Tag: joe biden

How the Federal Budget Deficit Doubled in a Single Year

It’s not totally unprecedented to see the federal budget deficit double from one year to the next, as it seems to have done this year.

But those occasions, at least in the past 50 years, have always corresponded with bad stuff happening to the national economy. Deficits surged in the late 1970s and early 1980s thanks to high inflation and a series of recessions. The budget deficit doubled between 2002 and 2003 thanks to a recession and as the War on Terror kicked off. And it skyrocketed again during the crises that bookended the 2010s: the mortgage crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year will likely be added to that list. The Congressional Budget Office last week projected that the federal government will post a deficit of $2 trillion when the current fiscal year ends on September 30.

At first blush, that might not appear to double last year’s budget deficit of about $1.4 trillion, but keep in mind that last year’s total included roughly $400 billion for President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan—funds that were never spent because the Supreme Court struck down the proposal, as the CBO notes.

Compared to those other historical examples, however, this year seems like an outlier. Unemployment is low, the economy has been growing steadily, and inflation has significantly abated. America does not seem to be in a crisis at the moment, but the government’s balance sheet certainly is.

And it is that way, in large part, because of the government’s own programs—as opposed to, say, an external event like a pandemic or a mortgage crisis. The drivers of this year’s rising deficit are four-fold, and three of them are the result of decades of poor policymaking: rising interest costs on the $33 trillion national debt, higher Social Security outlays, and more Medicare spending. As Axios points out, those three categories added more than $390 billion to the deficit relative to last year—a tremendous jump in a single year.

The fourth category is falling federal income tax revenue, which is responsible for about $171 billion of the added deficit this year versus last. That’s likely a blip and not a long-term problem—federal tax revenue was unexpectedly high a year ago, and bigger swings in annual revenue tallies seem to be becoming more common, as The Wall Street Journal explained in May.

That’s not the case for the other three categories driving this year’s deficit, all of which are going to keep getting worse for the foreseeable future.

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Border Patrol Set ‘Bookout’ Targets To Bring Migrant Custody Numbers to ‘Manageable’ Levels Amid New Surge

Florida’s attorney general accuses the Biden administration of intentionally destroying the nation’s border with Mexico.

“Biden and Mayorkas have become so brazen that they are now implementing mass-release quotas for immigrants surging into our country,” Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody Tuesday said in a statement.

“As a federal judge already recognized, these releases are unlawful, yet the Biden administration is ordering Border Patrol to release even more immigrants into the interior.”

In response to the escalating numbers of migrants at the southern border, Border Patrol leadership established daily “bookout” targets last month, Moody claims.

Moody said recently-obtained U.S. Border Patrol emails outline new proposed “bookout targets” for field chiefs and deputies to “bring in-custody numbers to manageable levels.” She noted CBP redacted actual numbers.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Acting Deputy Chief emailed new targets August 8 after a phone call with leaders to discuss “in-custody numbers,” Moody noted.

During the call, she said, CBP leaders revealed “the rate of daily encounters continues to surpass the daily permanent bookouts and in-custody numbers continue to rise.”

These targets aim to keep the number of illegal aliens in custody at a manageable level, potentially leading to releases of larger numbers of illegal border crosses into the U.S. interior.

The agency has proposed “daily bookout targets” for each sector, based on seven-day averages.

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The Child Poverty Rate In The United States Has More Than Doubled

If you take an honest look at the numbers, the obvious conclusion is that the U.S. economy is rapidly going in the wrong direction.  Delinquency rates are soaring, sales of previously owned homes have declined by more than 32 percent over the past two years, inflation is starting to rise at a frightening pace again, large companies all over America are laying off workers, and we just witnessed the largest decline in real median household income in more than a decade.  Sadly, it is often the most vulnerable members of our society that get hit the hardest when economic times get rough.  According to the Census Bureau, the child poverty rate in the United States more than doubled from 2021 to 2022…

The U.S. poverty rate according to the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) was 12.4% in 2022, a rise of 4.6 percentage points from 2021. The poverty rate for children more than doubled year over year, from 5.2% to 12.4% — a record increase.

