America's Talking - Episode 50: Gas prices hit record highs every day this month

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Join The Center Square's Executive Editor Dan McCaleb and D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper as they discuss: Consumer costs jump 8.6% in May, driven by record gas prices. Gas prices hit record highs every day this month. House passes ‘red flag’ law as gun control bills await fate in the Senate. Demand for mortgages drops to lowest point in 22 years amid higher rates. 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.

The gas prices have steadily risen at rates that I've never seen. We've seen record prices every day for the month of June, which is incredible. And I've talked about this on the podcast before. 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 McCaleb. Thank you, Cole.

And welcome to the America in Focus podcast, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulip, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. America in Focus is a production of America's Talking Network. You can find all of the Center Squares great podcasts at America's Talking.com. Joining me today is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey is consumer prices on everything from gas to food, the clothing, just about everything else, continue to rise. Congress is holding primetime hearings on the January 6th, 2021 attacks. on the U.S. Capitol building.

We are recording this on Friday, June 10th, and the first hearing was last night. We'll talk about gas prices and everything else in a moment, Casey. But any takeaways from last night's hearing? You're right. There are going to be several hearings coming up. The sense right now is that this is just getting started. Not a ton of new information last night. There was video footage that was showed.

Some key details can make some headlines in the new. news or be at the top of news stories like Bill Barr saying, you know, explaining what he said to Donald Trump. But so much of this has already been in the news, you know, in Bill Barr's press tour, different details that can come across as bombshells and reporting. If you've been following this, have already come out. So I think that we haven't really got to the meat of the new information. But it also highlights what I think is a kind of a contrast in D.C. right now, which is a of course the January 6 hearings are really important, but I think what we've seen is because the economy is struggling so much, and we're going to talk a lot about that on this podcast,

we're seeing, I think, Democrats try to change the subject as much as they can because, you know, not even saying who all deserves all the blame for the economy, but we just know from history that the incumbent party takes the blame when the economy is struggling. And so whether, you know, you see them folk talking a lot about January 6th, really playing up these hearings, you see them really trying to change the issue to be a gun control election. President Joe Biden went on Jimmy Kimmel's show this week and told people to vote based on gun control. He very explicitly said, make that your voting issue, or whether it's Roe v. Wade and abortion, you know, so many Democrats right now are trying to make this year and this election year about abortion, about abortion rights.

And of course, Republicans are trying to make it about the economy. they're not they're really shying away from those other issues but the economy is by far the most winning issue of those four for them by by leaps and bounds so that's going to be as we you know we've been talking more and more about what's going to happen November but I think that will be a big determiner of what happens about November is November about gas prices and inflation for in voters minds or is it about January 6 and gun control and Roeview wait right and while all of these issues are important, the one that impacts American households the most is the cost of everything. I think you've become like our daily gas prices as a reporter. That's right. That's right. Why don't we start with gas prices? I mean, they've gone up. I think it's 12 consecutive days now, just shy of an average $5 a gallon gasoline.

Tell us what's going on here. Yeah. The gas prices have steadily risen at rates that I've never seen. You know, we've seen record prices every day for the month of June, which is incredible. And I've talked about this on the podcast before. Usually these gas price jumps, they will hit a peak price, and then they'll immediately go back down for a while and they'll kind of stay lower.

And then maybe some world event, maybe, you know, who knows what will happen, but, you know, some global thing or just kind of the market forces just kind of by happenstance. will push up this this quick record high price and then it'll go back down. But to see consistent record high prices like we're seeing right now, day after day after day is just very unusual. And I think, you know, where the average national price right now is $4.99. I think we'll easily hit $5 over the weekend. I think this is going to continue to grow.

Nothing is changing, which is kind of the scary part is it's not like there was some one-time event. It's over now. it's going to go away. It's like inflation, you know, is still going up. You know, Biden is not changing his energy policies anytime soon. It doesn't seem. Demand's not going down. Russia is still in Ukraine. So all these these factors coming in. And so just to give you a perspective on how much this is increased, just last week, it was $4.76. So that's almost a quarter. This is on average nationally. Yeah, an average, a national average price.

of $4.76. So that's a quarter in a one week. So I mean, if we if we kept this pace, then in July we're going to be at $6 nationally. Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen. That would be pretty surprising. But to go up a quarter in a week is pretty incredible. Last month, it was $4.37. So, you know, that went up. The means we went up almost, you know, we'll say three quarters in one month. So and when you compare that to the same time a year ago, the price a year ago was $3.7. So, you know, prices have risen almost $2 in one year. They've doubled since Biden took office. Diesel prices are high as well, which really contributes to, you know, when you go to the grocery store or when you go to the department store,

you want to buy something. It was probably taken there on a diesel truck. So high diesel prices mean, you know, higher prices for just about everything you buy, including things on Amazon. So, you know, go ahead. But this is just getting worse. The pace is crazy. Quick side question, Casey. You referenced a quarter a couple of different times there. Have you ever held a quarter in your hand?

