The Truth About Unemployment
The economic recovery is on the minds of millions of people these days. It is, after all, a universal kitchen table issue. Whether it’s rampant inflation on basic items that far exceeds the Federal Reserve’s 2% refrain, or whether it’s a breadwinner unable or unwilling to find a job, the economic picture doesn’t have quite the feeling of hope that it did last fall.
When it comes to the unemployed choosing to stay unemployed because their benefits exceed the wages they could earn, President socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden on Monday again denied there’s a problem, blamed employers for the problem because they’re not paying enough, touted government hiring, and floated more aid to fix the problem. The very fact that he’s made defensive remarks twice following Friday’s disappointing jobs report shows just how worried he is about the public relations fiasco of increasing awareness that the government is subsidizing unemployment.
“Because of the American Rescue Plan, forecasters are projecting we’ll see the fastest economic growth in nearly 40 years in the months to come,” he proclaimed. “Our economic plan is working.”
But it’s also not working. He immediately followed the above boasting with a warning: “I never said — and no serious analyst ever suggested — that climbing out of the deep, deep hole our economy was in would be simple, easy, immediate, or perfectly steady.” Did someone replace his teleprompter with Barack scumbag/liar-nObama’s from 2009?
Eventually, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden got to the elephant in the room. “I know there’s been a lot of discussion since Friday — since Friday’s report that people are being paid to stay home rather than go to work. Well, we don’t see much evidence of that. That is a major factor — we don’t see that — that — look, it’s easy to say — the line has been, because of the generous unemployment benefits, that it’s a major factor in labor shortages.”
That sure was garbled, but we think the man who’s been in Washington so long he can’t remember having a real job was arguing that enhanced unemployment benefits are not keeping people on the sidelines. That’s false.
It’s not the only reason, of course, and no one is saying it is. Indeed, he alluded to other reasons — child care facilities and schools being closed or limited, for one thing, leaving many parents unable to return to work. “Through no fault of their own,” adds Gary Bauer, “millions of Americans did lose jobs. And some can’t go back to work because socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden and the left have declared war on the industries they work in.”
But it’s not necessarily an accusation of laziness to say that the smart economic decision for many workers is to stay at home and take the higher pay afforded by unemployment.
“There are 7,400,000 jobs open in the U.S. — but fewer than 300,000 found work last month,” said Senator Ben Sasse. “Why? This tragedy is what happens when Washington know-it-all’s decide to pretend they’re generous by paying more for unemployment than for work.”
Biden may have denied this is a problem, but he also announced an initiative to solve the problem by working with states to reimpose work-search requirements for anyone collecting unemployment benefits.
Part of the Democrats’ strategy with these enhanced benefits (not to mention no-strings-attached direct payments and printing trillions of dollars to inflate the currency) is to bring the nation nearer to their Holy Grail of a $15 minimum wage — if not legally, then at least prevailingly. “People will come back to work if they’re paid a decent wage,” socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden insisted. Socialist Senator commie/liar-Bernie Sanders said the same thing: “If [businesses] are having a very difficult time attracting labor, let them pay the workers a decent wage.”
“Decent” wages are to be determined by the market, not powerful and manipulative Beltway politicians and bureaucrats. ~The Patriot Post
Don’t Blame the Pandemic for Spiking Crime
With major U.S. metros like New York City experiencing spiking violent crime rates, one question naturally arises: What’s the cause? The blame, according to leftist politicians like NYC Mayor scumbag-Bill de Blasio and Congresswoman commie/liar- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), falls on the coronavirus pandemic.
“We had an incredible and total disruption in 2020,” scumbag-de Blasio insisted. “Our entire lives were turned upside down, a global pandemic, a perfect storm — and we are in the process of overcoming that.”
commie/liar-AOC attempted to be a little more nuanced, as she pointed to the pandemic’s impact on the economy. “Do we think this has to do with the fact that there’s record unemployment in the United States right now?” she wondered. “The fact that people are at a level of economic desperation that we have not seen since the great recession? Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren’t paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent. And so they go out and they need to feed their child and they don’t have money. So, you maybe have to — they’re put into a position where they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry that night.”
commie/liar-AOC is equally confident that rising crime cannot be blamed on the anti-police narrative promoted by leftist social justice activists like Black Lives Matter, which has fomented violence across the nation following the death of George Floyd. “Keep in mind that this uptick in crime that’s happening right now is with a $6 billion New York City Police Department budget,” she argued. “We have shoved more and more and more money into the NYPD. It has not prevented this uptick in crime.” It’s telling that commie/liar-AOC essentially dismisses the city’s spiking crime rate, as if a 47% increase in homicides in 2020 is merely an “uptick.”