There is no way to spin that number to make it look good.

So why did this happen?

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The real data behind the new COVID vaccines the White House is pushing

What if I told you one in 50 people who took a new medication had a “medically attended adverse event” and the manufacturer refused to disclose what exactly the complication was — would you take it?

And what if the theoretical benefit was only transient, lasting about three months, after which your susceptibility goes back to baseline?

And what if we told you the Food and Drug Administration cleared it without any human-outcomes data and European regulators are not universally recommending it as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is?

That’s what we know about the new COVID vaccine the Biden administration is firmly recommending for every American 6 months old and up.

The push is so hard that former White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha and CDC head Mandy Cohen are making unsupported claims the new vaccine reduces hospitalizations. long COVID and the likelihood you will spread COVID.

None of those claims has a shred of scientific support.

In fact, if the manufacturers said that, they could be fined for making false marketing claims beyond an FDA-approved indication.

The questions surrounding Moderna’s new COVID vaccine approved this week are still looming.

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Biden implies black and Hispanic workers don’t have ‘high school diplomas’ — and WH tries to clean it up in official transcript

President Biden has been ripped after he inferred that African American and Hispanic workers don’t have “high school diplomas” in another humiliating gaffe.

The 80-year-old president was touting the economy at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland on Thursday when he made his latest blunder.

“We’ve seen record lows in unemployment particularly — and I’ve focused on this my whole career — particularly for African Americans and Hispanic workers and veterans, you know, the workers without high school diplomas,” he said in televised remarks.

However, according to the transcript released by the White House, there was supposed to be the word “and” separating the African American, Hispanic workers and veterans from those without high school diplomas.

Biden’s speech would then read: “We’ve seen record lows in unemployment particularly — and I’ve focused on this my whole career — particularly for African Americans and Hispanic workers and veterans, you know, and the workers without high school diplomas.”

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Environmentalists Are Destroying My Kitchen

My New York City apartment doesn’t have a lot going for it. It’s 700 square feet. The master bedroom fits little more than a queen-sized bed. There’s no kitchen pantry. My baby son sleeps in a large closet. But I’m a cook, and it does have at least one thing that keeps me renewing the lease year after year: a four-burner gas stove. 

Gas ranges allow cooks a greater degree of control over heat, from which flavor and texture result. But for the next generation of New York cooks, that feature will be even more of a rarity.

Starting this year, gas stove hookups will be banned in newly constructed buildings under seven stories throughout the five boroughs. The 90-year-old brownstone I live in, which was renovated and divided into four units in 2019, will be grandfathered in. Starting in 2027, this regulation will also apply to taller buildings. Inspired by city regulators, state lawmakers passed a similar ban in May. Now, New Yorkers who like high-heat and precise temperature control will be out of luck regardless of whether they live in Buffalo or Bushwick.

Over on the Left Coast, Berkeley adopted a similar ban in 2019, which was overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals this April. More than 50 other California cities, from Los Angeles to Sacramento, have adopted copycat regulations over the last five years which are now in legal limbo. Then in January, the feds got on board: Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard L. Trumka Jr. called gas stoves “a hidden hazard” and made noises about possibly banning them, saying—ominously, to libertarian ears—”products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

Under the guise of environmentalism, big government types keep coming for our kitchens—from gas stoves to dishwashers. Even our pizza ovens are under siege. 

It’s the same story every time, with endless permutations: Environmentalists pick a product to ban, use questionable evidence to justify their onslaught or misunderstand how people’s behavior will shift if their tools are made worse, and leave the rest of us to suffer the consequences—peppering our lives with additional low-grade annoyances. 

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‘Betrayal’: How Biden Adviser Anita Dunn and SKDK Played Both Sides in Sexual Harassment Case

One of President Joe Biden’s most trusted advisers is under fire amid revelations that she helped guide former Illinois House speaker Michael Madigan (D.) through a sexual harassment scandal while her firm was working with a #MeToo advocacy group representing one of Madigan’s accusers.

