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2022 midterms: a victory for the entitled, government class
It was billed as a coming “Red Wave.” It was supposed to be an informal referendum on Joe Biden’s disastrous inflation, intentional border collapse, unforgivable crime wave, unscientific pandemic fiasco, and fascist police state policies. Aside from Florida, which was a masterclass on how to run an election and have results in a more-than-timely manner, the “Red Wave” never really materialized. The expected ballot shenanigans occurred, outcomes are delayed and, as usual, votes will be “counted” until the Democrat wins.
But how was it that the topics that have affected so many millions of Americans were seemingly ignored and those who created the hardship and mayhem got reelected? It was because those whose lives were relatively unaffected had no reason to issue a protest vote.
Those who voted for more of the same are the entitled, government class.
While Americans were told to close businesses and lay off millions of employees, there is one group of people who have yet to miss one paycheck since the beginning of the pandemic: government workers (that is, politicians, along with federal and state employees). It was clear from the start that they were indifferent to the plight of those who had to suffer shutdowns.
Image: Real Clear Politics House election map as of 4:18 p.m. Eastern Time.
Voting maps routinely show small blue urban areas with large population centers voting Democrat and large, rural landmass areas with smaller populations mostly voting Republican. So, who was it that was okay with the direction of the country while the majority saw us going down the “wrong track”?
Federal and State Employees. Many of the nation’s wealthiest counties surround Washington, D.C. and the vast majority of federal employees donate and vote Democrat. In fact, some were willing to participate in a planned coup if Donald Trump was reelected in 2020. So, unlike those who live outside the Beltway, the blue urban areas in gentrified cities saw no reason to abandon their party because they were fine. Many, if not most, federal employees “earn” as much as three times the median American’s income, so higher food and gas prices were not an insurmountable hardship worthy of change.
Too many federal employees are liberal transplants from other states who move into red areas because of a friendlier standard of living and then dilute the votes of the Republican locals by voting Democrat.
Many federal employees earn enough to send their kids to private schools, so the pain that teachers’ unions on parents and their children really didn’t affect them either. And unlike the majority of Americans who lost jobs, too many federal employees were encouraged to work from home, and thousands continue to do so even though the pandemic is officially ended. They saw no reason to change course because, again, they were fine and their votes nullified those who’ve been directly hurt by Biden’s policies and those who ratified them.
State employees, for the most part, were unscathed by pandemic and inflationary Democrat edicts. Aside from school bus drivers, almost all were compensated while most Americans had no paycheck coming in. As most support Democrats, they had no real complaints worthy of rebelling against their party.
Welfare Class. Like government employees, the entitlement class went relatively unscathed during the shutdowns and received their payments. Losing a job (thus income) was never a consideration. They voted Democrat by the millions because they know who butters their bread.
Education Class. Thanks to the traditionally liberal indoctrination, colleges are reliably Democrat. Like federal employee transplants, college students inundate local populations and dilute, if not nullify, the values of those whose area they temporarily inhabit.
Of course, we saw the usual incompetence and/or planned interference by state election officials who have one job to do every two years and still managed to screw it up. Until we join civilized nations and do away with voting machines (which we were told in 2020 are not connected to the Internet, only to learn now that they are) and go back to the time when paper ballots were counted, and the results known, that night or very early the next morning, the pattern of the 2022 midterm elections will continue, especially when almost all of these issues seem to benefit Democrats.
Until we all feel the pain of destructive Democrat policies, one side with large numbers of voters will continue to support those who maintain their very comfortable lifestyle. For them, the hell most Americans are experiencing will be muted, in large part because they’re able to ignore “little” things like the inflation and crime that plague ordinary Americans.
Bob Parks blogs at Black & Right/Black & Blonde Media.
It was billed as a coming “Red Wave.” It was supposed to be an informal referendum on Joe Biden’s disastrous inflation, intentional border collapse, unforgivable crime wave, unscientific pandemic fiasco, and fascist police state policies. Aside from Florida, which was a masterclass on how to run an election and have results in a more-than-timely manner, the “Red Wave” never really materialized. The expected ballot shenanigans occurred, outcomes are delayed and, as usual, votes will be “counted” until the Democrat wins.