So, do the blame-the-pandemic assertions from scumbag-de Blasio, commie/liar-AOC, other leftist politicians, and Leftmedia pundits hold water? Well, if their assertions are true, then other nations equally affected by the global pandemic should be experiencing similar rising crime rates. To put it simply, the data shows otherwise.
In a recent New York Post article, Nicole Gelinas exposes the fact that major foreign cities and other First World countries have had the opposite experience with crime during the pandemic. Gelinas notes, “In London, the global city that most closely resembles Gotham, the murder rate plummeted last year. It fell to 126 from 150, down 16 percent.” Compare that to NYC, which saw a 47% increase in homicides for a total of 468 in 2020.
Italy, a nation that was hit especially hard by the pandemic, saw its homicide rate drop 14%. France experienced a 2% drop in murders, while Gelinas says Japan’s “murder level was the lowest it has been since World War II.” Even Mexico, a nation plagued by drug cartel violence, saw the homicide rate dip half a percentage point, “the first decline in six years.”
Gelinas further debunks suggestions that these other countries had better social safety nets in place to cover the economic loss. “In America,” she writes, “the only workers to see steep drops in income with no corresponding government benefits are people who were working here illegally, and thus were ineligible for benefits. But there is no evidence that they’re behind the spike in violent crime.”
In truth, increased violent crime is directly tied to the anti-police narrative and the subsequent policy decisions by politicians to placate the activists, which only served to further the false narrative. The vilification of law enforcement unsurprisingly has resulted in less law enforcement. Gelinas observes, “Look at the details of New York’s murders, and most of the alleged criminals over the past year weren’t formerly law-abiding citizens driven to crime because of the pandemic. What is new in New York — and in the rest of the country — is that we have effectively halted all preventative policing. We have also effectively stopped all incarceration of suspects and criminals short of murder.”
All of this leftist-driven activity is a recipe for higher crime rates if there ever was one. ~The Patriot Post
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden Waives His Own Ethics Rule
In yet another example of Democrat double standards, socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden has waived ethics rules intended to prevent unions from having undue influence with the executive branch. Fox News reports, “Beginning as early as March, the White House waived certain rules for former labor union personnel slotted to fill socialist/ scumbag/liar-Biden’s transition teams and government vacancies, who would have otherwise been prevented from communicating with their old unions.”
Thus far, two former union officials who are now part of the socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden administration — Alethea Predeoux at the Office of Personnel and Management and Celeste Drake, who leads the administration’s Made In America Office — have been granted waivers from the ethics rule. That allows them to freely communicate with their “former” unions, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), respectively. It’s almost as if they never left.
Speaking of union influence in socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden administration policy, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky worked with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in crafting the CDC’s guidelines for reopening schools. Unsurprisingly, those guidelines were quite accommodating to the teachers union.
Back on Inauguration Day, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden issued an executive order implementing an ethics rule regarding this very influence peddling. New appointees in every executive agency are now required to take an ethics pledge: “I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.” Moreover, “I will not for a period of 2 years from the date of my appointment participate in any particular matter involving specific parties that is directly and substantially related to my former employer or former clients, including regulations and contracts.”
Of course, when the socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden administration — which has significant connections to unions, beginning with Jill Biden — wants former union officials on the team, socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden simply issues a waiver declaring that it’s “in the public interest.” The truth is, these waivers may be in socialist/ scumbag/liar-Biden’s interest, but they’re not in the interest of the American public. It’s all about money and power. As National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Katharine Cooksey asserts, “The pattern of corruption between Democrats and big union bosses is obvious — just follow the money and follow the staff.”