Anita Dunn, who has been described as Biden’s “brawler-in-chief,” in 2018 and 2019 helped Madigan to respond to allegations that he retaliated against campaign staffer Alaina Hampton, who accused a top Madigan aide of sexual harassment. Hampton claimed she was blacklisted from working on other political campaigns after filing the complaint. Madigan’s campaign paid $200,000 to Dunn’s firm, SKDK, to respond to allegations from the lawsuit, according to NPR. At the same time, Madigan’s accuser was working with SKDK and a legal defense fund bankrolled by Time’s Up, an advocacy group for victims of sexual harassment.

It’s the latest example of Dunn, considered a feminist icon in Washington, quietly working for politically connected clients accused of sexual misconduct. In 2017, Dunn was revealed to have advised disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein after several actresses accused him of rape.

In addition to Dunn’s work for the Biden administration, her husband, Bob Bauer, is a personal attorney for the president. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

“Betrayal” is how Hampton in an interview with NPR described Dunn’s actions.

“I don’t know Anita Dunn, and I hope I never will,” Hampton said. “But I would question her on her values and integrity, and I would ask her how she can credibly claim her commitment to women’s rights and issues.”

While it is unclear exactly what services Dunn provided Madigan, emails obtained by NPR indicate she provided advice for an op-ed that Madigan wrote in September 2018 for the Chicago Tribune. The then-speaker wrote that he should have “acted sooner” to address sexual harassment allegations at his office.

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White House Promotes Biden’s Marijuana Moves As Part Of ‘Fight For Our Freedom’ Campaign To ‘Mobilize Young People’

The White House is promoting President Joe Biden’s mass marijuana pardon and scheduling review directive as part of a “Fight for Our Freedom” campaign meant to “mobilize young people” as next year’s election approaches.

A factsheet about the campaign that the administration published on Thursday contains a section dedicated to the president’s cannabis reform actions from late last year titled, “Addressing a Failed Approach to Marijuana.”

“The criminalization of marijuana possession has upended too many lives—for conduct that is now legal in many states,” it says. “While white, Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people are more likely to be in jail for it.”

The youth outreach campaign will involve a college tour featuring Vice President Kamala Harris that begins at Hampton College on Thursday. The vice president will visit a total of seven colleges across the country over the next month, though its unclear if she will explicitly tout the administration’s cannabis reform actions on campuses.

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White House urges news orgs to “ramp up scrutiny” of Biden impeachment efforts

The White House on Wednesday emailed the leaders of several major news organizations, including Axios, arguing the media needs to “ramp up its scrutiny” of House Republicans’ efforts to impeach President Biden.

Why it matters: The White House argues that the media’s reporting about incremental updates on the impeachment inquiry process over the substance of the inquiry “is woefully inadequate when it comes to something as historically grave as impeachment.”

Catch up quick: The letter follows an announcement from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday in which he declared he would direct House committees to open an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

  • The move is a reversal of McCarthy’s previous remarks that a probe could only be launched with a House vote.

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Biden’s Gun Control Law Will Radically Change U.S. Gun Ownership

President Joe Biden keeps telling Americans that the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), the gun control bill he signed last year, is the most significant gun control legislative accomplishment in nearly 30 years. He is right, but it will do nothing to improve safety. The innocuous-sounding BSCA will radically change gun ownership.

Americans are only now learning that the act prohibits federal funding for “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.” In July, the Biden Department of Education announced it would end funding to schools with riflery or archery teams or hunter safety classes. Federal funding for public schools is substantial and hard to ignore, typically accounting for about eight percent of education spending. This prohibition effectively spells the end of classes or sports pertaining to shooting or archery in public schools. It is an attempt to end the American culture of legal gun ownership.

Federal law explicitly prohibits the creation of a federal firearm registry, but through a proposed 108-page set of regulations published at the end of August by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (BATF), the Biden administration is trying to use the BSCA to implement universal background checks on all gun purchases and to track virtually everyone who obtains a gun.

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