“President Trump has passed more legislation in his first 100 days than any president since Harry Truman.” — Tom McClintock on Friday, April 28th, 2017 in a radio interview
Michael Medved interviews House of Representatives Majority Whip and representative for Louisiana’s 1st congressional district, Steve Scalise. Steve responds first to a statement by Rachel Maddow that the House Republicans haven’t done anything since they took office. Then the discussion focused on this administrations work to help the middle-class and lower class get work, leave the dependent lifestyle, and the like.
Michael Medved responds to the food stamp issue that Democrats and the Left are bringing up. I take a clip from yesterday’s show and insert it into the middle of today’s show to give the listener some ammunition when these banal arguments come up. At the 5:17 mark, the caller mentions taxes for the millionaires as part of his argument. Medved Responds well to this challenge at the… and at the 6:24 mark you hear the caller respond with a bumper sticker jingle. In other words, talking about facts matters little to these people, but at least you will be able to influence those around you eavesdropping in on the conversation.
For some good food stamp news items, see FOX NEWS.
I posted this video on LIVELEAK, and a comment got me “clicking around” the internet to test what the person said. Here is the comment:
For every $1 spent on food stamps there’s a $1.80 stimulative effect to the economy. The poor person spends the funds at the grocery store, which allows the store to employ more people, the store spends the funds to buy more food which helps farmers and food producers. On the other hand, tax cuts for the wealthy have a negative effect on the economy, it just doesn’t trickle down enough so it drains economic growth. Plus it helps feed poor people that can’t afford to eat. — Warren H.
First, it should be noted that this idea was championed mainly by Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi, a hard-core Keynesian. However, it should be noted that unfortunately “for Zandi, there has never been any empirical evidence of the Keynesian multiplier. Government doesn’t take one dollar and turn it into more by spending it. God doesn’t live in the White House, no matter how much Paul Krugman prays.” (AMERICAN THINKER)
…The Keynesian argument also assumes that consumption spending adds to immediate economic growth while savings do not. By this reasoning, unemployment benefits, food stamps, and low-income tax rebates are among the most effective stimulus policies because of their likelihood to be consumed rather than saved.
Taking this analysis to its logical extreme, Mark Zandi of Economy.com has boiled down the government’s influence on America’s broad and diverse $14 trillion economy into a simple menu of stimulus policy options, whereby Congress can decide how much economic growth it wants and then pull the appropriate levers. Zandi asserts that for each dollar of new government spending: temporary food stamps adds $1.73 to the economy, extended unemployment benefits adds $1.63, increased infrastructure spending adds $1.59, and aid to state and local governments adds $1.38. Jointly, these figures imply that, in a recession, a typical dollar in new deficit spending expands the economy by roughly $1.50. Over the past 40 years, this idea of government spending as stimulus has fallen out of favor among many economists. As this paper shows, it is contradicted both by empirical data and economic logic…
They then respond to the above:
The Evidence is In
Economic data contradict Keynesian stimulus theory. If deficits represented “new dollars” in the economy, the record $1.2 trillion in FY 2009 deficit spending that began in October 2008–well before the stimulus added $200 billion more–would have already overheated the economy. Yet despite the historic 7 percent increase in GDP deficit spending over the previous year, the economy shrank by 2.3 percent in FY 2009. To argue that deficits represent new money injected into the economy is to argue that the economy would have contracted by 9.3 percent without this “infusion” of added deficit spending (or even more, given the Keynesian multiplier effect that was supposed to further boost the impact). That is simply not plausible, and few if any economists have claimed otherwise.
And if the original $1.2 trillion in deficit spending failed to slow the economy’s slide, there was no reason to believe that adding $200 billion more in 2009 deficit spending from the stimulus bill would suddenly do the trick. Proponents of yet another stimulus should answer the following questions: (1) If nearly $1.4 trillion budget deficits are not enough stimulus, how much is enough? (2) If Keynesian stimulus repeatedly fails, why still rely on the theory?
This is no longer a theoretical exercise. The idea that increased deficit spending can cure recessions has been tested repeatedly, and it has failed repeatedly. The economic models that assert that every $1 of deficit spending grows the economy by $1.50 cannot explain why $1.4 trillion in deficit spending did not create a $2.1 trillion explosion of new economic activity.
