Inflation Soars As High Prices Continue To Squeeze Americans

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Inflation rose year-over-year in December, even as the Federal Reserve projects interest rate cuts by the end of the year, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release on Tuesday.

The consumer price index (CPI), a broad measure of the prices of everyday goods, increased 3.4% on an annual basis in December and 0.3% month-over-month, compared to 3.1% year-over-year in November and above expectations of 3.2%, according to the BLS. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of energy and food, remained high, rising 3.9% year-over-year in October, compared to 4.0% in November.

Inflation rose year-over-year in December, even as the Federal Reserve projects interest rate cuts by the end of the year, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release on Tuesday.

The consumer price index (CPI), a broad measure of the prices of everyday goods, increased 3.4% on an annual basis in December and 0.3% month-over-month, compared to 3.1% year-over-year in November and above expectations of 3.2%, according to the BLS. Core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of energy and food, remained high, rising 3.9% year-over-year in October, compared to 4.0% in November.

“It was unseasonably warm in December, which boosted gasoline prices enough to send the monthly headline number up a bit,” Peter Earle, economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Disinflation is continuing, but the last percent or two down to the Fed’s target range are going to be tougher to nail down.”

Shelter contributed the most to the monthly gain, with prices rising by 0.5% for the month and 6.2% for the year, according to the BLS. Prices for energy rose 0.4% for the month, reversing the trend of declining energy prices that stands at -2% for the year.

Prices for motor vehicle insurance continued to trend up, rising 1.5% in the month following an increase of 1% in November, according to the BLS. The index for food also had a similar increase in November of 0.2%, totaling 2.7% year-over-year.

“It was unseasonably warm in December, which boosted gasoline prices enough to send the monthly headline number up a bit,” Peter Earle, economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Disinflation is continuing, but the last percent or two down to the Fed’s target range are going to be tougher to nail down.”

Shelter contributed the most to the monthly gain, with prices rising by 0.5% for the month and 6.2% for the year, according to the BLS. Prices for energy rose 0.4% for the month, reversing the trend of declining energy prices that stands at -2% for the year.

Prices for motor vehicle insurance continued to trend up, rising 1.5% in the month following an increase of 1% in November, according to the BLS. The index for food also had a similar increase in November of 0.2%, totaling 2.7% year-over-year.

The current rate of inflation stands in contrast to the Fed’s target rate of 2%, which it aims to achieve through its use of its federal funds rate, which it has set in a range of 5.25% and 5.50%, the highest point in 22 years, in response to soaring inflation under President Joe Biden, which peaked at 9.1% in June 2022. In their last Federal Open Market Committee meeting, a median of Fed governors estimated that the federal funds rate would be around 4.6% by the end of the year, indicating around three rate cuts.

The CPI report comes less than a week after the BLS announced that the economy added 216,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in December, despite revising the number of jobs down in October and November by a collective 71,000. In total, the number of jobs was revised down by 749,000 in 2023, around one-quarter of those initially announced.

“Right now, the Fed is projecting three rate cuts in 2024, while futures are suggesting five or six,” Earle told the DCNF. “I think that as long as the general price level keeps falling, the Fed will stick to its 75 [basis point] cutting plan. But if we get clearer signs of a slowdown in the late spring and early summer, we may indeed see four or five cuts this year.”

AUTHOR

WILL KESSLER

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Banks Making Easy Money Off Crisis Gov’t Program Designed To Bail Them Out

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

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘True’ Unemployment Rate Is Double What The Gov’t Is Telling Us, Economists Say

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A large section of Americans left the workforce following the COVID-19 pandemic and have not returned, and if the workforce returned to its previous size, the unemployment rate would be nearly double, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics analyzed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The official unemployment rate in December was 3.7%, accounting for around 6,268,000 Americans without jobs who were still looking for work, with 100,540,000 jobless people being counted as not in the labor force and therefore not being counted as unemployed despite not having a job, according to data from the BLS. In comparison, the number of people counted as not in the labor force in February 2020 was only 95 million, with around 5 million people permanently leaving the workforce following the COVID-19 pandemic, which, when added to those counted as unemployed, yields an unemployment rate of around 6.7%.

“These more accurate estimates of the true unemployment rate signal weakness in the overall economy and the labor market specifically,” E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They are consistent with a mild recession. The number of people on disability has exploded for three years now with a spike of millions of people. That indicates a very large portion of these unemployed workers who are missing from the labor force have simply shifted from unemployment to welfare.”

The official unemployment rate has been historically low over the past few years, dropping below 4% during the Trump administration for the first time since 2000, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). The rate briefly spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic before descending back below 4% around the start of 2022.

Labor force participation has also taken a hit following the COVID-19 pandemic, with 63.3% of Americans employed or looking for employment in February 2020, compared to 62.5% of Americans in December 2023, according to FRED. Labor force participation has declined steadily from its peak in 2000 of over 67%, stabilizing and slightly rising during the Trump administration before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“If somebody leaves the workforce, then they are not considered unemployed,” Michael Faulkender, chief economist and senior adviser for the Center for American Prosperity, told the DCNF. “There were about 700,000 people last month, according to the survey they put out last Friday, that left the workforce. Yes, so to the extent that people are not working and they’re not looking for work, the unemployment rate doesn’t grab that.”

There were 167,451,000 Americans counted in the labor force in December, less than the 168,127,000 that were counted in November, according to the BLS. The difference equates to 676,000 fewer people in the workforce in the month.

The government also heavily overreported the number of jobs in 2023 in its monthly jobs reports, later revising the numbers down. In total, the number of jobs the country had in 2023 was 749,000 lower than what was initially given.

“The expansion of many welfare programs besides disability under the Biden administration means additional people can live off the dole instead of going back to work,” Antoni told the DCNF. “That expansion has been in terms of both who is eligible and also the gratuitousness of the benefits for which people are eligible.”