For example, Cooksey notes, “Since the very first day of the socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden administration, every single Democrat has echoed the same union-approved talking points to keep schools closed and to jam a radical, job-killing agenda through Congress. While Republicans are working to get kids back in the classrooms and the economy moving again, Democrats are taking orders from their bosses at the unions to keep schools closed and stifle job opportunities.”
We suppose Team socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden has to do something to appease unions given all the cheap, wage-undermining foreign labor being ushered across the border in record numbers. ~The Patriot Post
Detroit’s Top Cop Poised to Challenge Whitmer
“We don’t retreat here in Detroit. We’re just not gonna do it. You saw the images … of streets where there was lawlessness, looting, burning. No sign of police officers. We weren’t giving up ground to the radicals. We just didn’t do it.”
That was Detroit Police Chief James Craig last July, in the wake of the nationwide George Floyd mostly peaceful protests riots, upon being asked by Fox News’s Tucker Carlson how his city, which in 1967 saw whole blocks torched in a five-day riot that left 43 dead and thousands injured, had managed to avoid the rioting this time around.
Clearly, Chief Craig was determined to see that history didn’t repeat itself — at least not on his watch. And it appears that it won’t, as he announced yesterday that his watch will end on June 1, his last day as Detroit’s chief of police.
We doubt Craig’s last day as chief, though, will be his last day of public service. As the Detroit News’s Christine Ferretti reports, “In announcing his retirement, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said Monday he’s evaluating his political options but didn’t immediately announce a run for Michigan governor. Craig is expected to run in the Republican primary in a bid to challenge Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in next year’s gubernatorial race, a source close to the chief told The Detroit News on Friday. … At the Monday event, Craig acknowledged that he’s been a conservative for at least a decade and that he’s not made a decision on whether he’ll run for public office but said ‘I’m certainly evaluating my options’ and ‘I’m not ruling it out.’”
If he chooses to run, and if he’s successful, he’ll have blazed quite a trail — not only as Michigan’s first black governor but also as a cop and a conservative.
“I think he would make a fine candidate, should he choose to run,” said Ron Weiser, chairman of the state’s Republican Party.
Craig, 64, is a native Detroiter, where he began his career as a police officer before leaving for the Los Angeles PD, where he spent 28 years. After a two-year stint as Cincinnati police chief, Craig then returned to his hometown in 2013. His tenure as chief is the second-longest in the city’s history.
As the Detroit News reported Friday, “Republicans have been searching for a challenger with strong name recognition and cross-over appeal. Supporters believe Craig’s solid reputation as a fair, no-nonsense police chief who has spoken against anti-police protests and for Second Amendment rights, while maintaining strong community support, is their guy. … Republicans also hope the popular police chief can deliver votes for the party from Detroit, where GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Schuette got 3.7% support in 2018 compared with Whitmer’s 94%.”
Whitmer won’t get anywhere near 94% of the Detroit vote against Craig, and that cross-over appeal could be decisive — especially against a sneering, hypocritical incumbent who’s been beset by one scandal after another.
Craig has also shown himself to be politically astute, publicly calling out woke supremacists such as NBAer LeBron James and Congresswomen scumbag/worthless-Maxine Waters and scumbag/worthless-Rashida Tlaib, and supporting the Second Amendment rights of Detroiters to defend themselves with firearms. “Folks are sick and tired of being victims,” he said in 2014.
To tee up his interview with Chief Craig last July, Tucker Carlson said, “Violence, like appendicitis, doesn’t go away just because you ignore it. It tends to get much worse.”
We suppose that axiom is true, too, of bad governance. And it doesn’t appear that James Craig is inclined to ignore the freedom-crushing, lockdown-loving leadership he’s been seeing out of Lansing of late.
~The Patriot Post
Refugees? Take in the ‘Terps’
When the United States of America gets it wrong, the nation needs to make things as right as possible. That is what decent people — or countries — do when things get fouled up. Fixing the mistakes and accepting consequences is part and parcel of life. And when it comes to Afghanistan, America screwed up.
When the attacks on 9/11 happened, George W. Bush had the right idea about what to do — take out regimes that supported terrorism. The problem was, his execution was greatly flawed, particularly with mistakes of omission, although one could argue he should have found the Afghan equivalent to Augusto Pinochet rather than try to jump that country straight to Western-style democracy. It didn’t work, despite our hopes and the sacrifices made by our troops.
