ woes is the recent ruling by the Senate Parliamentarian that Democrats can’t include mass amnesty as part of the reconciliation process.

These developments are a win!

The Democrats’ “Build Back Broke” bill would be the greatest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ, and without the Left’s budget gimmicks, would cost $5 TRILLION dollars, adding $3 TRILLION to the national debt according to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report.

Soaring inflation is another major concern with this bill. Inflation is at a 40-year high and prices are up nearly 7% from last year.

How will the Biden administration fix it? They want to spend trillions more and add trillions to the debt… sure, because pouring trillions more into the system will have no impact on prices…

That’s why it’s a win that Democrats will push BBB to next year.

They’ve been trying for months to pass this disaster of a bill, but thanks to your efforts they won’t succeed.

Please keep contacting your Senator so that they vote NO on Build Back Broke!

Call your Senator and tell them to REJECT BBB!

On Tuesday, Jessica Anderson joined John Soloman on Just the News for a special report on “Washington’s Whiffs” in 2021––a recap of the disastrous policies the Left have implemented this year and what’s coming next year.

In addition to Jessica, the program includes some great guests like Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), and Heritage Foundation President Dr. Kevin Roberts.

Watch the full episode:

Thank you for your support, time, and effort in advocating for conservative policies in government. We couldn’t do what we do without you, so thank you!

Jessica and the Heritage Action team

Join the fight to advance the conservative agenda.

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©Royal A. Brown, III. All rights reserved.

November Jobs Report Is One Of The Worst Since Biden Took Office

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CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that the number of jobs created in November is among the lowest initially reported for a single month in 2021.

The U.S. economy added 210,000 jobs in November, marking nearly the lowest number of jobs created in a month since President Joe Biden took office in January.

November’s jobs report was well below economists’ estimate of 573,000, according to CNBC. Additionally, unemployment fell to 4.2% from October’s 4.6% figure, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The U.S. economy, still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic but now subject to uncertainty related to the Omicron coronavirus variant, appeared to slow in momentum in November, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“Just as Delta derailed the recovery in terms of the labor market, if Omicron behaved like that, I would guess it would hold back any recovery in the labor market,” Justin Weidner, an economist at Deutsche Bank, told the WSJ.

“Greater concerns about the virus could reduce people’s willingness to work in person, which could slow progress in the labor market and intensify supply-chain disruptions,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in Senate Banking Committee testimony on Tuesday.

The BLS initially reported that 194,000 jobs were added to the economy in September, the lowest number of new jobs for a single month in 2021, but that figure was revised substantially in October to 312,000 jobs, CNBC reported.

COLUMN BY

HARRY WILMERDING

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: MLB Owners Lock Out Players After Failed Contract Negotiations

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ Administration Hikes Medicare Premiums

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“Biden blames the pandemic for the rise in Medicare costs.  A pandemic which became a political weapon to force people to get jabbed. Biden then ‘mandated’ getting vaxxed or  lose your job. A pandemic the media then pushed to the limits with some Americans just accepting it without truly understanding or questioning the scientific truth behind it. It’s not a pandemic, its really a PANICdemic to take control of we the people’s lives!” – Dr. Rich Swier, DrRichSwier.com

New Democrat slogan: Fuck y’all.

Biden Administration Boosts Medicare Premiums, Blames Drug Costs and Pandemic

Zachary Stieber, November 13, 2021

The Biden administration announced on Nov. 12 that it’s raising Medicare premiums, a move that it blamed in part on the cost of drugs.

The Medicare Part B standard monthly premium will rise by nearly $22 to $170.10 in 2022, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

“The increase in the Part B premium for 2022 is continued evidence that rising drug costs threaten the affordability and sustainability of the Medicare program,” Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the agency, said in a statement. “The Biden–Harris Administration is working to make drug prices more affordable and equitable for all Americans, and to advance drug pricing reform through competition, innovation, and transparency.”

The move also stemmed from the limiting of the monthly premium increase in 2021 in the Continuing Appropriations Act and from “spending trends driven by COVID-19,” according to the agency.

“It also reflects the need to maintain a contingency reserve for unanticipated increases in health care spending, particularly certain drug costs,” CMS said in a statement.