But how was it that the topics that have affected so many millions of Americans were seemingly ignored and those who created the hardship and mayhem got reelected? It was because those whose lives were relatively unaffected had no reason to issue a protest vote.
Those who voted for more of the same are the entitled, government class.
While Americans were told to close businesses and lay off millions of employees, there is one group of people who have yet to miss one paycheck since the beginning of the pandemic: government workers (that is, politicians, along with federal and state employees). It was clear from the start that they were indifferent to the plight of those who had to suffer shutdowns.
Image: Real Clear Politics House election map as of 4:18 p.m. Eastern Time.
Voting maps routinely show small blue urban areas with large population centers voting Democrat and large, rural landmass areas with smaller populations mostly voting Republican. So, who was it that was okay with the direction of the country while the majority saw us going down the “wrong track”?
Federal and State Employees. Many of the nation’s wealthiest counties surround Washington, D.C. and the vast majority of federal employees donate and vote Democrat. In fact, some were willing to participate in a planned coup if Donald Trump was reelected in 2020. So, unlike those who live outside the Beltway, the blue urban areas in gentrified cities saw no reason to abandon their party because they were fine. Many, if not most, federal employees “earn” as much as three times the median American’s income, so higher food and gas prices were not an insurmountable hardship worthy of change.
Too many federal employees are liberal transplants from other states who move into red areas because of a friendlier standard of living and then dilute the votes of the Republican locals by voting Democrat.
Many federal employees earn enough to send their kids to private schools, so the pain that teachers’ unions on parents and their children really didn’t affect them either. And unlike the majority of Americans who lost jobs, too many federal employees were encouraged to work from home, and thousands continue to do so even though the pandemic is officially ended. They saw no reason to change course because, again, they were fine and their votes nullified those who’ve been directly hurt by Biden’s policies and those who ratified them.
State employees, for the most part, were unscathed by pandemic and inflationary Democrat edicts. Aside from school bus drivers, almost all were compensated while most Americans had no paycheck coming in. As most support Democrats, they had no real complaints worthy of rebelling against their party.
Welfare Class. Like government employees, the entitlement class went relatively unscathed during the shutdowns and received their payments. Losing a job (thus income) was never a consideration. They voted Democrat by the millions because they know who butters their bread.
Education Class. Thanks to the traditionally liberal indoctrination, colleges are reliably Democrat. Like federal employee transplants, college students inundate local populations and dilute, if not nullify, the values of those whose area they temporarily inhabit.
Of course, we saw the usual incompetence and/or planned interference by state election officials who have one job to do every two years and still managed to screw it up. Until we join civilized nations and do away with voting machines (which we were told in 2020 are not connected to the Internet, only to learn now that they are) and go back to the time when paper ballots were counted, and the results known, that night or very early the next morning, the pattern of the 2022 midterm elections will continue, especially when almost all of these issues seem to benefit Democrats.
Until we all feel the pain of destructive Democrat policies, one side with large numbers of voters will continue to support those who maintain their very comfortable lifestyle. For them, the hell most Americans are experiencing will be muted, in large part because they’re able to ignore “little” things like the inflation and crime that plague ordinary Americans.
Bob Parks blogs at Black & Right/Black & Blonde Media.
Joe Biden Is the King of Debt and Deficits
STEPHEN MOORE| NOVEMBER 8, 2022 | 10:28AM ESTText Audio00:0000:00Font Size
(Getty Images)Imagine someone close to you has a drinking problem. Night after night, he goes out to the bars on wild binges, chugging down 10 to 12 beers a night. But then, in a supreme effort to reform himself, the drunkard cuts his consumption down to a six-pack every night.
He starts boasting of his amazing self-control and good behavior.
That's analogous to President Joe Biden's tall tale that he's one of the greatest paragons of fiscal responsibility in modern times. Here's Biden on Oct. 21 discussing his budgetary record at a White House event.
"Today, my administration announced that this year the deficit fell by $1.4 trillion -- the largest one-year drop in American history.
"Let me repeat that: the largest-ever decline in the federal deficit."
