The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1479543
D-4 Wednesday, September 21, 2022 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg When will the poor stop looking to government? New polling data from Gallup show Americans are not having an easy time through this period of rising prices. According to Gallup, 56% of Amer- icans say now that rising prices are causing severe or moderate hard- ship. Drilling down, we see that the hardship is not shared equally. Among low-income households, those with income less than $48,000, 74% report they are experiencing hardship. Among middle-income households, with income $48,000 to $89,999, 63% report hardship. And among upper income, $90,000 and above, 40% report experiencing hard- ship. But Secretar y of the Treasur y Jan- et Yellen showed up at Ford's Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, recently with an upbeat economic message reminiscent of the joke, "Who are you going to be- lieve, me or your own eyes?" Yellen announced that she is "more optimistic about the course of our economy than I have been in quite a while." The Biden administration hopes to blow enough smoke into the eyes of voters so that reality will not set in until the November elections have passed. Yellen ought to consider reading the latest long-term budget and eco- nomic projections form the nonparti- san Congressional Budget Office. Per CBO's just-published "The 2022 Long-Term Budget Outlook," over the next 30 years, the U.S. bud- get deficit, as a percent of our GDP, will be double what it has averaged over the last half-centur y, and nation- al debt as a percentage of GDP will reach historically high levels, arriv- ing to a mind-boggling 185% of GDP in 2052. The result of this ongoing absorp- tion of the U.S. economy into the hands of government and politicians will be, according to CBO, a slowing and sputtering of the U.S. economy "From 2022 to 2052, real potential GDP increases an average of 1.7% per year," per the report, compared to an average of 2.4% over the previous 30 years, 1992 to 2021. However, from 1950 to 2000, the U.S. economy grew at an average an- nual rate of 3.5%. So, per the picture CBO paints for us regarding our eco- nomic future, we can expect growth to be half what it averaged for the half centur y following the end of World War II. What does this mean to the average American? Per Hoover Institution economist John Cochrane, it means that over the next 50 years household income will be half of what it would have been had the economy grown at the faster historical rate. This is not a pretty pic- ture for any American. But for low-income Americans, it is particularly dismal. The American dream has always been that although you may start with nothing, there is a future for you to build and accumulate wealth. That dream is being shattered. And it is being shattered by govern- ment and politicians -- Democrats who now control our government -- who pretend to be concerned about these same low-income Americans. More and more government spending, more and more govern- ment sucking the oxygen out of our economy by pulling resources away from the private sector and redirect- ing it toward political control, suppos- edly to help "have-nots," just destroys opportunity for ever yone. In Gallup polling reported in a sur- vey done by my organization CURE, 70% of Black Americans feel the coun- tr y is divided into "haves" and "have- nots," and 57% of Blacks feel they are among the "have-nots." The challenge of all those who see the whole nation sinking under the weight of misguided government, and certainly I am talking about Re- publicans, is to reach our Black citi- zens and get them to believe that the path to opportunity, the path to be- coming a "have," is a free economy. If our Black citizens, and all Amer- icans who feel the countr y is unfair, realize that freedom, and not govern- ment, is the path to wealth creation, we can turn a sinking ship around. Race for the Cure By Star Parker Heritage Viewpoint By EJ Antoni Biden's economic claims would make Orwell's ministry of truth proud What is it about those on the Left of the political spectrum that they seem to not just live in perpetual fear of apocalypse and doom but they ac- tually embrace it? It is their raison d'etre. Is there something in the collec- tive psyche or the DNA of modern leftists that they crave fear? And doom? This cult of apocalypse started in the late 1960s with the dooms- day predictions of "the population bomb," the title of a mega-bestselling book by Stanford University biology professor Paul Ehrlich. "The Popula- tion Bomb" predicted that mankind was breeding at a pace that would bring about a Malthusian nightmare of overpopulation, star vation, war, poverty and water shortages. All that was missing was a swarm of locusts. We were running out of ever ything. COVID-19 is the most recent case in point. Polls from the start and throughout the pandemic showed that roughly 70% of Democrats de- scribed themselves as "ver y wor- ried" about the coronavirus. By con- trast, only about 30% of Republicans were ver y worried. Blue states run by Democrats went into a collective fetal position for nearly two years, with forced business, school and church closings -- while red states pretty much got back to life as nor- mal. COVID-19 was a killer virus for sure, with more than 1 mil- lion deaths. But the government inter ven- tions were almost all oversized in terms of their effectiveness in combating the spread of the disease. Climate change is, of course, the overarching pandemic of fear so far in the 21st centur y that has swept across the countr y and induced lame-brained economic responses like windmills. Amazingly, virtual- ly ever y Democrat, from the local dog catcher to the President of the United States, believes this is an "existential threat" to Earth. Twenty years ago, there were many climate change skeptics on the