Now, with socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden doing a complete pullout — albeit at a later date than what Donald Trump proposed — we need to do right by those who aided our efforts. Unfortunately, as was the case with the American Patriots who made Khalid Sheikh Mohammed spill his guts, we seem more likely to abandon those allies, including as many as 18,000 interpreters, often called “terps.” Saving the “terps” is a matter of honor.
When people step up, especially when they place their necks on the line to aid the United States of America, we owe them something in return. This includes safe harbor when necessary, and the pullout from Afghanistan is going to make safe harbor necessary. As we noted before, far too often, America has hung allies out to dry. The Hmong and Montagnard tribes in Southeast Asia, Carlos Castano in Colombia, the Kurds in Iraq, the Shah of Iran, and the Saudis fighting to hold Iranian stooges at bay in Yemen all were sold out.
Even our troops aren’t immune. SEAL Team Six was smeared, and far too many politicians were silent about it. Our troops found themselves facing dubious prosecutions that crossed the line into dishonor, often due to overly restrictive rules of engagement that resulted in troops making split-second decisions that bureaucrats spent hours or days second-guessing. It was almost as if American leaders weren’t that serious about winning the Global War on Terror. If, that is, they even had an idea of what victory looked like.
The socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden administration recently made a big deal of showing purported compassion by raising the refugee cap. Not that there aren’t legitimate refugees out there, but the interpreters and their immediate families have more than earned a place at the head of the line. Sadly, Team socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden, in an attempt to look good to the Left, will probably just sell the “terps” down the river.
~The Patriot Post
Red-State Governors Want Workers Off the Dole
The governors of Montana, South Carolina, and Arkansas have rejected the increased pandemic unemployment benefits. They say it’s creating perverse incentives for people not to return to work.
According to CBS News, other states are pondering similar measures in light of Friday’s report from the Department of Labor showing that the economy added 266,000 jobs in April, far fewer than the one million experts expected
On Sunday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox told CNN he thinks exiting pandemic-related unemployment benefits is a good idea, arguing the recent lower-than-expected jobs report is “what happens when we pay people not to work.”
As workers choose to stay home and collect generous unemployment benefits rather than return to restaurant and service-industry jobs, it is becoming clear that this is no accident. In passing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act earlier this year, President socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress gave workers leverage to demand what they call a “living wage.”
In New Mexico, a recent story in the Albuquerque Journal illustrates the problem.
Job vacancies at Fresquez Companies have numbered in the dozens for the past several months.
With few applicants and nearly 80 open positions, the company — which owns and operates multiple restaurants in New Mexico, including both locations of Mac’s Steak In The Rough and airport eateries like Black Mesa Coffee Company — decided extra incentives were needed to bring in applications.
Eventually the company landed on offering a $500 sign-on bonus for every new hire.
“I think part of it is, it’s almost like we’re competing with unemployment,” administrative assistant Dory Nuñez said. “Why would anybody want to, I guess, start at a minimum wage job when they can be earning more money … on unemployment?”
Fresquez Companies isn’t alone in the struggle to find employees, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
“Help Wanted” signs are cropping up in the windows of many restaurants and businesses around the city and state. One photo by a local TV news reporter generated thousands of likes and retweets. It’s from a fast-food restaurant and reads, “We are short staffed. Please be patient with the staff that did show up. No one wants to work anymore.”
Many of those commenting used the situation to call for higher wages and better benefits.
Is this a case of unintended consequences, or is this the intended consequence of the Democrats’ generous unemployment benefits?
There is no doubt that Democrats intended this outcome. With millions of low-wage workers discovering for the first time ever that they have a better option than what their employer is offering them, many are using this leverage to demand a so-called living wage. Democrats, who have never been able to get widespread support for this scheme in Congress, may now achieve their goal of either a “livable wage” or a universal basic income.
A universal basic income would mean anyone could qualify for a government subsistence level check regardless of their ability to work. If that were adopted, Democrats would no doubt seek to expand Medicaid benefits to these individuals and eventually move to a single-payer healthcare system where the federal government pays for everyone’s healthcare costs. And voilà, we have European-style socialism.
