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To the editor:
The Sentinel's opinion page is a must read for me. I appreciate hearing differing opinions and want to thank everyone motived to write. Also I'd like to say I admire many extremely well written letters. We have some gifted writers in the area.
However, some like to write many groups, among them liberals, conservatives, Democrats or Republicans are stupid and have no clue of what's really happening. I disagree that all of any group are alike or think alike and as our kindergarten teachers taught us, all snowflakes are different, not the same, but are unique, just like people are unique. Everyone has their own values, interests and knowledge on any subject. People may be uninformed or having different opinions but we should be slow to judge, not knowing exactly where they are coming from and are certainly not stupid for having a different opinion.
While I recognize the U.S. has a history of one of the most successful governments in the history in the world, it is still frustrating to see (in my opinion), the stupidity at work in Washington.
Biden's lowest poll numbers are on the economy and inflation. I'm sure he has intelligent people working for him but many decisions have been bad. With the Paul Ryan and Trump tax cuts, cutting deregulation, red tape and importantly reducing the corporate tax rates, our economy was soaring before COVID hit. Unemployment numbers went down to 40- and 50-year lows, especially helping blacks, browns and women. Wages for those groups at the low end of income levels were climbing the most of any. If Biden or his advisers had any sense they would have left the Trump policies intact but no, on day one Biden used executive privilege to wreck many of them.
You know the story, COVID hit, the economy slowed. Trump pushes the first vaccines to be developed before the 2018 election but Pfizer for one did not announce it until days after the election to avoid Trump getting any credit. Biden comes into office with vaccines ready but getting them distributed widely to the population took months to be very successful.
Trump, Congress and the Fed recognized the need to pass and provide stimulus to avoid the worst effects of a shutdown, which they did. Congress then with Biden's urging passed several more stimulus bills for COVID effect relief, totaling over $5 trillion. At the same time people laid off were receiving unemployment benefits and enhanced benefits. Many were making more not working than when they were working. Renters were told they could not be evicted for not paying their rent which many did. Then later landlords were told they could apply to get the missing rent amounts from the government. Child tax credit was passed out. College loan repayments were suspended, not for one period, but since extended seven times. As of this date they still are suspended. College debt is about $1.3 trillion and growing since no interest is being paid to service this debt. Passing out all this extra money resulted in most people not being short money and savings amounts in banks rose all resulting in more money available increasing demand, pushing inflation.
Since employers are crying for workers, the country has about 11 million job openings, and everyone that wants a job can find one.You would think graduates could begin to pay on their college debt. Biden seems to think if you throw enough money at any problem it will get better.
When the stimulus bills were passed, some people like Larry Summers, Harvard professor and former Secretary of the Treasury under Clinton, warned over and over again of the dangers of overstimulating an already hot economy leading to inflation.
Inflation is what happens when demand is greater than supply. With very low unemployment, basically everyone has a job that wants one, with the government passing out money and people spending it, demand went up for goods and services. In the COVID era there were some supply disruptions here and abroad like port cities shutting down in China. With the charged U.S. economy demand was high, supply chain problems translated into bigger supply difficulties. As supply chain problems grew, it got worse and worse as the system backed up and demand stayed high. People were willing to pay more for ways to buy leading to higher inflation. Biden's solutions, more spending, pass the $1 trillion infrastructure bill and push for Build Back Better which mercifully did not pass and blame the greedy corporations for problems he drove.
Now our economy is still very strong, unemployment numbers are still very low, with very many job openings. China is battling COVID with its zero COVID policy and having a difficult time partly because the newest variants are super spreaders. This will lead to more supply disruption while demand stays high for products from China again pushing inflation.
I have to give Biden's administration credit on one point. They are correct in their words, moving Heaven and earth to supply weapons to the Ukraine. This is important simply stated because Putin wants to be evil and do bad things around the world. For him to be allowed to take the Ukraine it makes Russia and him much richer and more powerful to do evil in the world. For us and the world, wars cause inflation. If this war continues it will lead to commodity and food shortages hitting particularly hard many poorer countries in places like Africa who import large amounts of their food from the Ukraine, mainly wheat.
We will need to depend on the Fed to lower its balance sheet and raise interest rates to slow inflation and hopefully not cause a recession. It would be great if our government would recognize we need to cut spending or raise taxes. Since politicians' main focus is to get re-elected and they know it's unpopular to cut spending or raise taxes, they let the debt increase. I received a flyer in the mail a few weeks ago from our Senator Bob Casey. It said thanks to Congress passing the stimulus bills, it supercharged our economy. He is so right but as I tried to explain, supercharging an economy is not good and likely leads to inflation.
Speaking of Casey, his dad was a good governor, but he must be as dumb as a stick. He seems to have a rubber stamp to approve of any bills coming out of a Democratic agenda. I don't object to bills being passed with the idea to help people, but they need to be paid for, not from more money printed to increase our national debt, now at $30 trillion. It's relevant because our national GDP is $20 trillion. When debt rises above GDP it's not a good thing. So I've given Casey little attention while he's been a senator but just before COVID, I read he was championing a bill to reestablish the CCC, Civilian Conservation Camp program or something like a modern version of it.
Franklin Roosevelt in the '30s started it to help with unemployment. Unemployed young men were recruited to work in a military style camps to plant trees, build parks, roads and bridges, etc., all good things but very physically demanding jobs. Fast forward to 2017 with record low unemployment exactly where did Casey see workers coming from? The days are gone when young men get recruited to build camps, build roads and bridges with axes, picks and shovels. These days a large federal bureaucracy would need to be established and heavy equipment would be needed to get similar results like the 1930s CCC camps, all at huge expense.
Inflation is not just a U.S. problem. Most countries stimulated their economies to deal with COVID slowdowns. Many countries around the world are attempting to deal with inflation now. There is risk of recession in many countries. The U.S. and world economies are complicated and have many moving parts. It would be great to have a president who is on top of so much. Let's hope in 2024 we elect one.
In the meantime, elections for 2022 are coming. Remember elections have consequences.
Wayne Loht
McClure