The BLS directed the DCNF to the methodology used to calculate the number of people not in the workforce, which includes “retired people, students, those taking care of children or other family members, and others who are neither working nor seeking work.”

AUTHOR

WILL KESSLER

Contributor.

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

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

JOBS REPORT: IRS is the #2 Hirer in the Country, Government and Nationalized Healthcare Added the Most Jobs

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Private sector is in trouble.

Manufacturing shed the most jobs.

Despite government media lauding the jobs report, 683,000 fewer Americans were working last month and four to five million have simply disappeared from the workforce. – opted out.

Job Gains Picked Up in December, Capping Year of Healthy Hiring

Unemployment held at 3.7% last month and hiring was revised lower in prior months

By Amara Omeokwe, WSJ, Jan. 5, 2024:

Employers in the leisure and hospitality industry continue to play catch-up from disruptions during the pandemic.

Employers hired at a solid pace in December, capping a year of steady gains for a job market that continues to defy expectations and remains a bright spot in a gradually cooling economy.

The U.S. economy added 216,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department reported Friday. That was larger than November’s gain of 173,000, and better than forecasters were expecting. Hiring was revised down in both October and November. For all of 2023, employers added 2.7 million jobs, a slowdown from 2022, but a better gain than in the years preceding the pandemic.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED VIDEO: Biden wants to make America as dystopian as California

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Left-Wing Attempt To Tie Trump To Foreign Influence Money Doesn’t Add Up, Records Show

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House Oversight Committee Democrats released a report Thursday attempting to connect former President Donald Trump to a pay-for-play foreign influence scheme, but the evidence fell far short of a smoking gun.

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, released a report revealing that Trump’s business entities raked in at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments and their subsidiaries during the first two years of his presidency, including from China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Malaysia. A majority of that money, however, came from one business that began renting office space from Trump Tower in 2008 and concluded its partnership in 2019, during his administration, the report shows.

“The difference between Trump’s foreign income and Biden’s foreign income is that Trump had legitimate goods and services to sell and was tough on China while the Bidens did not have any legitimate business and Joe has been weak on China,” Seamus Bruner, director of research at the Government Accountability Institute, told the Daily Caller in a statement.

Of the $7.8 million Trump’s businesses made from foreign governments during the two years in question, $5.5 million that was paid to Trump-owned properties was from the Chinese government and state-owned enterprises, the records show. Of that, the committee estimates that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a Chinese state-owned business, paid Trump-owned properties $5.3 million between February 2017 and October 2019.

The Chinese company had entered a contract with Trump Tower for commercial office space in 2008, the report shows. The contract was concluded on Oct. 31, 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began and with nearly a year-and-a-half still remaining in Trump’s first term in office.

Throughout his presidency, Trump made being harsh on China a key part of his foreign policy and took steps to do that by instituting unprecedented tariffs, including an additional 15% tariff on $300 billion of Chinese goods. The tariff was originally set at 10% and compelled China to increase American imports.

Additionally, nine of the countries cited in the report paid less than $10,000 to Trump businesses, according to the report. Cyprus, one of the countries listed, paid just $590.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, India and Malaysia each spent more than $200,000 at Trump’s businesses, the report shows, but a spokesperson for the Trump Organization noted to NPR that all profits from foreign governments were given away.

Profits for Trump’s businesses from foreign governments “were donated in full to the United States Treasury for patronage at our properties while President Trump was in office,” Kimberly Benza told NPR. Benza made note of a $450,000 donation Trump made.

Raskin accused House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of colluding with Trump’s attorneys to try to block the committee from gaining additional records about the former president’s foreign payments.

“While the figures and constitutional violations in this report are shocking, we still don’t know the extent of the foreign payments that Donald Trump received —or even the total number of countries that paid him and his businesses while he was President—because Committee Chairman James Comer and House Republicans buried any further evidence of the Trump family’s staggering corruption,” Raskin said in a statement.

The House Democrats’ report comes as Republicans move forward with an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden over his family’s foreign business dealings. From 2014-2019, Biden’s family and its business associates collected more than $24 million from Ukraine, Russia, China, Romania and Kazakhstan, according to a September memo from House Republicans. The figure is nearly 15 million more than Trump is reported to have received by House Democrats.

“It’s beyond parody that Democrats continue their obsession with former President Trump. Former President Trump has legitimate businesses but the Bidens do not. The Bidens and their associates made over $24 million by cashing in on the Biden name in China, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Romania. No goods or services were provided other than access to Joe Biden and the Biden network,” Comer told the Daily Caller.

Biden’s son Hunter played a large role in obtaining the funds. Throughout the Trump presidency, after his father left office, Hunter Biden made numerous business deals with foreign entities. CEFC, a Chinese firm, sent a business associate of Hunter’s $3 million through its State Energy HK account, bank records previously released by the Oversight Committee show.

Hunter Biden’s federal tax indictment in California clarified that he received about $1 million of the funds sent to the State Energy HK account. He made additional income in 2017 and 2018 from Hudson West III, a business entity he formed with CEFC associates. Hunter Biden’s relationship began in 2015 when his father was still vice president, his California indictment shows.

In November, Comer detailed through a series of bank records how the funds from China made it through multiple Biden family accounts, ending in a $40,000 check to Joe Biden in September 2017.

“Democrats like Jamie Raskin are trying to deflect from the fact that the Biden family bagged at least $30 million from foreign individuals linked to the highest levels of the Chinese military and intelligence apparatus—perhaps the greatest presidential scandal in American history,” Bruner told the Daily Caller.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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The Republican Led Congress and our new $34 Trillion Debt

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The tax and spend Communists in the Democrat minority and the Republican majority controlled Congress have just spent us into a $34 trillion dollar U.S. national debt. Congratulations.

This is a history making event that our great grandchildren will still be trying to get a handle on unless immediate action is undertaken to fix it.

Forty years ago during the Reagan Administration with a somewhat conservative congress our national debt was simmering at around $907 billion. Nothing to really be concerned about.

