Washington (AFP) – The Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew warned Wednesday that the government will have no more flexibility after October 17 to operate under the U.S. debt cap.
Lew told Congress that after months of juggling spending to meet government commitments without added borrowing, those “extraordinary measures” will be exhausted by that date, leaving the Treasury with only $30 billion in cash to meet ever-mounting demands.
Photo Credit: AFP/Saul Loeb
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President Joe Biden
You may have noticed in recent weeks that alarming headlines about inflation – specifically, those ubiquitous stories about the cost of gasoline, or eggs, or other household goods – have vanished. Media outlets no longer feature those fearsome charts with arrows zooming skyward, or video loops displaying the latest eye-popping gas station signage.
Much as the mainstream media seemed to enjoy scourging President Joe Biden with the bad news about raging hikes in the price of everything, that depressing theme has disappeared because inflation is falling.
In October, what economists describe as “core inflation,” meaning the price of goods and services other than food and energy, declined to 2.0 percent – the target set by the Federal Reserve. And what they understandably call “headline inflation,” the more volatile measure of prices that include all consumer purchases, including groceries and gas, dropped on a monthly level to zero.
Got that? Zero. Year over year, the rise in personal consumption expenditures has plummeted to three percent.
So encouraging were those numbers to the financial sector – and presumably the central bankers at the Federal Reserve – that some now forecast a cut in interest rates. Dropping rates would likely prevent the recession that has been forecast (with glee) by many Republicans – and bring America in for a “soft landing” from the pandemic recovery.
Will Biden get any credit for this improvement? Not from most media organizations, nor from pundits who wrongly blamed him for the inflation spurt in the first place, when they knew that other countries were suffering much worse price increases in the pandemic’s wake. Indeed, too many outlets are barely even noting that inflation has collapsed.
At the same time, the president’s “Bidenomics” program has brought continued steady growth and strong employment, with the annualized gross domestic product topping 5.2 percent in October – and unemployment steady at 3.9 percent. Economists have long tended to view a four percent jobless rate as “full employment,” essentially the best that can be achieved in a capitalist system without spurring inflation. Our current unemployment level is among the lowest in the G-20 industrialized countries.
The reason is so simple that even a wingnut can understand: Under this president, the United States has seen an unsurpassed record of job creation, with 14 million new positions since he took office, far more than the last three Republican presidents combined. The social impact of high employment is profound, which is why traditional Democrats like Biden consistently promote infrastructure, education, environmental, and income support policies that boost jobs. As California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom explained during this week’s Fox News debate with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis (whom he crushed), the nation is now seeing the lowest rate of poverty in our history, as employment among Blacks, Hispanics, and women have reached new peaks.
Are you starting to see a fuller picture here? Let’s add a few more features: Personal income rose over five percent in the first quarter of this year and contined to go up into the second and third quarters. Consumer spending rose 3.6 percent, while housing investment increased to 6.2 percent, almost half again what had been predicted.
You may well retort that polling consistently shows – and the media persistently emphasize – that most Americans say they are unhappy with the economy and blame the president, resulting in poor approval ratings and endangering Biden’s reelection prospects. And that’s undeniably true, as far as it goes. But more than one expert now wonders why, if so many of our neighbors feel pessimistic and even angry, they keep buying stuff as if everything is working out just fine.
Economist Dean Baker suspects the influence of slanted news coverage and can imagine a very different political scenario. “If we had the exact same economy, and Donald Trump was in the White House,” Baker says,”Trump would be endlessly saying ‘greatest economy ever.’ Every Republican politician in the country would be amplifying the claim and all the political pundits would be writing that the strong economy will make Trump almost a sure bet for re-election.”
Sooner or later, the majority of Americans will wake up and realize that Joe Biden has not only protected us from recession but has created the conditions for a generation of prosperity. Let’s hope they figure that out before it is too late – and vote to defend the future from Trump’s madness.
DeSantis vs. Newsom debate
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ill-fated candidacy received a series of body shots Thursday night as California Gov. Gavin Newsom took the Republican to the mat repeatedly during a Fox News’ moderated debate.
One particularly devastating moment was an exchange about immigration when Newsom obliterated DeSantis’ supposed bona fides on the subject. Newsom began by pointing out DeSantis’ changing position on the matter, then laid bare just how grotesque a person the Florida governor truly is.
”The last guy [DeSantis] you want to talk to on immigration. Your immigration policy can best be described as a governor from the state of Florida going into another state, the state of Texas; lying to migrants, promising them jobs and housing, sending them to an island, Martha's Vineyard; and then sending them to a parking lot in Sacramento, California.I met with those migrants that you lied to, under false pretense. That kind of gamesmanship, using human beings as pawns, I think, is disqualifying. So again, a guy who stands here who's been out on the Republican debate stage, saying, well, he's going to be tough, he's going to shoot people with backpacks, and that he has a strategy to potentially even invade our second-largest trading partner, Mexico; that has a record of supporting amnesty and supporting reforms under the Obama administration, is the last guy who should be standing on stage talking about the issue of immigration reform tonight.
And if you’d like to watch a shorter edit that highlights how hilariously uncomfortable DeSantis is with the eloquent recitation of his monstrous immigration policies, enjoy this clip.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
