Republican House Still Stumbling Around, Leftist Economists Don't Get Us
Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel
Colorado Springs, CO
Originally sent to subscribers 10/19/23
We are lucky in some ways, with modern technology. We get photos on our phone most days of our granddaughter at daycare. Some 14 two-and three-year-olds sit around attentive to a teacher or boogie in place, vastly more organized, cooperative and more purposeful than the House Republicans can manage in the Capitol of the USA.
Thursday, Rep. Jim Jordan was not going to run on a third ballot for House Speaker. Then he was. There was a plan to designate Rep. Patrick McHenry for a period of time as a temporary Speaker so that they could deal with critical legislation. Right now, spending bills are stuck in committee, making it more likely that one of the key complaints of those unhappy with McCarthy’s leadership will happen again -- no regular order and an omnibus spending bill to inflate the economy further.
But many House members didn’t like that idea and it was shelved…for now.
We like Dan Bongino’s analogy of our current Republican House. It was like passengers on a commercial jet at 30,000 feet deciding to throw the captain and co-pilot out the door -- and then asking if anyone aboard knew how to fly a plane.
Some 22 Republicans on the second ballot voted for “Other,” including McCarthy, Scalise, members from their state no one knows elsewhere; only family dogs seemed safe from a vote for House Speaker. Talk about making a joke out of solemn responsibility.
In the meantime, as a reward for electing Hamas as their rulers and enabling one of the most brutal and horrific attacks on civilians since the 4th or 5th centuries, President Biden decided to gift the Palestinians $100 million. He had evidently not heard that the last UN convoy of humanitarian aid to Gaza was stolen by Hamas. Asked about how he was going to make sure our $100 million didn’t end up funding Hamas rockets and grenades, no one in the administration had an answer. To say nothing of rewarding those harboring Hamas while it holds perhaps hundreds of hostages.
Actually, we might be slandering the Huns, Visigoths and the Vandals, as while they were guilty of raping and pillaging, we’re not sure they stooped to killing women and children and beheading babies.
Meanwhile, not only is nothing being done about a Farm Bill but any assurances or likely expectations could be up in the air with Speaker McCarthy out of the picture -- we think. With the Republican conference in shouting chaos in meetings and some in stubborn denial of reality, McCarthy might take leave of his sanity and enter the fray again. The Republicans staying stupid only strengthens the hand of the Democrats, who could make some kind of deal with some Republican contingent, again defeating the professed goal of the overthrow in the first place, like cutting spending and regulation and doing something about a porous, cartel and terrorist corridor across the Rio Grande.
It’s unlikely, but a vacant or Pro Tempore Speaker chair, if something were to happen to Biden and Harris, would mean far left Sen. Patty Murray, as Senate president pro tem would be president, according to Ken Klukowski, legal contributor to Breitbart.
Meanwhile, Alan Blinder, a former Federal Reserve official and currently an economics professor at Princeton, sounds just like Biden, as in, everything’s great with the economy, voters just don’t know it. Blinder looks at the unemployment rate at under four percent, the inflation rate in the high threes and GDP expected to be reported around five percent and concludes the economy is doing fine, (“The Economy Is Great. Why Do Americans Blame Biden?” Wall Street Journal, 10/19/23).
But like the Administration and the “core” inflation calculator formulas, those people are ignoring the kind of data citizens deal with every day -- costs of fuel, food and electricity, paying higher interest rates and insurance. Voters blame Biden because his energy decisions on Day One, his Democrat party’s ridiculous spending, Green New Deal spending and rules, open borders, high crime and weak prosecution are to blame for our painful economy. The administration added the most common type of furnace to their naughty list this week, joining gas stoves and water heaters.
Blinder explains but doesn’t sound very sympathetic that while inflation will someday come down, many prices will not. No wonder Blinder calls us “grumpy.”
That’s the problem with big government decisions. They take away our money in inflated costs and stupid projects -- and we don’t get that money back. Different politicians may bring back economic growth, peel off costly and onerous regulations and head off new taxes. But they will not reimburse us for the money we paid for inflated energy, interest on credit cards and business loans or foregone years in houses we couldn’t afford because of costly mortgage rates.
Blinder, the Fed and central bankers still believe that the only way to bring inflation down is to damage demand -- the economic might of consumers -- by increasing interest rates and throttling wage and job growth without causing a full blown recession. Increasing the supply of goods and services and making them cheaper and easier to produce by cutting taxes and regulations is not recognized by the liberal economists and the political left as inflation-fighting tools. They somehow still haven’t noticed how the latter group of methods -- supply side economics -- fostered a great economy just a few years ago.
We don’t agree with Blinder that the only way to bring prices down is a Great Depression and accompanying deflation. In a competitive, free market economy, if taxes are cut, regulations are rolled back, the government gets out of the subsidy and market distortion business and innovative entrepreneurs are allowed to compete and operate freely, prices can be cut down. It has happened before.
But big government and leftist politics, along with far left social-economic trends towards a socialist/Marxist/communist economy do not want that to happen. Enough Americans have to want changes before a free market economy can be turned loose again.
We know many of you contacted your House members earlier this week to ask them to get a Speaker. Some of those who voted for “Other” are from core cattle producing states. You are allowed to contact them again, and while you’re at it, remind them that American agriculture needs the freedoms of capitalism, less government regulation and fewer climate change efficiency drags on your efforts to feed the world.
Contact info for House members:
Edi. Note: Picture below courtesy beef Check off).