How do we prevent this socialist utopia from destroying our country? More states must follow the lead of Montana, South Carolina, and Arkansas. All are stopping the flow of federal Pandemic Unemployment Insurance, which adds $300/week on top of state benefits.
Montana Governor Greg Gianforte has dropped his state from participating, saying, “We’re doing away with these supplemental benefits, we’re reinstituting work requirements, and we’re putting this incentive to go back to work. The incentive is a $1,200 back to work state bonus for Montanans currently on unemployment who take a job and stay on it for at least a month.”
In taking the action, the governor recognizes that in his state “nearly every sector in our economy faces a labor shortage.”
Rather than continue programs that promote ongoing unemployment, Governor Gianforte is choosing a different pathway of incentivizing people on the unemployment rolls to go back to work. What a concept — incentivize actions we want to promote rather than those that we want to discourage.
Similarly, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster has ordered the state’s Department of Employment and Workforce to withdraw from the federal government’s federal pandemic unemployment programs.
“What was intended to be a short-term financial assistance for the vulnerable and displaced during the height of the pandemic has turned into a dangerous federal entitlement, incentivizing and paying workers to stay at home rather than encouraging them to return to the workplace,” McMaster wrote.
It is this kind of forward-thinking problem-solving that is currently missing in our national economic recovery discussion, as Congress and the executive branch are intent on increasing Americans’ dependency upon helicopter money and the velvet handcuffs of government that come with it. ~The Patriot Post
CAL THOMAS
The Infernal Revenue Service
Since I began earning enough to file Form 1040 and associated forms, I have only known one person who prepared his own taxes. That was Bill Archer, a Texas Republican who formerly headed the House Ways and Means Committee. I once asked Archer why he prepared his. His reply was that not only did he think it was fun, but because he helped write the tax code, he felt a responsibility to demonstrate competence in filling out the forms.
These days, the forms are so complicated, hardly anyone I know understands them. The instructions need instructions.
I have again filed jointly with my wife (more than 70 pages). She owns a business, so it is more complicated than if we filed separately. Still, the forms require translating a language I have never studied and wouldn’t want to. If you call the IRS and ask for help, you are still responsible for interest and penalties if they give the wrong advice.
How complicated is it? Here are just a few examples. Right off the top, I am threatened with prison should I knowingly fudge information on the form. The federal government does threats very well, including those read by flight attendants. Refuse to wear a mask, even if vaccinated, and you risk arrest. Don’t even think of tampering with the smoke detector. Even the post office is now spying on us.
How’s this for clarity from the estimated tax worksheet: “Add lines 2a and 2b. Subtract line 2c from line 1. Figure your tax on the amount on line 3 by using the 2021 Tax Tables. Caution: If you will have qualified dividends or a net capital gain or expect to exclude or deduct foreign earned income or housing, see worksheets 2-5 and 2-6 in Pub. 505 to figure the tax.”
Got that?
There are schedules and forms for everything. They are nearly as numerous as the growing list of gender identities. Under Schedule D, Profits and Losses, there is this gibberish: “Totals for all short-term transactions reported on Form 1099-B for which basis was reported to the IRS and for which you have no adjustments (see instructions). However, if you choose to report all these transactions on Form 8949, leave this line blank and go to line 1b.”
Say what?
No civilized society should force its citizens to go through this annual torture.
According to worldatlas.com, 12 countries have easier ways for their people to pay taxes than the United States. Britain has a pay-as-you-earn system (but also a nasty value added tax). The Tax Policy Center notes: “At last count, 36 other countries, including Germany and Japan permit return-free filing for some taxpayers.”
The U.S. government takes in record amounts of revenue. The socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden administration wants more. The problem has never been revenue, but spending.
Not only do we need a simplified tax system, we also should invite an outside auditor to recommend the elimination of unnecessary, useless, outdated and unconstitutional programs, agencies and spending.
The problem is that those who write these abominable and indecipherable laws do so to give breaks to favored individuals and corporations. They contribute to their campaigns, corrupting many of them as they remain in office long past their “sell-by” date.
I would like to see members of Congress who write these tax laws forced to fill out the forms without help from an adviser. Put it on C-SPAN so we can watch them waste their time trying to figure it all out as many of the rest of us must do.
Now THAT would be fun. ~The Patriot Post
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