One drug, in particular, was a major factor. Officials said the uncertainty surrounding the potential use of the Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm by people covered by Medicare meant that they needed to store away a higher level of reserves. In July, CMS began analyzing whether Medicare would cover the drug, but hasn’t finished the analysis.

In addition to the monthly premium, the annual deductible will rise to $233 from $203. Also, Medicare Part A inpatient deductibles will jump by $72 to $1,556 in 2022, and Medicare Part A daily coinsurance and skilled nursing facility coinsurance will both increase by at least $9.

Officials noted that many Americans covered by Medicare will see a net increase in Social Security benefits. The Social Security Administration announced in October that recipients will get a 5.9 percent increase in benefits.

However, the 14.5 percent increase in Medicare premiums—the highest since 2016—will eat up the entire adjustment for Social Security recipients with the lowest benefits, according to The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan seniors group.

“Social Security recipients with higher benefits should be able to cover the $21.60 per month increase, but they may not wind up with as much left over as they were counting on,” Mary Johnson, a policy analyst for the group, said in a statement.

Medicare is a federal health insurance program for Americans aged 65 and older. Americans can start receiving Social Security as early as age 62, although t

They receive more if they wait until full retirement age……

Read the rest……

RELATED ARTICLE: Granholm Says Biden Is ‘All Over’ Gas Prices, Can’t List Any Policies To Lower Prices

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here — it’s free and it’s critical NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America’s survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

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BIDEN’S BUILD BACK BETTER: Defund Americans & Fund Illegal Aliens

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“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” – Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels

“My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars.” – President Biden tweet @POTUS

We are now in a true culture war!

If you don’t believe me then you either aren’t seeing what is happening, ignoring what is happening or your a registered Democrat.

Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) agenda is anti-American and pro-Illegal Alien. Why? For two reasons:

  1. It is anti-American because BBB is defunding we the working people.
  2. It is pro-illegal alien because BBB is funding those who are breaking America’s immigration laws.

It’s the Cultural War, Stupid!

Culture War: a cultural conflict between social groups and the struggle for dominance of their values, beliefs, and practices.

There’s a culture war going on the likes of which we have not seen before. Biden, his administration and the Democrats in Congress want to fundamentally transform the culture in America. The anti-white, anti-black conservatives, anti-straight male and female and anti-anyone who disagrees with the Democrats is palatable.

Bill Clinton famously stated, “It’s the economy, stupid.” That has now changed under Biden to, “It’s the cultural war, stupid.”

The economy is being used to punish the American working class.

Let’s watch a new video from Johan Norberg, which looks at the impact of minimum wage increases in San Diego, California.

As Daniel J. Mitchell reported,

“And some state and local politicians continue to mandate higher minimum wages (see here, here, here, and here), even though that means workers have fewer job opportunities.”

Does this minimum wage craze really help or hurt working Americans? A number of European nations have no mandated minimum wage. As explained in this video, that’s an approach we should copy.

The bottom line is Americans are seeing their job prospects shrink as Democrats work relentlessly to impose the so called “minimum wage” anywhere and everywhere. The problem is that the minimum wage hurts the working class, particularly those just entering the job market and minorities.

Defunding Americans

Democrats are defunding Americans. How are they doing this? Here are some examples since Biden was sworn in:

  1. Shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline. This has lead, along with Biden’s anti-fossil fuels policies, to higher gasoline prices. This is a direct tax on each and every American that drives an internal combustion engine vehicle. This also applies to those who have purchased all electric vehicles as well. You see, under Biden, the cost of electricity has risen.
  2. Closing businesses to stop the Covid pandemic. We saw early on that Democrats in states like New York and California, literally shut down businesses in order to reduce the number of Covid infections. As we now know, those states that kept businesses open did not see a long term spike in Covid infections and by keeping their businesses open helped their working class keep their jobs, health insurance and prosperity.
  3. Mandating that government and healthcare workers get jabbed. This has lead to massive lawsuits against the Biden vaxx mandate. From police, to fire fighters, to healthcare workers to the military the pushback is growing.
  4. Mandating that companies with 100 or more workers get jabbed. This has lead to more lawsuits including 21 states that have sued to stop this mandate because it it hurting the working class.
  5. Mandating children ages 5 years to 11 years old get jabbed. This has caused parents to rebel. We have see the results of this and the idea that parents have no say in their children’s’ education flipped the state of Virginia from blue to red.