Back then we did not have a raging communist bottom feeding criminal cockroach insurgency in our Congress, Senate and White House trying to collapse our free market capitalist constitutional republic.

The solution to this out of control hemorrhaging of our financial stability is a complete government shutdown. Seriously it’s time to close the government down. SHUT IT DOWN !

We must abandon these weak panther piss Republican Continuing Resolutions (CRs) and let’s feel some real economic pain to wake up the country.

The national debt is going to double to over $68 trillion over the next three decades, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

What is the Republican congress (that controls expenditures from the Treasury Dept.)doing right now too reign in this insanity? NOTHING ! The interest payments alone on this debt will be over $5 trillion.

At the end of 2022, the national debt grew to about 97% of gross domestic product. This was a result of a massive Communist insurgency in our government initiated by national mail on voter ballot fraud by both political parties but mainly by the criminal Democrats and permitted by a lazy general public not paying attention to the issues.

The current inept, despicable low IQ Republican led congress that control expenditures from the Treasury Dept. is still allowing the national debt to exceed expand reaching 181% by December 2053. This is criminal and it must be resolved sooner rather than later.

This unacceptable spending and printing of money could result in a possible forced removal of these elected officials by “We the people” as per written US constitutional governance scribed on paper by the Founding Fathers.

The Congress and the Senate after the 2024 elections need to fix this financial disaster or they will probably face an insurrection that will be real this time.

Not just a capital police tour guide of the Capital Building for American patriots now being held as Biden’s Political prisoners.

My opinion.

©2023. Geoff Ross. All rights reserved.

‘Double Down On Bidenomics’: We Asked Political Insiders What Joe Biden’s New Year’s Resolutions Should Be

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With a fresh year ahead and the presidential election in sight, both Republican and Democratic strategists have suggestions for what New Year’s resolutions President Joe Biden should make.

Biden is exiting 2023 with floundering poll numbers that show the president has a low approval rating and is trailing in hypothetical matchups between him and former President Donald Trump both nationally and in key swing states. In an effort to turn things around — or to keep the president on the same decline — Republican and Democratic strategists suggested Biden play into his age, focus on Bidenomics and stay “calm.”

“I think using his age, you know, ‘I’m old, but that means I’m seasoned and wise in the ways of the world. I offer calm. The Republicans offer chaos.’ I think that’s the best contrast he can make,” Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, told the Daily Caller, when saying Biden should make it a resolution to stay composed throughout the year.

During 2023, concerns about the 81-year-old’s fitness for office have risen in the polls, partly due to various repeated debunked stories and slip-ups. A majority of Americans believe that Biden is both mentally and physically unfit to serve effectively as president, according to a November George Washington University and YouGov poll.

Biden committed several mishaps throughout the year, including once praising the “Congressional Black Caucus” while giving a speech at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual gala. While honoring the 22nd anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Biden claimed that he was at Ground Zero the day after the terrorist attack. The White House failed to provide evidence to back up Biden’s claim, instead pointing to a trip to the site the president made several weeks later.

Leslie Marshall echoed Bannon’s resolution, encouraging the president to play into his age and harness it through the election year.

“Some people will be like, don’t don’t highlight his age. I’m sure they tell him ‘Mr. President, jog up the stairs.’ You know what I’m saying?” Marshall told the Daily Caller.

“We all trip, I don’t care what age you are. Make light of it. Use it. Use it to his advantage,” Marshall continued.

Aside from concerns about the president’s age, Biden and his administration have faced backlash for their messaging surrounding the president’s economic policies, more commonly known as “Bidenomics.” While the White House continues to claim the economy is improving, even saying that Thanksgiving in 2023 was one of the cheapest ever, the American people are not convinced. Seventy-five percent of U.S. adults said in September that the economy is in a “fair” or “poor” state while sixty-one percent of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Democrats previously warned the administration that the messaging was not working with some even begging the White House to drop “Bidenomics” out of fear that the aggressive push of a booming economy may be upsetting Americans who are struggling.

“I hope he resolves to double down on Bidenomics,” Sean Spicer, host of the Sean Spicer podcast and former chairman for the RNC’s Temporary Committee on Presidential Debates, told the Daily Caller.

“Keep up the good work with oil and gas production in the United States,” Mike McKenna, GOP consultant and MWR Strategies president, told the Daily Caller.

Other GOP strategists suggested that Biden secure the border or take action against members of the administration who protested the president’s pro-Israel stance.

“Fire all the kids who work for him and protested him on his own front lawn,” Scott Jennings, a longtime GOP adviser in Kentucky and veteran of numerous campaigns, told the Daily Caller. “Fire. Them. All.”

Since Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel, Biden has committed his support to the country throughout its war on the terrorist organization. Biden’s unwavering support of the country has come under fire from members of his administration and allies within his own party. Several members of the Biden administration gathered outside of the White House on Dec. 13 to protest the president’s backing of Israel, the Hill reported.

“President Biden, your staff demands a ceasefire,” a sign held by staffers read.

Others thought the president should take notes from the front runner in the 2024 presidential race.

“President Biden’s New Year’s resolutions should be reinforcing the policies from the Trump administration,” Hilton Beckham, communications director for America First Policy Institute, told the Daily Caller. “Reinstating America First principles that empowered citizens economically, ensured community safety, and fortified our porous borders would be a step toward regaining public trust and steering our country back on the right track — away from the chaos created by the Far Left and their destructive policies.”

While seemingly everyone in politics has input on how the president should spend 2024, Biden weighed in Saturday on what his New Year’s resolution is.

“To come back next year,” Biden said while vacationing in St. Croix.

Among serious resolutions touching on hot topics, some offered a bit of humor when suggesting New Year’s resolutions for the president.

“[Biden should] resolve to finally learn which direction the Oval Office is, so when he’s done reading prepared remarks in billboard sized fonts, he doesn’t change directions like a presidential roomba,” Mark R. Weaver, a GOP strategist, told the Daily Caller.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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

Communist California Facing the Consequences of Free Market Interference

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The Communist government of California has interfered beyond its constitutional authority, commencing its destruction of the free market supply and demand of wages verses workers.