CATO likewise notes that the numbers were fudged to provide exaggerated outcomes:
Food stamps are effective economic stimulus. Led by Mark Zandi and other Keynesian economists, food-stamp advocates have made wildly exaggerated claims about the program’s role in stimulating the economy. Zandi, for instance, claims that “extending food stamps is the most effective way to prime the economy’s pump.”
But aside from the fact that those economic models just as well predict an alien invasion would be a boon to the economy, there is little evidence to support the theory. Even the Agriculture Department’s own inspector general concluded that it was unable to determine whether the additional dollars in the stimulus’s food-stamp expansion were in any way effective in meeting the 2009 Recovery Act’s goals. Three of the four performance measures the program was supposed to use, the office found, “reflected outputs, such as the dollar amount of benefits issued and administrative costs expended” and did not provide any insight into outcomes.
On the other hand, we do know that a failure to get government spending under control will have long-term economic consequences. Food stamps are hardly the major cause of deficits and debt — that distinction lies with middle-class entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare — but every little bit helps.
Valerie Jarrett and Nancy Pelosi said similar things:
JARRETT: Let’s face it: Even though we had a terrible economic crisis three years ago, throughout our country many people were suffering before the last three years, particularly in the black community. And so we need to make sure that we continue to support that important safety net. It not only is good for the family, but it’s good for the economy. People who receive that unemployment check go out and spend it and help stimulate the economy, so that’s healthy as well.
PELOSI: Economists agree that unemployment benefits remain one of the best ways to grow the economy in a very immediate way. It immediately injects demand into our markets and increases employment. For every dollar spent on unemployment benefits, the economy grows by, according to one estimate, $1.52; by others, $2. So somewhere in that range, but much more than is spent on it…. We have a responsibility to the American people. These are people who have played by the rules, have lost their job through no fault of their own, and need these benefits in order to survive. So we must extend this insurance before the end of the year and we must extend it for at least a year. And I’d like to see that as we go forward before this year ends. Hopefully it could be part of a budget, but it doesn’t have to be part of a budget. It could be in its own vehicle as it goes forward, but it’s something we must consider.
Economists at the Heritage Foundation have written about this claim, explaining:
The theory behind extending UI [Unemployment Insurance] benefits as a stimulus assumes that unemployed workers will immediately spend any additional UI payments, instantly increasing consumption, boosting aggregate demand, and stimulating the economy.
This is not a new idea. Economists in the 1960s thought that unemployment insurance could function as an important automatic economic stabilizer. Empirical research in the 1970s demonstrated that this was not the case, and studies since then have concluded that unemployment insurance plays at best a small role in stabilizing the economy. Empirical research at the state level also finds that UI plays a negligible role in stimulating the economy.
Studies that have found that UI stimulates the economy effectively — such as studies by the Congressional Budget Office and economist Mark Zandi — rely on two faulty assumptions, thereby drawing a false conclusion:
They assume that unemployed workers spend every dollar of additional UI benefits almost immediately and that extending unemployment insurance does not affect workers’ behavior. In that case, every dollar spent on unemployment insurance adds a dollar to consumption without any direct effects on the labor market. Both assumptions are false.
Unemployment Insurance Prolongs Unemployment. One of the most thoroughly established results in labor economics is the effect of unemployment benefits on unemployed workers’ behavior. labor economists agree that extended unemployment benefits cause workers to remain unemployed longer than they otherwise would.
This occurs for obvious reasons: Workers respond to incentives. Unemployment benefits reduce the incentive and the pressure to find a new job by making it less costly to remain without work…..
I like Medved’s take because he (unlike many other commentators) takes calls which are negative to his view. A good short article on Trump’s budget is over at POWERLINE talking about the projected GDP. The WASHINGTON TIMES notes that this budget is shocking!
President Trump’s 2018 budget proposal is shocking on two fronts, and both will have denizens of the Washington swamp tearing their hair out.
Backgrounding supporters on a Monday conference call, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney referred to the budget proposal as a “Taxpayer First Budget,” and said, “I imagined myself standing in front of a taxpayer asking him for his money.” Could Mulvaney justify asking any taxpayer to hand over money to pay for health services for disabled veterans, he asked? Yes, of course. Could he justify asking that taxpayer for money to pay for a program that takes college graduates and helps them get graduate degrees, a program that’s been documented to have a 6 percent success rate? No, he could not. Consequently, programs for disabled veterans get funding, and programs with a 6 percent success rate do not.
