LAGOP: Bidenflation

Last week we heard from no less a personage than Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris, who assured us that Joe Biden’s administration had “reduced heating and electricity bills so folks have more money in their pocket.” Now one does not have to be a dyed-in-the-wool conservative to realize that Kamala Harris is an economic illiterate, but let us take a moment to review the true situation.

January’s consumer price index (the usual measure of inflation) rose by 6.4% compared with last year. Now this 6.4% inflation rate actually is down a bit from the worst months of 2022, when the public received horrifying reports of 8-9% increases. Even so, a 6.4% inflation rate is still over three times higher than our inflation rate has been for most of the last forty years!

And if Kamala Harris can plausibly plead total ignorance of all things economic, Joe Biden has no such defense- he has been roaming the halls of government for far longer than most Americans have been on this Earth. When his 2021 assurances that inflation would be “transitory” turned out to be untrue, he falsely blamed the sky-high inflation rate on Donald Trump and then flatly denied to the American people that his multi-trillion dollar woke spending spree had anything to do it. He well knew better, but his progressive political base was more important to him than the economic well-being of his country.

A hard dose of the facts is in order: In just the last year, fuel oil is up 27.7%; natural gas is up 26.7%; electricity is up 11.9%; food is up 11.8%. So how can Biden point to any successes in dealing with inflation? It’s simple, if you don’t mind lying to the American public. Just take credit for reducing inflation in every month that the rate of inflation goes down. For example, when the inflation rate goes from 6.5% in December 2022 to 6.4% in January 2023, tell everyone how great you are at reducing inflation. Just forget to mention the simple fact that (1) you are responsible for most of the inflation in the first place, and (2) the inflation rate is still over three times higher than it should be. Unscrupulous politicians occasionally use this fallacious type of argument, but Biden seems wholly incapable of communicating without resort to it.

Moreover, the real truth is even worse than the simple inflation numbers: Because average hourly earnings are rising more slowly than inflation, real average earnings have fallen by 1.8% since just last year. To put this disaster in proper perspective, real wages have now fallen for twenty-two months in a row, which is just about when Joe Biden passed that first $1.9 trillion stimulus package. As it now stands, 77% of Americans now say that inflation is causing them financial hardship.

And inflation is not going away any time soon. Obama’s former economic adviser Jason Furman tweeted last week that the economy was now overheated because Biden had made little progress in reducing inflation. He went on to tweet that there was little reason to expect a slowdown in inflation going forward. Any first year economics student knows that you can’t pump multi-trillions of dollars into an economy, even one as large as ours, without causing serious inflation.

So while our wages and savings further decline as inflation eats away at the value of our dollars, our own government is forced to continue to raise interest rates to slow down our overheated economy, thus putting that new house, car, washing machine, or vacation out of reach for the average American. We are entering a Joe Biden-caused recession, and we can only pray that it will not be a particularly deep or long-lasting one.

Welcome back to Jimmy Carter’s stagflation of the 1970’s, courtesy of a corrupt and doddering president with a lifetime penchant for lying to the American public! Great job, Joe!

Louis Gurvich, Chairman
Republican Party of Louisiana

GURVICH: Today Is Payback Day, So Get Out and Vote!

At last, after nearly two years of enduring disastrous economic, social, and foreign policies, the Great Day is here! The Biden administration and the ruling Democrats in Congress are about to have their comeuppance and we can begin the process of reclaiming our country from the most partisan, inept and dishonest government in American history.

Elected by an American public which had been assured by a complicit press that he would govern as a healing moderate, Joe Biden immediately turned the country over to the woke progressive wing of the Democrat Party. Predictably, the results have been an epic disaster.

Since his inauguration, the value of your dollars has declined by something over twelve percent. Now think about that- inflation has stolen away over twelve cents of every dollar you own. That’s why food and other necessities like housing and transportation have become so much more expensive. All because the Democrats feel that it is necessary to transform the government into a progressive (read ‘socialist’) society. Our economy will be flooded with the dollars from Biden’s multi-trillion dollar woke spending binge for years to come, and as a result it is going to cost you more to buy and to borrow the money to buy a house or a car.

Gasoline and other fuels merit their own special paragraph. Under President Trump, the United States was rapidly becoming self-sufficient in petrochemicals. The price of gas was under $2.00 per gallon, and we were selling more and more oil and natural gas on world markets. But woke progressives are on an ill-considered crusade against oil and gas, even though they emit far fewer pollutants than the coal and wood they have been replacing. First Joe prohibited oil leases on federal lands, and then he made it difficult to obtain the drilling permits. As a result, our oil production dropped precipitously and prices started going up rapidly. Vladimir Putin took notice and figured his position on the Eurasian continent was bulletproof. The Ukraine War followed within months.

Crime is way up, but then I guess it would be if you believe criminals are victims of society and you happen to be in charge of the government. That is precisely what woke progressives do believe, and that’s why they’ve released hundreds of thousands of dangerous criminal back on to our streets. The increased worries and concerns you have about your friends and family, and for your own personal safely, can be laid at the feet of this administration.

But there is so much more for which we must fault this administration. The attacks on your right to have a say in the education of your children is an insult to all Americans. We must also repair the damage to their education wrought by the prolonged school closures. We must face and reverse the continuing decline in moral standards and the left’s attempt to legitimize late-term abortion and even infanticide. The foreign humiliations and tragedies in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia must never be repeated, and the decline in American power in the world must be halted, or the outbreak of war in Europe will be but a harbinger of much worse to follow.

Truly, this is such a long list of failures for such a young administration, but that is precisely why today must begin the cultural, political, and economic counter-attack which will define the country in which we live for generations. Now go do your duty and vote if you have not already done so, and say a prayer along the way. Godspeed…

LOUIS GURVICH, Chairman
Republican Party of Louisiana

Policy Brief - LPR Strongly Supports GOP's Commitment to America!

In the major build-up to the Mid-term elections, House Republican Leadership has released the Commitment To America. This bold policy agenda has been put together as an authoritative answer to the radical left's legislative measures that are bringing down our country.

After a thorough look at the Commitment, the Louisiana Policy Review is pleased to ENDORSE the plan as a great step forward for our country.

With that being said, here is our Policy Brief on the GOP's Commitment To America.

Read more: Policy Brief - LPR Strongly Supports GOP's Commitment to America!