The California government legislative branch has created an intrusive role in determining minimum wages in this once free market and this interference is now going to destroy jobs.

Remember, that wages and hiring are determined by the combined interaction of businesses as buyers and workers as suppliers. Not the government !

Let’s take the two large Pizza Hut operators in California as an example.

In response to the “forced” new state law increasing the minimum wage to $20 an hour, Pizza Hut is terminating the employment of all their delivery drivers.

The total job losses will exceed 1,200 in-house delivery drivers in 5 California counties including Los Angeles. Plus 800 plus in other locations.

Looks like the Hollywood movie set workers will now have to leave the studios for their pizza fix if they can afford the gas at $9 a gallon. Approximately $6 of this is state and federal taxes. What we call “government theft” here in Florida.

The delivery driver employees will be terminated starting in February 2024. The new minimum wage law takes effect in April 2024.

Also the Communist government of California requires that capitalist job creating entrepreneurs to notify employees 60 calendar days before mass layoffs, even though the California legislative branch of government interfered in the free markets causing this impending mass lay off.

Reference California’s “The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act” (WARN) This sounds like a directive order written by a Communist sitting in a cubicle in Beijing.

Seriously, what retraining is required for a delivery driver job that is actually a perfect evening or weekend route for college kids and high school students ? It’s very not a job to raise a family.

California Assembly Bill 1228 forced the minimum wage increase to $20 an hour from $16 an hour and the free market response from capitalists was a massive lay off of employees.

Remember, the significant rising cost of living in California is directly proportional to the massive government intrusion on free market conditions.

Fast food restaurants will either close down operations in California or significantly increase the price of their products to pay the new minimum wage increase.

Then, the citizens will choose whether or not to pay $30 – $40 for a double cheeseburger and a bag of soggy fries.

California is ran by a Communist dictatorship and it is setting the example on how NOT to govern a state in a free market capitalist constitutional republic.

©2023. Geoff Ross. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: California Pizza Hut operators laying off all delivery drivers

BIDENOMICS: Homelessness UP 12% from just last year, Homeless FAMILIES WITH KIDS up 16%

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But the invaders storming our border are getting everything they need.

U.S. homelessness up 12% to highest reported level as rents soar

By Kevin Freking, AP December 21, 2023:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States experienced a dramatic 12% increase in homelessness to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, federal officials said Friday.

About 653,000 people were homeless, the most since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007. The total in the January count represents an increase of about 70,650 from a year earlier.

The latest estimate indicates that people becoming homeless for the first time were behind much of the increase.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Delta, American Airlines, etc. Flying Whole Planes Full of Migrants All Over United States

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GOP to Biden: No Ukraine Funding until Southern Border Is Secure

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As Congress kicked back into session following the Thanksgiving break, Republican lawmakers are making their position crystal clear regarding continued aid to Ukraine: if the Biden administration wants billions of additional dollars for Ukraine’s war against Russia, it must include legislation to provide solutions for the spiraling crisis at America’s southern border.

Since President Biden took office in January 2021, the explosion of illegal immigrants flooding America’s southern border has been unlike anything seen in the history of the U.S. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the total number of apprehensions of illegal border crossers from 2021 through fiscal year 2023 is a staggering 8.3 million. This does not count the number of individuals who escaped capture (gotaways) during the same time period, which is estimated at 1.7 million. Therefore, the number of illegal border crossers during Biden’s presidency so far is over 10 million, a total that is larger than the individual populations of 41 states.

Notably, this number includes 1,586 known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) that were apprehended. In fiscal year 2023, 736 KSTs were captured, the largest number ever recorded in a single year. In addition, almost 50,000 criminal noncitizens were apprehended during fiscal year 2023, the largest total in history. Alarmingly, the 1.7 million gotaways over the last three years is only an estimate, so it is unknown how many more KSTs and other criminal noncitizens managed to escape detection and enter the U.S. interior.

The rate of illegal border crossers shows no signs of slowing. On Monday, Fox News reported on trains seen in Mexico heading to the U.S. with hundreds of migrants openly riding on the top of rail cars. In addition, CBP announced they would be temporarily shutting down vehicle processing at ports of entry in Texas and Arizona in order to redirect personnel to assist the U.S. Border Patrol in taking illegal border crossers into custody. Just last week, CBP reported 15,300 illegal crossings at the Tucson Sector in Arizona, the highest ever weekly total.

The crisis has led Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), to demand that the Biden White House do something to stem the tide as a condition of continuing to aid Ukraine in its war with Russia. On Monday, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) joined “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” to discuss the situation.

“[We need more than] just legislative fixes, because we have a lawless administration,” he contended. “We have a president that wants an open border. And so we do need to change the law … [such as a] Return to Mexico policy … but we absolutely must make any funding to Ukraine contingent on actually securing the border. And that means benchmarks, metrics. The metric we should use is [the] number of migrants entering America, no matter how they come in, whether they’re encountered and processed and released, or whether we detect them as gotaways. … So, no [Ukraine] funding until you actually achieve those benchmarks on a month-by-month basis.”

Johnson went on to argue that the border crisis will not be solved simply by throwing more money at the issue, which the Biden administration has argued in favor of.

“[Q]uite honestly, providing this administration more money at the border, they’re just going to speed up the processing and dispersing,” he pointed out. “That’s been their whole goal. That’s why they think their policy is [a] success. [They say] we don’t have a crisis on the border. [They]’ve just gotten really efficient at encountering, processing, dispersing more than six million illegal immigrants into this country during their administration. So no, we don’t need [to give them more] money for the border.”

As to the question of whether at least 41 GOP senators will hold the line on the southern border crisis, Johnson expressed uncertainty, while also emphasizing the severity of the border issue.

