America's Talking - Episode 47: Majority of Americans say they are ‘falling behind’ rising cost of living

Episode Date: May 20, 2022

Join The Center Square's Executive Editor Dan McCaleb and D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper as they discuss: Gas prices surge to new record high Thursday, a day after stock market plummets. DHS disinformation board paused after blowback. Majority of Americans say they are ‘falling behind’ rising cost of living. Majority of Americans support restrictions on abortion as nation awaits Supreme Court ruling. Border observers: Illegal immigration surge helped fuel U.S. drug overdose spike. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nothing to look forward to. I would say higher prices, higher prices. You're going to be sweating a little bit if you're trying to save money, turn your AC down. Welcome to America in Focus. I'm Cole McNeely General Manager of America's Talking Network. If you have not already, we ask you, hit that subscribe button wherever you listen to this podcast so you don't miss any new episodes of American Focus. Now here's your host, Dan McAleb. Thank you, Cole. And welcome to the America and Focus podcast, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAleap. Executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. America in Focus is a production of the America's Talking Network.

You can find all of the Center Square's great podcasts at Americastalking.com. Joining me today, as he does every week, is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, gas prices, hit new record highs every single day this week. The national average for a gallon of gasoline today, according to AAA, it was a four dollars and fifty nine cents in places like california it's uh over six dollars a gallon where i'm at here in the suburbs of chicago it's over five dollars a gallon how are you coping with the price of gasoline casey yeah coping is the right word i was about to ask for a company car but uh now i'm not so sure

because i don't think i can afford the gas for it no i mean uh thankfully you know dc's a pretty walkable city. But if you live anywhere in the suburbs, you know, most of America isn't that walkable, you're paying the price, you're paying record prices. And DC, I mean, some of the gas prices you see in D.C., they vary so wildly because there's actually not that many gas stations in D.C. So they can really jack up the prices. And they do that for sure. And that money is not going to the quality of the, you know, cleaning services or the bathrooms of these gas stations. I can tell you that. I know you're working on a story for the weekend for the CenterSquare.com about energy prices overall.

Any hints as to what we can look forward to this summer? Yeah, nothing to look forward to. I would say higher prices, higher prices. You're going to be sweating a little bit if you're trying to save money, turn your AC down, you know, when you're gone for your workday, maybe turning it off. I know a lot of people do that to save money. we're expecting things to rise this summer. So this is not just a gas price problem. It's not just an OPEG problem.

This is an energy problem. We've seen, you know, when we always report on this inflation data every, every, you know, few weeks. But one thing that hasn't gotten as much attention is that the cost of energy has risen at, you know, almost 30% in the last previous 12 months, which is crazy. And now with the gas prices starting to rise at the same rate, it's getting more attention.

And now the summer's coming up, people spend a lot of energy, you know, keeping their homes cool in the summer. So I think this is all coming to a head. And, you know, AAA has done interviews, you know, the American Automobile Association who tracks all the gas prices. And they've said, you know, not only are these prices record high, but they've really never seen record high day after day after day like this. Usually a record high gas price will hit a peak and then it'll go down for a while. And then you may hit another peak. but to hit day after day in a row is very unusual and it doesn't bode well for the summer. Right, with the vacation season coming up, more people traveling.

It's really going to hit people in the pocketbook. You referenced inflation just a bit ago. Of course, the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel, which is also at record highs. Diesel is what's used by truckers to transport food and other consumers. goods across the country. That means that's in part, at least what's contributing to regular high grocery, or record high grocery prices and things like that. You wrote a story this week about how Americans are coping with inflation. Tell us about that. Yeah, they're really struggling. I mean, so this is a poll from NBC News. It asked Americans a simple question. So do you think that your

family income is going up faster than the cost of living, staying about even with the cost of living, or falling behind the cost of living. And 65% of Americans said they are falling behind. And 28% said they're kind of treading water. So only 6% said their income is going up faster than the cost of living. You know, those numbers are, it was a lot different than what you would have seen a few years ago. 65% of Americans saying they're falling behind is not good. And there's a lot of reasons for that.

Part of that probably is a little bit of perception versus reality. but the perception is really important, especially in an election year. And I'd say one of the main reasons for that is the wage increase in price increase gap. So the Biden administration is working overtime to convince Americans that inflation is not as bad as it seems. And one of the ways they do that is they point to wage increases. And they say, hey, wages are going up. Look at this. You look at this chart.