Talk about putting lipstick on a pig. Biden's administration has led the federal government in spending and borrowing more money in his first 20 months in the White House than any other president in history. No one else comes close to his record of fiscal recklessness.
Biden is not even halfway through his presidential term, and he's already signed into law federal spending over the next decade that will exceed $4 trillion.
I recently went back and looked at what the Congressional Budget Office baseline for deficits was the month President Donald Trump left office, in January 2021. Then I compared that to Biden's fiscal results so far.
(Getty Images) Here's what I found.
Biden has already added just shy of an extra $900 billion to the federal credit in 2020 and 2021. If Biden had simply done nothing and spent his afternoons playing Scrabble with first lady Jill Biden in the Oval Office, our national debt burden would be much lower.
Instead, Biden swooped into office, and even though Trump, in his final weeks, with Congress, enacted a $1 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that hadn't even been spent yet, Biden called for his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
That was merely a massive bailout of blue states that had kept their businesses locked down for nearly a year.
Then came another $1 trillion for the scam "infrastructure bill," which was really the Green New Deal in disguise. It then was followed by a $600-billion corporate welfare bill for microchip manufacturers. Some Republican lawmakers voted for both measures. But it was Democrats only supporting the Biden administration's efforts to bail out student loan borrowers to the tune of $500 billion.
Cha-ching. Cha-ching. Congratulations. No doubt our great-grandchildren will hold you in great esteem, Joe, when they learn that the tax bills they're charged with 50 years from now will be to pay for the Biden budget splurge -- which has produced little except for runaway inflation, windmills, unemployment benefits to scamsters living in Russia and China, and electric vehicle charging stations.
If that isn't disheartening enough, the longer-term official forecast is uglier still.
Thanks to Biden's spending blitz, the debt over the next decade will be larger in every single year with almost $5 trillion added -- more than we spent to fight World War II.
(Getty Images)The Biden White House justifies the borrowing blowout by saying that it inherited an economy in free fall. Not exactly. In the second half of 2020, the six months before Trump left office, the economy surged by more than 20%. So far this year, the economy has grown in nine months by an earth-shattering 0.08%. That's the real disaster here, not what Biden inherited.
To add even more insult to this economic train crash, because of runaway inflation under Biden, the Federal Reserve Board has been forced to raise interest rates on federal debt. This has already added yet another trillion dollars to the debt just to pay the interest on the debt that Biden has already racked up.
The total amount of spending reduction to offset the Biden budget blitzkrieg adds up to a fat zero. Nothing is paid for. It's all debt. Tax revenues, by the way, have surged to all-time highs, but they haven't even nearly kept pace with the fire hose of spending.
Biden has turned the Potomac River into a sea of red ink. But sure, he's the No. 1 deficit-cutter of our time.
And if you buy that, you also probably believe O.J. Simpson was innocent.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks. His latest book is "Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy."
STEPHEN MOORE| NOVEMBER 8, 2022 | 10:28AM ESTImagine someone close to you has a drinking problem. Night after night, he goes out to the bars on wild binges, chugging down 10 to 12 beers a night. But then, in a supreme effort to reform himself, the drunkard cuts his consumption down to a six-pack every night.
He starts boasting of his amazing self-control and good behavior.
That's analogous to President Joe Biden's tall tale that he's one of the greatest paragons of fiscal responsibility in modern times. Here's Biden on Oct. 21 discussing his budgetary record at a White House event.
"Today, my administration announced that this year the deficit fell by $1.4 trillion -- the largest one-year drop in American history.
"Let me repeat that: the largest-ever decline in the federal deficit."
Talk about putting lipstick on a pig. Biden's administration has led the federal government in spending and borrowing more money in his first 20 months in the White House than any other president in history. No one else comes close to his record of fiscal recklessness.
Biden is not even halfway through his presidential term, and he's already signed into law federal spending over the next decade that will exceed $4 trillion.
I recently went back and looked at what the Congressional Budget Office baseline for deficits was the month President Donald Trump left office, in January 2021. Then I compared that to Biden's fiscal results so far.
Here's what I found.