“I’ve been making the point now for literally months that we need to stop taking whatever the Democrats want and finding just enough Republicans to join them to pass their priorities,” he underscored. “That has to end … particularly when you’re looking at an open border being a clear and present danger to America. Democrats [and] the president obviously want funding for Ukraine. A lot of Republicans do. I’m certainly sympathetic with the courageous people of Ukraine. But what must come first is our own homeland, our own national security. … So you’ve got to set your priorities, and our top priority has to be to secure that border. This is the only leverage we have with a lawless administration. We must use that leverage. And so all we have to do is make sure that 41 Republicans deny cloture on any bill that doesn’t include strong metrics that require … President Biden to secure the border [and] meet those metrics before money starts flowing.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

STUDY: Electric Vehicle ownership equates to paying $17 a gallon for gasoline

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“Adding the costs of the subsidies to the true cost of fueling an EV would equate to an EV owner paying $17.33 per gallon of gasoline…It’s time for federal and state governments to stop driving the American auto industry off an economic cliff and allow markets to drive further improvements in cost and efficiency.” — Brent Bennett and Jason Isaac, OVERCHARGED EXPECTATIONS: Unmaking The True Costs of Electric Vehicles

The Texas Public Policy Foundation in an October 2023 report titled OVERCHARGED EXPECTATIONS: Unmaking The True Costs of Electric Vehicles by Brent Bennett and Jason Isaac looked at the real costs of ownership of all electric vehicles (EVs).

Bennett and Isaac in the Executive Summary wrote,

An in-depth analysis of the comprehensive costs associated with electric vehicle (EV) ownership is crucial for a holistic understanding of the economic landscape surrounding the attempted mass transition from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to EVs. Major selling points promoted by EV advocates are lower maintenance and fueling costs over the life of the vehicle and the common claim that reductions in battery prices will eventually make EVs less expensive to own than ICEVs. For example, a study conducted by a group at the Argonne National Laboratory estimated that while an average EV is about $22,000 more expensive to purchase than a comparable ICEV, they cost about $14,000 less to fuel, insure and maintain over a 15-year period, making their lifetime cost only $8,047 more than an ICEV (Burnham et al., 2021, p. 144, Table B.1).

Setting aside some of the questionable assumptions used in deriving such favorable economics for EVs, no one has attempted to calculate the full financial benefit of the wide array of direct subsidies, regulatory credits, and subsidized infrastructure that contribute to the economic viability of EVs. In this paper, we show that the average model year (MY) 2021 EV would cost $48,698 more to own over a 10-year period without $22 billion in government favors given to EV manufacturers and owners.

EV advocates claim that the cost of electricity for EV owners is equal to $1.21 per gallon of gasoline (Edison Electric Institute, 2021), but the cost of charging equipment and charging losses, averaged out over 10 years and 120,000 miles, is $1.38 per gallon equivalent on top of that. Adding the costs of the subsidies to the true cost of fueling an EV would equate to an EV owner paying $17.33 per gallon of gasoline. And these estimates do not include the hundreds of billions more in subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (2022) for various aspects of the EV supply chain, particularly for battery manufacturing. It is not an overstatement to say that the federal government is subsidizing EVs to a greater degree than even wind and solar electricity generation and embarking on an unprecedented endeavor to remake the entire American auto industry.

Despite massive incentives, EVs are receiving a tepid response from the majority of Americans who cannot shoulder their higher cost. Car lots are swelling with unsold EVs (Muller, 2023), and the Ford Motor Company is losing over $70,000 on each EV it currently sells (Bryce, 2023). EV enthusiasts are holding out for breakthroughs in battery technology—batteries being the main factor in the high cost of EVs—to reduce prices and make EVs more widespread. But advances in battery technology are measured not in months but in decades, and the downward trend of lithium-ion battery costs over the past decade has largely ended (IEA, 2023a). It’s time for federal and state governments to stop driving the American auto industry off an economic cliff and allow markets to drive further improvements in cost and efficiency.

In a post on X former Representative Jason Isaac stated that, “Energy Poverty = Poverty. #decarbonization is dangerous and deadly.”

The study found that,

Recent data suggest that the EV scrappage rate is substantially higher than that of gasoline vehicles. S&P determined that despite EVs having an average age of 3.6 years and gasoline vehicles having an average age of 12.5 years, during “the 10-year period from 2013-2022, 6.6% of BEVs in operation were pulled out of commission. During the same period, just 5.2% of combustion vehicles left the fleet” (Leinert, 2023, para. 7). Therefore, the EV scrappage rate is already higher than that of gasoline vehicles and is likely going to increase in future years as the average age of the EV fleet increases.

Of course, a higher EV scrappage rate and, in turn, fewer miles traveled compared to gasoline vehicles should also be accounted for in any cost-benefit analysis. Other issues excluded from this analysis include:

  • Billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded subsidies for electric buses, trucks, and truck stops, plus the addition of charging infrastructure at public facilities such as ports and airports.
  • Billions in state and city taxpayer-funded subsidies other than state buyer credits.
  • Credits from California’s low-carbon fuel standard, which is a cross-subsidy from gasoline buyers to subsidize EVs in California.
  • The unaccounted cost of EVs in terms of additional emissions from power plants, and the embedded environmental costs of the EV supply chain.
  • The cost of allowing EVs to use managed lanes, such as high-occupancy vehicle lanes, and the cost of parking spaces given to EVs and EV charging stations.
    • The cost to consumers of additional time spent charging EVs relative to fueling gasoline/diesel vehicles.
  • Disproportionately high road damage from heavier EVs compared to gasoline/diesel vehicles.
  • Disproportionately high EV recall costs compared to gasoline/diesel vehicles, which are socialized to buyers of gasoline and diesel vehicles from the company initiating the recall. 9 See footnote 4 for more information on how the cost per equivalent gallon of gasoline is calculated.
  • Building construction costs as some municipalities are beginning to require “EV-ready” construction in new homes and buildings.