Wages have increased significantly. I mean, it's true that wages have risen. you know, above average levels. But it's not, it's really not close to keeping pace with the rate of inflation. And so, you know, unless you got something like an 8 or 10% raise, which most people don't get, you in the last year, you're actually have lost money from, because inflation has risen so much. So you say maybe in an average year people get a 3% raise. This year they got a 5% raise.

And the Biden administration says, see, look, you got a 5% raise. That's more than previous years. but unless you got eight or 10 percent, it's not enough to keep pace with inflation. So literally the price of goods is going up faster than raises and wages are going up. And just anecdotally, I think we all see this. I think about I was talking to my wife yesterday. And she said that just a year ago, the price of eggs, our favorite grocery store, was less than a dollar. And now it's risen by more than a dollar just for a carton of eggs.

So these staples that people buy every day, some of them have done. doubled in price. They've increased a lot. It's not like you can just stop buying eggs, you know. You can't just tell people to cut back and only buy the essentials. The essentials are what's going up in prices, Dan. Yeah. And if you're, you know, in a household that lives paycheck to paycheck, I can't imagine how you're not struggling to pay bills to put food on the table, et cetera. Just in my household, you know, we've been, both my wife and I have been able to work remotely at home during the pandemic, but my wife is returning to work in June. The company's bringing folks everybody back to the office. She has about a 22, 23-mile commute, and we know that's

going to impact our family budget because she'll be driving almost every day of like 45 miles round trip. That's going to increase our costs. Yeah. And this kind of, this is a, I don't think there's a ton of data on this, but it'd be interesting to see if this is playing into why fewer Americans are returning to work, because we've written a lot and I think we talked last week about the record number of job openings. There's 11.5 million job openings in the country right now. And there's almost two open jobs for every American that's looking for a job. So we've speculated and looked at data on why people aren't going back to work. And, you know, like last week, We talked about how daycare, partially because of regulations, has become so expensive that it's

actually cheaper to watch your own kids and to take them to daycare. But another reason, you know, it wouldn't be on the pale to say, like, look, you know, you may find a good job, but if you do have that commute, like you pointed out, Dan, maybe it's not worth it to go into work every day, especially if you're working some kind of minimum wage job. I mean, if you're paying $80 to fill up your gas tank and you're making minimum wage and you're driving to work every day. I could see how pretty quick you might feel like you're not making very much progress if you're paying these kind of gas prices to drive to a minimum wage job. Yeah, and the businesses that are bringing folks back to work, now I'm sure they're getting

some pushback just because of the cost of transportation, the price of gasoline. I mean, it's really outrageous. And as you said earlier, it doesn't look like there's going to be any relief anytime soon, particularly with the summer driving season and more demand for gasoline rising. I don't know. It could be an interesting, tough summer for many Americans. Well, why don't we move on, Casey, a story we've talked about on the American Focus podcast in the past. President Joe Biden's Department of Homeland Security announced about a month or so ago that it was creating a disinformation governance board, but it looks like they made of at least temporarily

reversed course this week. What's going on it? Yeah, so this disinformation board grabbed a lot of national attention, partially just kind of for its dystopian name, dystopian sounding name. It sounds like something you'd read about a George Orwell novel or something that would be regulating speech. A lot of lawmakers, a lot of critics raise concerns

that the federal government shouldn't be, regulating speech, there definitely shouldn't be federal law enforcement power and agents looking into what kind of speech is okay, what kind of isn't. There was a lot of talk about, you know, this being kind of Soviet style, all these things. So this board was announced. And notably, it was announced around the same time that billionaire Elon Musk really announced his bid to buy Twitter to bring free speech back to the platform. So that's worth pointing out. But his purchase seems stalled right now while Twitter, you know, kind of figures out how many fake users it actually has and whether it's been lying about his numbers, which we don't know. But this board got a lot of national scrutiny.

And then the woman who had been tapped to lead it, Nina Jankowitz, just had a steady stream of controversial videos come out. Some of them just kind of odd singing show tunes, which probably would have been not enough to hear fired, but. Some of the others were just kind of strange. And then there was one about her wanting fame and power. And, you know, who does she have to be with romantically to make that happen? And so all these things just started pile up on one another. That combined with all the scrutiny of the board, she has been, you know, she's resigned, let go. We'll never really know that probably the truth on how she exited that position.