All of these Build Back Better policies have harmed ordinary working Americans.

But it gets worse as Biden’s immigration policies are now hurting working Americans even more.

Funding illegal aliens

RJ Hauman in a FAIR Take article titled, “Democrats Inch Closer to Passing Largest Amnesty in American History” wrote:

Late Friday, the House cleared a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill and took a major step toward passage of the $1.85 trillion Build Back Better (BBB) Act, which contains amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

While BBB did not receive a final vote due to overall cost concerns, President Biden and House leaders said they are confident that will happen the week of Nov. 15.

House Democrats did approve on a party-line 221-213 vote a rule that sets the terms for debate when the BBB comes to the floor.

Over the past few weeks, Democrats worked tirelessly to insert an amnesty for up to 7.1 million illegal aliens into BBB. The Senate Parliamentarian rebuffed similar efforts twice, yet they continue pushing for sweeping immigration changes completely unrelated to federal spending or budget matters.

While the current BBB amnesty provision does not include a pathway to citizenship for those eligible, it is still an amnesty, providing protection from deportation and work authorization.

Amnesty is defined by Black’s Law Dictionary as “A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of persons, usu. for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power officially forgiving certain classes of persons who are subject to trial but have not yet been convicted.” (emphasis mine).

Read the full column.

In the FAIR Take column “Biden Flip-Flops, Supports Payouts to Illegal Aliens” Preston Huennekens wrote:

On October 28, the Wall Street Journal broke the story that the Justice Department planned to give some illegal aliens payments of $450,000 each. The eligible illegal aliens are those who the U.S. government “separated” in 2018 when the Trump administration initiated its so-called “zero tolerance” policy that criminally prosecuted all illegal aliens for crossing the border. The total cost to taxpayers could tally well over $1 billion.

[ … ]

The press held President Biden accountable as well. Peter Doocy from Fox News asked President Biden whether the reporting was accurate. The President said “that’s not going to happen,” referring to the reported payments. However, the White House backtracked on those comments days later. Then, on November 4, a White House spokesperson said that President Biden is “perfectly comfortable” paying illegal aliens $450,000 each.

So now Biden is funding illegals but defunding Americans.

Conclusion

As I wrote in my column “Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ Big Lies,”

Political satire has now become public policy under Biden. But is anyone laughing? We think not. People are waking up and we are seeing civil disobedience protests against Biden and his policies growing, not just in the U.S. but globally.

Biden is just another in a long line of tax and spend big government socialists. From FDR to Carter to Clinton to Obama. They’re all birds of a feather who flock together to tax the rich and every single working American to death. Some have even characterized the Biden administration as Obama 2.0!

It’s now clear that Biden’s Build Back Better agenda is causing crimes to be committed against humanity both foreign and domestic.

Gird your loins. Pray! Our only hope is to retake one or both houses of Congress in 2022.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) gets it in this interview.

Lawless and feckless. What a combination. A disaster since Biden’s inauguration.

We hope Democrats wake up and smell the BBB garbage in time. But don’t hold your collective breaths.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Georgia Seeks to Grant In-State Tuition For Illegal Aliens, Florida To Repeal It

RELATED VIDEO: Biden’s flailing agenda, a defeat of his own making.

Clyburn: There’s ‘No Way to Pay’ for Biden’s ‘Zero Cost’ Spending Plan

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Friday on MSNBC’s Craig Melvin Reports, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn confessed that “there’s no way to pay” for President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” spending package, which the Biden administration ludicrously claims will come with “zero cost” to the American people.

“I don’t think that anyone ever thought that after doing the rescue plan of over a trillion dollars, that we would come back with a $6 trillion program,” Clyburn stated. “The question is, how do you pay for that? Because we’re committed, Democrats are committed to paying for what we do. We saw the Republicans do a nearly $2 trillion tax cut and pass it onto our children and grandchildren to pay for it sometime in the future. That’s not our philosophy. Our philosophy is, let’s do what we need to do, but let’s pay for it. And so, there’s no way to pay for a $6 trillion program.”