The study concluded,

The stark reality for proponents of EVs and for the dreamers in the federal government, who are using fuel economy regulations to force manufacturers to produce ever more EVs, is that the true cost of an EV is in no way close to a comparable ICEV. Our conservative estimate is that the average EV accrues $48,698 in subsidies and $4,569 in extra charging and electricity costs over a 10-year period, for a total cost of $53,267, or $16.12 per equivalent gallon of gasoline9. Without increased and sustained government favors, EVs will remain more expensive than ICEVs for many years to come. Hence why, even with these subsidies, EVs have been challenging for dealers to sell and why basic economic realities indicate that the Biden administration’s dream of achieving 100% EVs by 2040 will never become a reality.

EV apologists continue to claim that technology breakthroughs and economies of scale will rapidly bring down these costs, but there is no Moore’s law for batteries, which are a fundamentally different technology than semiconductors. The benefits of economies of scale have largely been reached by most lithium-ion battery manufacturers, costs for those batteries have largely ended their downward trend of the past decade (IEA, 2023a), and additional cost improvements will be hard won. Lithium prices are nearly quadruple what they were in 2019 (Trading Economics, n.d.), and fluctuations in raw materials costs will play a significant role in the cost of EV batteries going forward.

The lesson to be learned from this study is that markets, not government, drive innovation and efficiency. Despite the massive financial and regulatory advantages being offered to EVs, there are more than four times more hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles than full EVs registered in the U.S. (EERE, n.d.-b). Toyota estimated that the amount of materials to make one EV battery can be used to make 90 hybrid batteries and that those 90 hybrids will result in 37 times more emissions reductions over their lifetime than one EV (McParland, 2023).

Perhaps if D.C. politicians and bureaucrats stop trying to force Americans to build and buy their preferred types of vehicles, the cleaner and brighter future that they imagine will actually materialize. [Emphasis added.]

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Climate Virtue Signaling’: Another Blue State Commits To Banning New Gas-Powered Car Sales By 2035

©2023. All rights reserved.

‘Super Expensive’: NRCC Drops Video Targeting Dems For Thanksgiving Food Price Hikes

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The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) released a video Wednesday, first shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation, seeking to hold Democrats responsible for Thanksgiving food price increases ahead of 2024.

The online advertisement, titled “Thanksgiving in Biden’s America” and launched by the House GOP’s campaign arm, depicts how some of the feast’s staples “are more expensive again this year,” arguing that “you can thank Democrats” for the price increases. Local prices for canned cranberries, canned pumpkins and russet potatoes are all up 60%, 30% and 14%, respectively, since 2022, according to the NRCC.

“It’s super expensive and I’m sharing the cost with some of my siblings,” a grocery shopper can be heard saying in the video.

“Definitely more conscious about what we purchase,” another said.

WATCH:

Inflation has spiked under the Biden administration, which has been attributed by critics to record levels of government spending approved by Democrats. Biden signed the American Rescue Plan in 2021 authorizing $1.9 trillion in new funding for COVID-19 relief, as well as the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which added $750 billion to the deficit and sought to advance the president’s green energy agenda.

“Unsatisfied with their war on Christmas, extreme Democrats launched a war on Thanksgiving. That’s why your Thanksgiving meal costs skyrocketed,” Ben Smith, NRCC rapid response director, told the DCNF in a statement.

While the average cost for a Thanksgiving table of ten has decreased by 4.5% since 2022, the price is still up by 25% at $61.17 since 2019, according to a report from the American Farm Bureau Federation released Nov. 15. Last year’s average Thanksgiving feast saw a record-high price of $64.05 compared to $48.91 from before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NRCC is seeking to expand its majority in the House by targeting 37 seats held by vulnerable Democrats, including several that will now be open in 2024 following a wave of departures in Michigan, Virginia and California.

AUTHOR

MARY LOU MASTERS

Contributor.

POST ON X:

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

As Homeownership Costs Soar and Inflation Persists, Americans Sour on Biden’s Economy

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President Joe Biden turned 81 years old on Monday, and he was greeted with the lowest approval rating ever recorded by NBC News at 40%. While a large part of the number is due to Democrats’ disapproval of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, it’s also likely a reflection of an economy that continues to struggle under the weight of persistent inflation, skyrocketing mortgage rates, a decline in full-time jobs, and ever-expanding federal debt.

The president has continued to tout “Bidenomics” in recent weeks, despite stating last week that he acknowledges there is a “disconnect between the numbers and how people feel about their place in the world right now.” Polls show that the American public is indeed not connecting with the White House’s messaging on a massive scale. A Fox News survey taken last week revealed that almost 80% of Americans rate the economy negatively.

As economists are pointing out, the raw economic numbers are a tremendous cause for concern. Joel Griffith, a research fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, joined “Washington Watch” last week to give a snapshot of where things currently stand.

“The typical family has lost more than $4,000 in real inflation, just adjusted income since President Biden took office, and that $4,000 pay cut is not even taking into account the rising home ownership costs,” he observed. “… [A]s [we]’ve seen real income decline, we’ve also seen credit card balances hit an all-time record $1 trillion. That’s about a $3,000 a family increase over the past year and a half, even as savings rates have plunged near all-time lows. Bidenomics has been a disaster for American families.”

Polls show that Americans are continuing to feel economic pain when they compare their income with prices. An Associated Press poll last month found that “three-quarters of respondents described the economy as poor,” with two-thirds saying their expenses have risen and only one quarter saying their income had also gone up. Compounding the problem is that the prices of many of the items that Americans most commonly buy have inflated substantially. Since February of 2020, the average price of a gallon of milk is up 23% ($3.93), a pound of ground beef is up 33% ($5.35), and a gallon of gas is up 53% ($3.78).

As Griffith went on to explain, one of the primary reasons for the decline in real income currently being experienced by Americans is the exploding cost of home ownership.