But it was announced this week that the board is paused for now and that she is going to be out of this position. But there are already talks now of, you know, finding new people to lead the board and to put into place. And so, you know, this is a really interesting issue. Free speech has been kind of one of the defining issues of the last decade in America. I think what is free speech? What is hate speech? You know, I think President Trump actually really made that the issue. I mean, for all his policies and craziness, what President Trump really did is he brought the idea of what's okay to say.

and what's not okay to say and what can you actually be canceled for and what what's actually illegal to say. So I think we're seeing kind of the maturation of this issue that was really accelerated by President Trump. And so this is going to be a story to watch for sure. I think right now it's really controversial. I'm not sure that the Biden administration wants to double down on a disinformation board when they're taking heat in so many other issues. And I'll have you respond to this, but I just, I included this quote from Senator Marco Rubio, which I just thought was really interesting. He's definitely opposed to it. But he said that the board is evidence that the Marxist left is coming for your most basic constitutional rights.

And he said that instead of Department of Homeland Security focused on stopping drugs from coming into America or securing the border, stopping illegal immigration, they're not going to be focused on that. They're focused on policing speech on making sure that people cannot share or say things that they decide. is misinformation. So that really captures the argument against the board. But right now it seems like they're persisting. We'll see how long that lasts. Yeah, during the pandemic, of course, there was a war over, you know,

what was true about whether mass work, how effective the vaccines were. It seems those who opposed government mandates when it came to all the restrictions and whatnot. were either shouted down or banned from Twitter. You mentioned Elon Musk take over of Twitter having to do with essentially free speech. The idea of the federal government creating what his critics have dubbed the Ministry of Truth certainly is worried a lot of Americans.

So the fact that they might still push forward with this, that's kind of curious to me. Yeah, you're right. It's a good point to look at the most recent COVID issue. And that's also made this front and center as an issue. And, you know, it's really fueled a lot of the, I guess, anti-free speech folks to say, look, you know, disinformation has real consequences. They also point to the election. They, you know, they say that Russian interference swayed the election, though, since the more and more evidence comes out that that seems to not be the case. But there was a time. on social media, if you wrote something like it posted some kind of article or something questioning whether masks work, you would have been, they could have lost your account.

You could have been shut down by social media companies. Washington Post might have written an article about how you're a conspiracy theorist. But now, you know, the data's come out. It looks like cloth masks, for instance, are not very effective at all. And so that, you know,

when you have the free speech police, I think one thing that happens is, the nuance is kind of lost, right? And when you find a nuance and an argument, often it's in the middle somewhere. And you have to, someone challenges your argument. And then you say, well, that's true, but you're missing this. And over time, it's often not the dogmatic right or the dogmatic left. There's some kind of nuanced view in the middle that you can only get by debating,

by having any kind of rigorous analysis, both sides going back and forth. And in the end, you kind of come out with this more nuanced truth view. That's not the kind of orthodoxy of the right or the left. But if you silence debate and you silence speech, you end up shutting down that debate and you just kind of pick sides, whether the right or the left is right, 100% right. But usually neither is 100% right. And it's somewhere in the middle. Right. Let me just take the Hunter Biden laptop story that was deemed misinformation, not true by the mainstream.

It was the New York Post story was essentially banned on Twitter and other. social media outlets and over time, we've learned that many elements of that story are in fact true. So who's, why, how is government supposed to, you know, decide what is misinformation or not particularly when you're in such a politically polarized world? Yeah. And one of the kind of founding principles, you know, or founding ideas in our nation was that when men are in power that their motives easily become corrupted. And this one of the federal newspapers said, you know, if men were angels, no government would be necessary.

But the idea is that men aren't angels, women aren't angels. So they need, that's why we have checks and vouchers, because when someone gets too much power, we kind of assume that their motives won't be pure anymore. And so I think that's what's lost in this. It's like, oh, if we just got the perfect experts on the disinformation governance board, then they would do the right thing. But kind of central to the constitutional idea is that you can't trust people in power to do the right thing all the time.

Inherently, you know, men are not perfect. They're not angels. And if you give them too much power, they're not going to do the right thing. So we have checks and balances. We limit the government. We limit what they're able to do. And so I think that same principle applies to these federal bureaucracies. I mean, nobody's perfect. There's no such thing as the angelic expert who has all wisdom and all good character to make the right decision every time

on what's true and what's not true. And we can totally trust their motives. It's just not realistic. And so I think people know that instinctively, and that's why this has come under so much scrutiny. Thank you, Casey. Now let's move on to another story we're anticipating. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule any week now on Roe v. Wade, essentially, a lawsuit filed over a Texas abortion, restrictive abortion law case made its way to this U.S. Supreme Court. Politico reported several weeks ago on a leaked early draft of the Supreme Court decision that looks like they're headed towards overturning Roe v. Wade.