He continued, “And you may recall, I questioned as to whether or not $3.5 trillion could be paid for. In fact, I said at the time that I thought that somewhere between $1.5 and $3.5, we’ll be able to find a sweet spot. And that, it seems to be what’s taking place now. We are close to finding the sweet spot. And it will be between those two numbers.”

Regardless of the final number, the Democrat spending agenda will be disastrous for the country, because it will be oriented toward a far-left, social justice agenda, including the environmentalist boondoggle, the “Great Reset.”

James Clyburn

39 Known Connections

Contempt for President Trump

In an August 16, 2017 interview on CNN, Clyburn said that the United States was becoming more like Nazi Germany with a Hitler-like Donald Trump as president. “We are approaching a place that we’ve been before,” he stated. “We remember from our studies what happened in the 1930s in Germany. I told a business group down at Hilton Head several weeks before the election, that what I saw coming was a replay of what happened in Nazi Germany.” Clyburn then asserted that both Trump and Hitler were elected by the people: “The fact of the matter is Hitler was elected as chancellor of Germany. He did not become a dictator until later when people began to be influenced by his foolishness. We just elected a president and he’s got a lot of foolishness going on, and I’m afraid that too many people are being influenced by that foolishness.”

To learn more about James Clyburn, click here.

EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Food Prices Hit Highest Level in a Decade Crushing Ordinary Americans

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Gas is at a level not seen since the disastrous Obama years. But not to worry, the Democrat elite are getting richer and richer on the backs of the American worker.

Food Prices Hit Highest Level in a Decade

Food prices across the world have risen to their highest levels in a decade on the back of tightening supply conditions coupled with robust demand, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

By:  The Epoch Times, October 11, 2021:

The FAO’s food price index, which measures world food commodity prices, has surged by 32.8 percent in the 12 months through September, coming in at a reading of 130 points, a level not seen since 2011. On a month-over-month basis, the index rose 1.2 percent.

Accounting for the bulk of the rise in the index were higher prices of most cereals and vegetable oils.

The FAO vegetable oil price index was up 60 percent in September from a year earlier, and 1.7 percent higher than in August. The cereal price measure was up 27.3 percent over the year last month, and 2 percent from August.

Dairy and sugar prices also rose in September by an over-the-year 15.2 percent and 53.5 percent, respectively, while the meat price index was up 26.3 percent above its year-earlier level.

While much of the inflation story has been focused on surging energy costs and products affected by the semiconductor chip shortage such as used cars, rising food cost signals are increasingly flashing red.

As the U.S. economy rebounds, packaged food companies are grappling with inflation, with Conagra Brands Inc. saying on Oct. 7 that it would increase prices again on its frozen meals and snacks.

Conagra said it was facing rising costs of ingredients including edible oils, proteins, and grains, forcing it to increase prices on frozen goods by 3.5 percent and on staple meals by 3.3 percent.

Food-makers General Mills, Campbell Soup, and J.M. Smucker also have raised wholesale prices in response to rising ingredient and freight costs.

Pork and beef prices have surged in the past few months, while the Labor Department’s August inflation report showed that meat, poultry, fish, and eggs were up 8 percent over the past year and 15.7 percent from prices in August 2019, before the pandemic. Beef prices jumped 12.2 percent over the past year, and bacon was up 17 percent during the same period.

Experts say increasing energy costs around the world could exacerbate the problem.

“It’s this combination of things that’s beginning to get very worrying,” Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, told Bloomberg in a recent interview. “It’s not just the isolated food-price numbers, but all of them together. I don’t think anyone two or three months ago was expecting the energy prices to get this strong.”

Food price inflation is also driving up consumer expectations for future price increases.

The New York Fed’s August survey of consumer expectations showed that Americans anticipate food prices to rise by 7.9 percent in a year, higher than the overall inflation expectation of 5.2 percent.

Federal Reserve officials have repeatedly characterized the current bout of inflation as “transitory” though they have increasingly expressed concern about the risk of a de-anchoring of inflationary expectations. That’s where confidence in the “transitory” narrative falls and people start to believe and behave as if inflation will be far stickier than previously believed, impacting wage and price-setting behavior and potentially even sparking the kind of upward wage-price spiral that bedeviled the economy in the 1970s.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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