“If you’re looking to get a mortgage right now on a standard middle class home, that mortgage payment is costing you about $1,000 per month more than it would have cost you just a year and a half ago,” he noted. “… These are the worst economic conditions since the 1970s. … [T]hat was a time when we also had declining real income, and we also had sky high inflation. So arguably, it’s even worse now than it was then because it’s never been less affordable to buy a home. If you look to buy a home, it costs you about half of your income just to make the mortgage payments and the property taxes. It has never been this bad in terms of home ownership.”

Griffith further illustrated how reported job growth numbers are misleading. “[E]very month, the Biden administration loves to tout these jobs growth numbers. But what they fail to tell us is actually that over the last six months, we’ve actually seen a decline in full-time jobs. The only reason why we have seen the top line jobs growth numbers positive is because we’ve seen a surge in part-time jobs, meaning we have a lot more people today working double jobs just to pay the bills.”

As the national debt approaches $34 trillion, Griffith underscored how runaway federal spending is leading to unyielding inflation.

“[S]pending is out of control — it’s been out of control a long time,” he said. “The interest we’re paying right now on the federal debt is $10,000 per family per year. The amount of money that we’ve borrowed over the prior year is $25,000 per family of four. We cannot keep this up. A big part of the reason why families today are suffering from this inflation … is because for the last three years, we have spent wildly beyond our means, and we relied on our central bank to print the dollars to buy that debt.”

“We have to change this trajectory now, and I’m hopeful Congress will actually attempt to do so once they come back from Thanksgiving and Christmas break,” Griffith concluded.

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: We Need to Talk about Joe: Dems Show Growing Concern over Aged, Inept Biden

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The Fed Is ‘Chasing Its Own Tail’ On Inflation, And The Housing Market Is Paying The Price, Expert Says

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A guest essay published in The New York Times on Tuesday finally pointed a finger at a major culprit behind the housing crisis: The Federal Reserve.

The essay was written by Westwood Capital Investment bank’s managing partner Daniel Alpert, and detailed his take on the Fed’s “relentless attack on inflation” which he thinks is jeopardizing the market. Alpert decries the Fed’s decision to raise key federal funds policy interest rate to a level 22 times what it had been in the year and a half prior.

In normal times, this type of action would make mortgages insanely expensive for homeowners and make homes a lot cheaper, which limits spending power. But Alpert rightly notes these aren’t normal times. As mortgage rates skyrocketed from around three percent to the near eight percent it is now, it caused a catastrophe for the housing market.

Homeowners with good interest rates don’t want to move. And new buyers don’t want to get locked into an overpriced home at a high interest rate. So we have “both a mobility and an inventory crisis,” as Alpert put it.

Housing has helped ensure the cost of just about everything has increased in 2023. “It is an irony that the Fed’s effort to tamp down inflation is causing an increase in core inflation measures,” Alpert notes. “And while the Fed is chasing its own tail, other avenues for controlling inflation have weakened considerably as a result of the unique circumstances surrounding the pandemic.”

The pandemic allowed for Americans to increase their savings rates. And many businesses were locked into cheap financing. So, what happens next?

Alpert thinks the Fed should declare victory and give up on its target of two percent. But the likelihood of that is low. Instead, Alpert wants the Fed to halt and then reverse policies related to mortgage securities and Quantitative Tightening. In layman’s terms, the Fed has to reduce the cost of mortgages or we’re doomed.

AUTHOR

KAY SMYTHE

News and commentary writer.

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Johnson Scores First Win, Dodging Shutdown and Year-End Bloat

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That sound you hear in Washington, D.C. is every congressional staffer breathing a sigh of relief. For once, the Hill will be home at a reasonable time for Christmas — not staring down another government shutdown or stuffing an unread trillion-dollar omnibus down the Democrats’ chimney. In the real first hurdle of Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) young tenure, the House did as he asked: they passed a budget bridge to next year that spares America a whole lot of headaches.

By a 336-95 vote, the House decided to cut Mike Johnson some slack — agreeing to his unique “laddered” approach to the continuing resolution (CR) that buys Republicans more time to live up to their fiscal promises. “We were a little bit behind the eight ball here,” Glenn Grothman (R-Wisc.) admitted to Family Research Council President Tony Perkins immediately following the vote. “Your listeners will remember that we went through a long process without a speaker.” Now that the House has one, he pointed out, it will take some extra time for the chamber “to get our work done.”

With just days to go before a government shutdown, Johnson made impassioned pleas for the GOP to come together and agree to a plan that gives the House a window to debate these budgets individually. “We’re not surrendering,” Johnson argued. “We’re fighting, but you have to be wise about choosing the fights. You’ve got to fight fights that you can win — and we’re going to.” But let’s face it, he said. “It took decades to get into this mess. I’ve been at this job three weeks. … I can’t turn an aircraft carrier overnight, but this was a very important first step to get us to the next stage so that we can change how Washington works.”

Leading up to the vote, several Republicans applauded Johnson for doing his best to avoid both a government shutdown and a 2,000-page “Christmas tree omnibus.” “We set that as one of our goals at the first of the year, that we did not want that to happen again,” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) told Perkins. Under this plan, the House has until January 19 and February 2 to pass two waves of appropriations bills. “I personally like that,” Carter said. “I personally like the idea of doing it as you can. You know, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, right? Well, let’s take these bites as we can get them, and then we go on and we work until February 2nd on everything else and try to get it done as well.”

Not every Republican agreed, insisting that anything the House passed — including a short-term CR — should have spending cuts. According to Grothman, Johnson openly confronted those critics, asking, “How is this going to end? How are you going to wind up ahead of the game by shutting down the government? Because eventually, it’s going to reopen.” And his point, Grothman said, was that “it will reopen when the Republicans get beat up in the news media. And none of these people who are voting against Mike today, breaking from our new speaker, could give him a reason or an explanation of how this was going to end.”

Johnson deserved better from his party, Grothman believed. “I felt sorry for our speaker. Most Republicans stuck with him, but on this first test, a lot didn’t. … He should have got[ten] … every single Republican to vote for him when he called for the vote. And sadly, [93] Republicans voted against him.”