But you reported on a poll this week that shows the majority of Americans support at least some restrictions on abortion. Tell us about that. Yeah, this is the story in my mind. I think this is going to be a defining story for this year. This court case is one of the biggest in decades, I would say. And it's also the story of the year because if it goes the way that it seems to be going, there's going to be a huge pushback and even, I think, a push to pack the court,

to pack the Supreme Court, which we haven't seen in a long time. It will be very controversial. But this poll from Convention of States Action, along with the Trafalgar Group, they released this week and it found that 57.6% of Americans say that abortion should be, should only be legal in specific circumstances. So more than half the country wants at least some. kind of restrictions. And those vary, you know, a couple of examples would be, depending on which trimester, you know, they might say it's okay in early on, but not okay later, or they might

say in cases of rape or incest. In fact, only 11.6% of those surveyed, so about 12%, only 12% said that abortion should be legal up until the moment of birth, including partial birth. Well, that's really noteworthy. Some of our listeners might say, well, of course, but it's actually not well, of course, because so many Democrats right now, I think in reaction to these restrictions are maybe even overcorrecting a little bit, at least compared

to where Americans are in the issue issue, because many Democrats are pushing for abortion all the way up to birth. They're saying, you know, because these, you know, because the abortion access is being threatened, they are going 110%

the other way and saying abortion should be legal for any reason up until birth, But this poll finds that only 12% of Americans support that. And so, you know, it also found that, and I will say that even many Democrats have, you know, think there should be restrictions. So, for instance, the poll found that 45% of Democrats that were surveyed said abortion should be legal in the first and second trimesters. But only 19% said it should be legal up until birth. So even like less than 20% of Democrats think abortion should be.

totally legal up until birth, including partial birth, which many, you know, Democrats are pushing for right now. So, you know, as is the case with many issues, there's kind of a middle ground that Americans want. But this is going to be the issue to watch. And we point this out last week in the podcast, but I think it's worth pointing out every week because I do think there's some confusion around this. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, that does not make abortion illegal nationwide overnight. a lot of people think that, but it's not true. It does not make abortion illegal overnight.

It simply hands the issue back to the states, as it was in the state's hands for most of our nation's history. It hands the issue back to them. And depending on what state you live in, the laws are going to vary a lot. Some are going to be really restrictive and some are going to be really lax. But ultimately, it's going to be back in the state's hands to decide what those abortion restrictions are. Right. In this issue of abortion rights has been a contentious one around the country since Roe v. Wade was decided more than 50 years ago. I do agree with your opinion that this could be the defining story of the year, even though we've got midterm elections going on.

We've got this record high inflation, record high gas prices. This is certainly going to be up there with those stories on people's minds. And so, you know, I guess we'll have some clarity here at least in the next several weeks. And let's just hope that, you know, those who oppose whatever the Supreme Court does, fine, you can protest. Just to do so peacefully, please. There's enough unrest in this country right now. We don't need more of the violent division that we've seen in recent years. years in this country.

Right. Another controversial topic, Casey, that we've been covering at the Center Square.com, it seems like forever, has to do with illegal immigration and the spike in illegal border crossings that have occurred since President Joe Biden's taking office. You wrote a story this week that shows that the spike in illegal immigration has also helped fuel a drug overdose spike in the United States. Tell us about that. Yeah, I think this is a story you're not going to see a lot of other places. This is kind of putting two to two together

by talking to experts. But, you know, what I noticed was that drug overdoses in the U.S. hit a new high, breaking 100,000 drug overdose deaths, which is tragic, of course, and really troubling. And at the same time, illegal immigration is hitting new highs. I mean, you know, very high numbers, nearly a quarter of a million people every month being caught coming into the country illegally, which doesn't count those who weren't caught, of course. So we really don't know how many people are coming in illegally every month, which means if these numbers continue, we'd be on pace for millions every year, which is a lot. And then the other part of this is we're seeing a lot of drugs being caught at the southern border. And of course, we have no idea how many drugs are not being captured. And so this all adds up.

Another thing, another layer in this is that fentanyl is really on the rise. It's becoming a huge problem in the U.S. It's a huge source of drug overdoses also because it's very strong. It can be very fatal. And it's getting laced into other drugs that are not seen as harmful. So a lot of people think they're taking a drug that's not very strong or they're taking just one pill. And they think they'll be fine. actually that pill, unbeknownst to them, has been laced with fentanyl.