Left. We witnessed the full extent of the psychosis this past summer when some parts of the countr y saw severe flooding and others encountered bone-dr y drought. One day, the waters are rising to the levels of Noah's Ark, and the next, water shortages are going to besiege the lands and we will die of thirst. Apparent- ly, if we would stop us- ing fossil fuels, the sun will come out in the flood regions, and the rains will simultane- ously hit the parched areas of the countr y like California. Are they sure about that? But again, why the reign of fear? One obvious explanation is that when planetar y crises arrive, as with a pandemic, it is said to require more centralized government and more control over people's lives. So, if you believe in the virtues of big govern- ment, you need supersized problems to justify its vast expansion. Crisis really is the rallying cr y of the tyrant. As the late Julian Simon taught us, the answer to planetar y problems is not more government, but human ingenuity. The Left is fatalistic. The Right is opportunistic. It's the difference be- tween cursing the darkness and lift- ing a candle. I have often wondered: What would be the Left's reaction to some kind of definitive proof that there was no manmade climate change to worr y about? Would there be whoops of relief and celebration? Would there be ticker tape parades down Fifth Avenue? Now, to be fair, just because the Peddlers of Apocalypse have a long track record of being dead wrong in their dire predictions doesn't mean we don't have things to worr y about. Sometimes the wolf really is at the door, no matter how many times the boy has issued false alarms. In the meantime, the thing we have to wor- r y most about running out of these days is ... freedom. Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an econ- omist with FreedomWorks. His latest book is "Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy." Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Why is the Left always so deathly afraid? While many presidential adminis- trations play it fast and loose with the truth, none resemble more closely Or well's ironically named Ministr y of Truth than the Biden administra- tion. Its recently released "Economic Blueprint" is a perfect example. The document is a combination of outright falsehoods and numerical half-truths, perfectly illustrating the old saying that if you torture the data enough, it will confess to anything. Consider some of the administra- tion's "achievements." The blueprint claims Biden achieved the "fastest job market re- cover y in nearly 40 years—creating [sic] 9.7 million jobs." Biden must suffer from severe memor y loss. His immediate predecessor recovered 12.5 million jobs in less time, aver- aging 1.4 million jobs per month to Biden's 500,000. Forget 40 years— it's not even the fastest recover y in four years. The White House also asserts there has been "faster wage growth for the bottom 50 percent than in past recoveries," but that is only nominally true. While wages have risen, prices have risen even faster, wiping out all those nominal gains, and then some. Inflation has crushed the middle and work- ing classes, driving real wages down, not up. Additionally, it's ironic to cite lower-income earners since they are hit the hardest by the hidden tax of inflation. Another deception is that the administration is making "food more affordable for families." By what metric? People are flocking to foodbanks because food prices are rising at double-digit rates annually. Having to increase food stamp hand- outs because of rampant inflation is not a sign of "food affordability" or whatever other euphemism the ad- ministration uses. The blueprint doesn't stop there. It asserts that the Inflation Reduc- tion Act—another purposeful mis- use of language—will bring down Medicare (public) drug prices by giving the government negotiating power. But what the law actually does is index public drug prices to a percent of the price in the private market. That merely gives drug companies a double in- centive to raise prices in the private market: it limits losses in the pub- lic market while making up for those losses via higher prices in the pri- vate market. Far from "taking on Big Pharma," as the blueprint claims, this was a giveaway to the pharmaceuti- cal industr y. As always with the Min- istr y of Truth, the situation is exactly the opposite of what Big Brother is saying. If the White House cannot even be accurate looking on past data, their projections certainly should not be trusted, and this blueprint is no ex- ception. Despite reiterating the tired talking point of not raising taxes on "those making less than $400,000 a year," that is exactly what will hap- pen with a wave of new IRS audits, courtesy of an $80-billion infusion. If these auditors are really aimed exclusively at high-income earners, then why was an amendment to codi- fy that in statute voted down on party lines? Likewise, the recent imposition of a minimum tax on corporate income does not primarily affect the wealthy. Corporate taxes are paid by employ- ees through lower pay, customers through higher prices, and share- holders (anyone with retirement sav- ings) through lower returns. In other words, the corporate min- imum tax is an indirect tax which— much like inflation—is a way for the government to tax the middle and working classes without their knowl- edge. This administration's economic claims would be right at home in the Ministr y of Truth. But that's expect- ed from the people who have tried to redefine ever y word from woman, to transitor y, to vaccine, to recession. Unlike most people who consider Or well's "1984" a warning, the Biden administration reads it as an instruc- tion manual. Life Milestones made free CALL: 812-753-3553 Put a free photo with write up on your Family and Class Reunions. SUBSCRIBE TODAY! We're not afraid to shed some light on the truth. 812-354-8500