Shocking, eh?
[….]
But putting taxpayers first isn’t the only shocking thing about the proposed Trump budget.
OMB Director Mulvaney went on to explain a second shocking aspect: The proposed budget attacks waste in government by employing a simple test – if Congress has not authorized a program, it should not be funded. That is, if Congress itself doesn’t deem the program worthy enough of funding to take the time to authorize it, the program isn’t worth the money Congress is spending on it.
[….]
Putting taxpayers first and refusing to illegally spend money on unauthorized programs are shocks to the system. They’re also proof of the political axiom that elections have consequences – and even more proof, for anyone who needed it, that President Trump aims to end business as usual in Washington, and live up to his promise to drain the swamp.
For a more negative review of the budget, see NATIONAL REVIEW’S article by Kevin D. Williamson.
There is a law in economics, it deals with artificially propping up businesses, “goods” politicians deem necessary, production, etc. George Gilder notes this in a clip I isolated in an interview:
“A fundamental principle of information theory is that you can’t guarantee outcomes… in order for an experiment to yield knowledge, it has to be able to fail. If you have guaranteed experiments, you have zero knowledge”
R-PT’s note: this is how the USSR ended up with warehouses FULL of “widgets” (things made that it could not use or people did not want) no one needed in the real world. This economic law enforcers George Gilder’s contention that when government supports a venture from failing, no information is gained in knowing if the program actually works. Only the free-market can do this.
This applies to the real world in many ways, one being the co$t of college. Here is a very short video explaining this well:
OF course, one of my favorite videos of ALL TIME shows how students “benefit” from a subsidizing of college majors when in reality if they had to pay for college themselves it would be (a) cheaper, and (b) they would go into careers other than their majors… like sign flippers and bartenders (or other fields that are hurting):
The great conundrum of the U.S. economy today is that we have record numbers of working age people out of the labor force at the same time we have businesses desperately trying to find workers. As an example, the American Transportation Research Institute estimates there are 30,000 – 35,000 trucker jobs that could be filled tomorrow if workers would take these jobs–a shortage that could rise to 240,000 by 2022.
While the jobs market overall remains weak, demand is high for in certain sectors. For skilled and reliable mechanics, welders, engineers, electricians, plumbers, computer technicians, and nurses, jobs are plentiful; one can often find a job in 48 hours. As Bob Funk, the president of Express Services, which matches almost one-half million temporary workers with employers each year, “If you have a useful skill, we can find you a job. But too many are graduating from high school and college without any skills at all.”
The lesson, to play off of the famous Waylon Jennings song: Momma don’t let your babies grow up to be philosophy majors.
[….]
Kids commonly graduate from four year colleges with $100,000 of debt and little vocational training. A liberal arts education is valuable, but it should come paired with some practical skills.
Third, negative attitudes toward “blue collar” work. I’ve talked to parents who say they are disappointed if their kids want to become a craftsman–instead of going to college.This attitude discourages kids from learning how to make things, which contributes to sector-specific worker shortages….
(For full disclosure, my degree — theology — is one of the lowest paying degrees out there, and the lowest in employment opportunities.) In a short debate of the issue, Peter Schiff notes this “propping up” of useless degrees:
In the above discussion, Diana Carew seems to want jobs created by the government to fit the degrees earned. Otherwise, how would you force the private sector to create such opportunities unless you artificially demand [create] such opportunities? ~ There was zero unemployment in Soviet Russia, but all this “opportunity” collapsed due to economic laws… “this is how the USSR ended up with warehouses FULL of “widgets” (things made that it could not use or people did not want) no one needed in the real world. This economic law enforcers George Gilder’s contention that when government supports a venture from failing, no information is gained in knowing if the program actually works. Only the free-market can do this.” (Peter Schiff gets into the weeds a bit in this video.)
Here is another great PRAGER U video discussing the issue:
This is one of the areas Gary Johnson was correct — supply and demand:
FORBES notes well that most on the Left-end of the spectrum “don’t hate entrepreneurship and innovation,” but that their Econ 101 “part of the brain that deals with economics tends to shut down when discussing sectors like higher education (or healthcare).”
A WASHINGTON FREE BEACONpost relates findings from a Federal Reserve Bank (NY) study showing that the federal student loans have increased the cost of college tuition while at the same time college enrollment did not increase:
The expansion of federal student loans has caused tuition prices to increase without increasing college enrollment numbers, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The report evaluated student financial data as well as federal student aid programs “to identify the impact of increased student loan funding on tuition.”