Biden has already added just shy of an extra $900 billion to the federal credit in 2020 and 2021. If Biden had simply done nothing and spent his afternoons playing Scrabble with first lady Jill Biden in the Oval Office, our national debt burden would be much lower.
Instead, Biden swooped into office, and even though Trump, in his final weeks, with Congress, enacted a $1 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that hadn't even been spent yet, Biden called for his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
That was merely a massive bailout of blue states that had kept their businesses locked down for nearly a year.
Then came another $1 trillion for the scam "infrastructure bill," which was really the Green New Deal in disguise. It then was followed by a $600-billion corporate welfare bill for microchip manufacturers. Some Republican lawmakers voted for both measures. But it was Democrats only supporting the Biden administration's efforts to bail out student loan borrowers to the tune of $500 billion.
Cha-ching. Cha-ching. Congratulations. No doubt our great-grandchildren will hold you in great esteem, Joe, when they learn that the tax bills they're charged with 50 years from now will be to pay for the Biden budget splurge -- which has produced little except for runaway inflation, windmills, unemployment benefits to scamsters living in Russia and China, and electric vehicle charging stations.
If that isn't disheartening enough, the longer-term official forecast is uglier still.
Thanks to Biden's spending blitz, the debt over the next decade will be larger in every single year with almost $5 trillion added -- more than we spent to fight World War II.
The Biden White House justifies the borrowing blowout by saying that it inherited an economy in free fall. Not exactly. In the second half of 2020, the six months before Trump left office, the economy surged by more than 20%. So far this year, the economy has grown in nine months by an earth-shattering 0.08%. That's the real disaster here, not what Biden inherited.
To add even more insult to this economic train crash, because of runaway inflation under Biden, the Federal Reserve Board has been forced to raise interest rates on federal debt. This has already added yet another trillion dollars to the debt just to pay the interest on the debt that Biden has already racked up.
The total amount of spending reduction to offset the Biden budget blitzkrieg adds up to a fat zero. Nothing is paid for. It's all debt. Tax revenues, by the way, have surged to all-time highs, but they haven't even nearly kept pace with the fire hose of spending.
Biden has turned the Potomac River into a sea of red ink. But sure, he's the No. 1 deficit-cutter of our time.
And if you buy that, you also probably believe O.J. Simpson was innocent.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economist with FreedomWorks. His latest book is "Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government is Devouring our Economy."
Poll: Skyrocketing Inflation Causing Financial Strains Across All Income Groups
Skyrocketing inflation is causing major financial strains across all income groups, according to a recent Wall Street Journal-commissioned poll.
The poll found that 64 percent of all U.S. registered voters say high inflation is placing a strain on their finances. Furthermore, 36 percent said it is placing a major strain on their finances — up four percent from August and up eight percent from last year.
Across household incomes, 26 percent of voters earning between $100,001 and $150,00 reported that surging inflation is imposing major financial pressures on their families, a seven percent increase from August and 12 percent from March.
Fifty-four percent of respondents earning under $60,000 say they were experiencing major financial strains, up three percent from August and seven percent from March.
“The share of Americans with household incomes $150,001 and higher who reported major financial strains because of inflation remained stable compared to August but rose significantly from March,” the Hill reported.
Earlier in the year, annual inflation hit a 40-year-record high but has come down slightly since. Still, inflation is up by 8.2 percent since last year, with other basic necessities, such as grocery prices, rising by 13 percent, gasoline by 18.2 percent, and electricity by 15.5 percent.
With the midterm elections set to occur Tuesday, the poll found that 48 percent of voters believe that congressional Republicans would be better at handling inflation compared to 27 percent who say Democrats would be. The Journal also noted that Republican voters are more motivated to vote in the midterm elections than Democrats.
Furthermore, 43 percent of voters say Republicans controlling the House and Senate would be the best outcome for the country, compared to 36 percent who say it would be if Democrats controlled both chambers.
The poll was conducted by Republican pollster Tony Fabrizo and Democrat pollster John Anzalone on behalf of the Journal. It surveyed 1,500 registered voters nationwide by phone or text between October 22 and October 26. The margin of error is +/- 2.5 percent.
You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.
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