And so they're overdosing. Maybe they take a couple, but normally that's fine. And if it was just the drug they think it is, it would be fine. But because it's been laced with fentanyl, it's not fine. And they die. And so fentanyl is being kind of snuck into a lot of these drugs. And it's a big reason for so many overdoses. And so I talked to a lot of experts about this and really found that there is a real correlation

between the number of the spike in drug overdose deaths in the U.S. and the spike in illegal immigration. And there really is a correlation. You know, we can go, we can talk about this day and there's a lot to find out. But one point I just, you know, want to point to, I talked to the former head of border patrol. You know, he used to head up this entire operation. And he said that, and I found this fascinating, the drug cartels, which are in charge of so much of the human trafficking and definitely. of the drug trafficking, what they'll do is they'll send a whole slew of people across, you know, across the river, across the border, knowing that most of them will get caught to overwhelm the Border Patrol. And so once the Border Patrol agents are kind of overwhelmed with this big surge of people, they're arresting them, what the Border Patrol agents do is they take those

people they've arrested and they take them back to the base and then they spend the whole, you know, rest of the day processing them and paperwork. Because, border agents spend a ton of time on paperwork now, which is another big problem. But once the agents have kind of left to process those illegal migrants who were just captured, that's when the drug cartels send the second wave, which is the drugs. So, and this is, this is not me. This is from the former head of Border Patrol. Explain this to me. So they send a first wave of humans to kind of clear out the defenses. And then they send a second wave of all those who are carrying drugs to traffic into the U.S. And so they're very strategic.

The problems are very connected. And the, you know, fentanyl is definitely coming from these drug cartels in Mexico and south of the border. So we can, you know, I don't know, Dan, I know you've done a lot of work on this and with Bethany. And I'm sure you have more to add. But this is a big issue. The drug overdose, the fentanyl issue is a major issue. It's not just affecting Texas and Arizona. Fentanyl overdoses are rising all around the country.

and a lot of lawmakers are kind of catching up to the issue and saying, okay, you know, what do we, what do we do about this? Right. And what's, yeah, scary, scary when you think about it. But what's even scarier is the pending ending of Title 42 enforcement. Title 42 is a Donald Trump era health policy that allowed Border Patrol agents to immediately expel illegal immigrants during a pandemic during a public health crisis to an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the United States. But the Biden administration is currently at least scheduled to end that health authority on Monday. Many border observers, border communities are deeply concerned that if Title 42 enforcement ends, that there's going to be a surge in illegal immigration on top of the surge that already exists.

And as you just spelled out here, what is that going to mean for the smuggling of drugs into the U.S.? Is that going to make the drug overdose problem even worse? Yeah, I mean, it seems clear to me after my research that any increase in illegal immigration is likely to lead to an increase in drugs and drug overdose deaths as a result, especially as long as fentanyl is, you know, a main product that's being brought in because it is so dangerous.

Yeah, there definitely is a political side to this as well. Of course, you know, former president Donald Trump really made one of the hallmarks of his campaign and presidency was cracking down on illegal immigration. And some of his policies really did help with that Title 42 being at the top of that list. But the Biden administration has done several things really to be much more lax on immigration. And so, you know, getting ready to Title 42 would, of course, be one of those. But another one that just, I don't know why, I keep bringing it up. But it seems like no one is talking about it, which is why you should follow thecentersquare.com.

But is Biden is really handcuffed ICE. You know, normally when people don't return for their hearings or they're in the country illegally and staying here, you know, ice is kind of going after these guys and finding them. But Biden has made it much harder for ICE agents to deport, you know, arrest or deport anyone. He's really limited their focus to just be on violent criminals. And I think the word has gotten out on this. So any, I mean, you know, here it is any, anybody wanting to come to the U.S. illegally. You can come. If you get caught, you're not going to get really in trouble probably.

You're just going to come into the U.S. And ICE, unless you have a violent criminal record, ICE is probably not going to come looking for you. And everybody knows that. And so the incentives have been set up in a bad way to really incentivize people to come. And honestly, maybe to incentivize them to come now before a new president may have a different opinion because we saw as soon as Trump left and Biden took over, illegal immigration surged. You know, I mean, it's not, I don't, I mean, the policies are part of it, but I think there's just the word gets out. Like, okay, Trump is gone. We can come. And so, and then the policies and the incentives are in place to encourage that.

Title 42 is a big one. It's a big battle. And it's really a big signal to the rest of the world. into those who are wishing to come illegally about whether they can or cannot. Yeah, I'll tell you what, between gas prices, inflation, the pending decision on Roe v. Wade, the midterm elections, the spike in illegal immigration and drug overdoses, it's going to be a long, interesting summer. And you can find all of our reporting at thecentersquare.com, but Casey, that's all the time we have this week for our

listeners, you can find all of the Center Squares podcast at America's Talking.com. Take a look. Please subscribe. There is no cost. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan Mcaleb. We'll talk to you next week.