Democrats filled in the blanks, pushing the CR across the finish line. Some, like Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Ct.), snarkily told the media, “Once again, the Republican majority needs Democratic votes to govern,” as if bipartisanship is suddenly the most shocking thing to happen to the House. And maybe it is. Apparently, Congress is so used to one party imposing its will that regular order and compromise seem foreign.

The 93 Republicans’ objections notwithstanding, Grothman insisted that “the most important thing is who wins the arguments over what’s in these bills” in the new year. “…And [with] this [laddered] CR, you’re not going to be able to [roll] every appropriation bill together [in a last-minute omnibus] and have one of these 2,000-page behemoths. You’re going to have to break out a separate vote on education, a separate vote on national defense, a separate vote on military construction and veterans affairs, general government. Hopefully we’ll get as many separate votes as possible so we know what’s in the bills, which will be really a feather in the cap of Mike Johnson. But in order to get there, we had to win today [and] give him more time to get things done. And we did that.”

To those who complain this CR doesn’t cut spending, Carter said, “I get it. But the point is, we’re not going to be able to get [the appropriations bills] done [by Friday’s deadline]. We’re not going to be able to get all 12 bills with the spending cuts done anytime soon, certainly not before January the 19th. And why not go ahead and do what we can do until then? And I know that there may be a certain amount of leverage when you have all of them together. But, you know, we’ve tried that, and it hasn’t worked,” he insisted. “I’ve always said Washington is about big ideas. This is a big idea [that’s] never been done before. We ought to try it.”

And frankly, Perkins replied, “What would be gained by shutting down the government?” The House has to work “inch by inch, mile by mile,” he said. This proposal “is a step in the right direction. It moves us toward responsible governing.”

Absolutely, Carter agreed. “Let’s take incremental wins when we can. Let’s move the ball down the field. No, it’s not a Hail Mary, no it’s not a long touchdown pass, but it is advancing the ball down the field.” As for blaming the speaker over what might have been done with the CR, Carter called that “unfair.” “Mike Johnson inherited this situation,” he insisted. “… And he’s doing the best he can with it. … Personally, I thought it was a dumb thing to do to vacate the chair and to get rid of the speaker, [Kevin] McCarthy. I thought that was a big error on our part, but it is what it is. It’s done.”

At the end of the day, Grothman believes, “Mike will pull us together. [He’s] such a sincere guy. Everybody knows he’s trying to do the best he can. And of course, right now, because we had a new Democrat sworn in [Monday], we only can afford to lose three votes. So it’s tough to have 218 of 221 stick together,” the Wisconsin congressman admitted. “But if anybody can do it, Mike can do it.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

New Gov’t Data Suggests Biden Admin’s Anti-Gas Appliance Push Could Make Home Heating Way More Expensive

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  • Americans using electric heating systems, favored by the Biden administration’s climate agenda, will pay significantly more to keep their homes warm this winter than Americans using natural gas, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).
  • Those who use electricity to heat their homes will pay $1,063 on average this winter, while Americans using natural gas will pay an average of $601 to keep their homes warm, according to the EIA data.
  • Attempts to phase out the use of natural gas for home heating and other purposes “would raise costs to consumers, jeopardize environmental progress and deny affordable energy to underserved populations,” American Gas Association President and CEO Karen Harbert told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Americans who heat their homes with electricity could see costs increase this winter as the Biden administration forges ahead with its broad push to diminish the use of fossil fuels in homes and buildings, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Those who rely on electricity to heat their homes will pay an average of $1,063 this upcoming winter, approximately 77% more than Americans using natural gas, who will pay an average of $601 to keep their homes warm, according to the EIA’s projections. The Biden administration, with the encouragement of environmentalist advocacy groups, has proposed regulations and rolled out subsidy programs designed to decrease the use of oil and gas products for home heating and other purposes, citing a perceived need to decrease carbon emissions they generate.

“Natural gas has been one of the principal drivers to achieving our nation’s environmental and economic goals. From providing affordable energy to consumers to driving down emissions, the benefits this fuel has for our nation are tangible and impossible to ignore,” American Gas Association President and CEO Karen Harbert told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Attempts to phase out the use of natural gas for home heating and other uses “would raise costs to consumers, jeopardize environmental progress and deny affordable energy to underserved populations,” she added.

The discrepancy in prices is even more pronounced in the Northeast, where the average cost for using electricity to heat a home is expected to be $1,465, a figure that is about 92% higher than the $761 that natural gas users can expect to pay on average, according to the EIA data.

The effort to change how Americans heat their homes using government action is part of a larger push from the Biden administration to have Americans adopt an array of more efficient, and more expensive, electric appliances in order to fight climate change. As it does on the heating front, the administration uses both regulation, such as its move to phase out gas-powered generators and pool pump motors, and subsidies, like the $2,000 heat pump tax credit from the Inflation Reduction Act, to advance its agenda.

Other appliances the administration has targeted include water heaters, refrigerators and clothes washers. Concurrently, federal agencies, led by the Energy Department, are assisting municipal governments to modify their building codes in ways that limit or ban the use of fossil fuels in new buildings.

Well-funded environmentalist organizations like the Sierra Club and Rewiring America have advocated for the electrification of American homes, and a coalition of 23 state governors has teamed up with the White House to aggressively expand heat pump installations in the effort to reduce the share of Americans relying on natural gas to keep their homes at a comfortable temperature.

The push to electrify home heating and appliances despite their typically higher cost is occurring amid a backdrop of high inflation that is especially hurting the country’s working- and middle-class families.

“The political appointees in the White House, guys like John Podesta, are more interested in helping their big money backers in the green movement than they are in helping provide relief for working-class American families,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told the DCNF. “Higher electricity prices don’t hurt wealthy coastal elites, but they crush the poor, seniors and those living on fixed incomes.”

The White House and the Energy Department did not respond to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.