According to the report, yearly student loan originations grew from $53 billion to $120 billion between 2001 and 2012, an increase of about 126 percent. During this time frame, average sticker-price tuition nearly doubled, rising from $6,950 to $10,200 in constant 2012 dollars.
The report found that for each dollar of federal aid applied, tuition increased as well.
“We find that each additional Pell Grant dollar to an institution leads to a roughly 55 cent increase in sticker price tuition,” the report says. “For subsidized loans, we find a somewhat larger passthrough effect of about 70 percent.”
[….]
The report makes reference to a hypothesis put forth by William Bennett, the Reagan-era secretary of education. The so-called “Bennett Hypothesis” holds that “increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that federal loan subsidies would help cushion the increase.”
Many have compared the market for postsecondary education to the housing market…. [see video at the top]
Which brings me to finish this post with a humorous look at the hipster douche-bags scratching his or her head in regard to high tuition costs via REASON-TV:
POST-SCRIPT
In an article entitled, Why Is College Tuition Rising So Much? And What Can You Do?, that updates some of the numbers we are dealing with, I found this part sad (and I include myself in this paradox), because often times the young person takes as much money as they can get for the semester rather than get the bare minimum and subsidize the rest with income from work. (Editor’s note: this in part delays adulthood and why matters important to our body politic being expressed in an elementary way at the college level.) Here is the section:
As of 2015, there was over $180 billion in available financial aid for undergraduates. Of that, 67% was in federal grants and loans.
While federal aid has been valuable to those who otherwise would not be able to afford higher education, it has created something of a paradox.
Students accept whatever aid they can get, potentially failing to weigh the long-term financial risk once they earn that degree. The thinking goes that the debt will get paid back in time once they get a well-paying job.
The higher institutions, for their part, understand that with someone else footing the bill, they have very little accountability to the student to keep their costs in line. The institution will get paid no matter their tuition and fees.
Once that student does graduate, the burden becomes theirs.
Mary Bromley, the articles author, while making some good points didn’t include the idea that getting liberal arts degrees is not prepping the student for the shift towards technological needs for the future, nor did she deal with getting degrees that are actually useful in the real world environment. Mind you, that wasn’t the main idea or push of the article and may be a good “part deux,” but one of the main reasons tuition has risen IS BECAUSE the Federal Government is involved… practical ways to keep costs down that are in the article aside.
Likewise, automation (“robots”) will increasingly replace people in a “growing number of jobs, the skills employers are now looking for are technical skills.” But that doesn’t mean people will lose work over the issue, it means that society as a whole will need to change their focus to more technologically minded degrees. Frank Roberts in an earlier article continues:
What specific skills those might be will depend on the specific job you are looking at.
But, basically those skills would include
Computer skills
Problem Solving Skills
Communication Skills
Finance Skills
Business Skills
Science Skills
[In the article much is made of jobs being filled by persons holding bachelor degrees, but, that may merely be a reflection of the over supply of degrees. It should be noted that at the same time a higher percentage of those turned down for work were also bachelor degree holders.]
So a change to practical degrees dealing with the change in society is a requirement. NOT TO MENTION the trades that support families well should be encouraged as well. (Like a master tool maker, a carpenter, or a plumber, etc., these are high paying jobs that society will always need — and jobs like these are more apprenticeship driven rather that degree driven.)
FORBES notes one study that challenges the status quo:
…Beyond.com, found that a striking 64% of hiring managers said they would consider a candidate who hadn’t gone to a day of college. At the same time, fewer than 2% of hiring managers said they were actively recruiting liberal arts grads….
A person starting out in life should consider all of the above. Their choices made now will have lasting effects — speaking from experience.
Columbia University’s Derald Wing Sue defines microaggressions “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership”. Yet research from Scott Lillienfeld says that the evidence for microaggressions is flimsy at best. Who’s right? Factual Feminist Christina Hoff Sommers explains.
FOX NEWS ends up being the most “Fair and Balanced,” as usual. Now, some of it may be explained away by this analogy: “The Lions [NFL] get bad press because they do poorely.” Okay, I cannot argue against nor defend Trump’s insane Tweets and foot-n-mouth disease. But many of the major networks and papers show their bias towards the issues thus:
…immigration coverage received 96 percent of negative coverage. (NEWSBUSTERS)
In a previous NEWSBUSTERS study, they pointed out the same biased media coverage (see graphic to the right).
I WILL INCLUDE some similar graphics I have collected over the years, at the end of this post.
Here is the
How negative was press coverage of President Trump’s first 100 days in office? Far more than that of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, or Bill Clinton, according to a new report from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.
The Harvard scholars analyzed the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the main newscasts (not talk shows) of CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC during Trump’s initial time in office. They found, to no one’s surprise, that Trump absolutely dominated news coverage in the first 100 days. And then they found that news coverage was solidly negative — 80 percent negative among those outlets studied, versus 20 percent positive.
The numbers for previous presidents: Barack Obama, 41 percent negative, 59 percent positive; George W. Bush, 57 percent negative, 43 percent positive; and Bill Clinton, 60 percent negative, 40 percent positive.
Accusations of bias aside, it’s simply a fact that a number of negative things happened in Trump’s opening 100 days. The Russia investigation, for example, was a source of endless criticism from Democrats and other Trump opponents. The travel ban executive order led to intense argument and losses for the administration in the courts. The healthcare debacle created more negative coverage because it was a major screwup and a setback for both Trump and House Republicans.
That said, the coverage of some news organizations was so negative, according to the Harvard study, that it seems hard to argue that the coverage was anywhere near a neutral presentation of facts. Assessing the tone of news coverage, the Harvard researchers found that CNN’s Trump coverage was 93 percent negative, and seven percent positive. The researchers found the same numbers for NBC.
Others were slightly less negative. The Harvard team found that CBS coverage was 91 percent negative and 9 percent positive. New York Times coverage was 87 percent negative and 13 percent positive. Washington Post coverage was 83 percent negative and 17 percent positive. Wall Street Journal coverage was 70 percent negative and 30 percent positive. And Fox News coverage also leaned to the negative, but only slightly: 52 percent negative to 48 percent positive.
Ninety-three percent negative — that’s a lot by anybody’s standards. “CNN and NBC’s coverage was the most unrelenting — negative stories about Trump outpaced positive ones by 13-to-1 on the two networks,” the study noted. “Trump’s coverage during his first 100 days set a new standard for negativity.”……
Larry Elder covers the articles of impeachment for Nixon. Many pundits are saying that what Trump did is Nixon-like or worse, “the Sage” notes what Nixon would have been impeached for — he stepped down before that. Jonathan Turley, Leftist legal scholar and professor, notes that so far Trump’s actions don’t even come close. Enjoy!
…let’s not forget that we are dealing with a corrupt, degenerate, autocratic state where there is no free speech, where universities are run by fanatics who indoctrinate students with radical ideology; where street thugs aligned with the ruling party freely commit acts of violence against opposing views, and whose ruling elite routinely violates the basic rights of Christians and other minorities. Also, Saudi Arabia is pretty bad too.
Comey Responded “NO” (Under Oath) To Obstruction — https://youtu.be/I-GkLXNZcDoLarry Elder takes us on a tour-de-force of Comey saying — prior to the “memo,” he was not asked to stop the investigation[s]. BTW, no one has seen this memo… even the reporter who wrote the article. This is mainly a quick upload to show that “impeachment” cannot be a level reached – legally. EVENDENNIS KUCINICH is worried about the Democratic machine [i.e., the “deep state”] left in the administration that wants to undermine Trump:
➤ “ Well, you have a politicization of the agencies. That is resulting in leaks from anonymous unknown people and the intention is to take down a president. This is very dangerous to America. It is a threat to our republic. It constitutes a clear and present danger to our way of life. What is the motive of these people? Who’s putting these leaks out? Why isn’t somebody coming forward to make that charge and put their name and their reputation behind it instead of attacking through the media and not substantiating their position?”
Larry Elder discusses the non-evidence so far regarding Comey’s firing and the “obstruction” charge. Larry Elder includes audio from a debate between Jeffrey Toobin (a lawyer and liberal/progressive blogger as well as CNN legal analyst) and Jonathan Turley (lawyer, legal scholar, legal analyst in broadcast and print journalism, as well as currently a professor at George Washington University). Later in the segment “The Sage” includes some audio (I insert the video) of Peter King wondering why Comey stayed silent if he feared instruction.