Yes, I did. I went to, in D.C., we have the Smithsonian American History Museum. And I went and they actually have quarters and pennies and nickels. It was really an enlightening cultural experience for me. Sure. Right. Right. Yeah. So it's if we said gas prices, $4.99 a gallon on average. 20 states already have surpassed that $5 a gallon threshold. And the rest of the country nationally, that it's almost certain to hit $5 a gallon this weekend. And we also know today, the U.S. Labor Department released its latest consumer price index report, gas prices are driving record for, not record, 40-year high

inflation across the country. Prices on everything in May rose 8.6% over the same period last year. How are households coping with this? Yeah, we've written a lot about this at the center square.com. And as you said, 8.6% increase. One thing that's worth mentioning is this is worse than the Dow Jones expected. So not only is it bad, but it's actually worse than expected. And, you know, I've written about polling, which shows that Americans are changing their habits. They are they're driving less. They are, you know, only buying the essentials at the grocery store.

We've seen that they're actually a pretty significant percentage of Americans are not going to put their kids in summer camp because of the expense. A high percentage are modifying or cancelling their summer vacation plans. So, you know, some of this is kind of that extra wiggle room, some of the money you save up all year for summer vacation. And now it turns out, well, maybe you can't have it. But so Americans are changing their habits in that way. As you said, the inflation is higher. And I just want to go through, you know, there's several states that just passed that, you know, that $5, Massachusetts, $5.3 per gallon. Maine, 505 per gallon, Vermont, $5.3.

New York is $5.2. So you're seeing several states just past that $5 mark. I think that's significant. I mean, obviously it's significant for those who live there, but it's also politically significant because that's a milestone that's going to get headlines in a lot of places. And other states are very close. Connecticut is it $4.97 cents. New Hampshire is $4.98.

You know, Florida is 482, a little bit further away. So Wisconsin is $4.92. And we start talking about swing states like Wisconsin and Florida, you know, nearing $5 a gallon. That has its own implications. Pennsylvania, another swing state is $5.6. So, you know, record high gas prices in swing states could have the big implications. But for regular Americans, they're not thinking too much about that right now. They're cutting back on vacations.

They are buying less food or less expensive food. or just cutting back in a lot of different ways. So we're definitely going to keep covering this because it's just hitting people in a very real way. And they have to make tough choices on how they're going to respond. Yeah, just looking at some specific categories. The price of food up 10.1% over the prior year. the price of airline tickets up 12.1%. Everything is getting impacted by this, and it's largely driven by gas prices, diesel fuel,

the gasoline that's used by semi-truck drivers who transport goods across the country also hit a record high on Friday driving up the costs of those goods. we're just at the beginning of summer, which is traditionally travel season. So demand usually goes up. But who knows how Americans, you referenced the poll that Americans are changing their habits. Who knows, though, how that's going to impact the overall economy? Any closing thoughts? Yeah, I would say gas prices are a factor in the rising prices.

I think the more significant is the federal debt spending. and the major just absolutely astronomical increase in the federal money, money supply, which was largely a reaction to COVID and that, you know, flurry of COVID spending. But, yeah, that's all I would add. It's just I think it really does. There are other factors, you know, other countries around the world are experiencing inflation, but they're also kind of tied to our economy in a way. So the federal debt spending, I think, is a thing to keep in perspective here,

which really both parties have been a party too in recent years. All right. Well, we'll continue to follow your reports on inflation and gas prices, Casey. But let's move on in the wake of the deadly mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed and other mass shootings in Buffalo and Tulsa and elsewhere. The U.S. House worked on some gun control legislation this week and actually passed. some things along to the Senate. Tell us about that. Yeah. So it may sound surprising to people to hear, wait, Congress passed gun control legislation.

And, you know, it is a little surprising that they got so much, so many measures through. But I think so far it's really played out the way a lot of people expected, which is the Democrat-led Congress passed, you know, several gun control measures. And now it's sitting in a very divided Senate. and whether it ever gets out of there is really up in the air because, you know, this has been a pattern that we've seen with other legislation during the Biden administration. There's a push in the House. It goes to the Senate. And that is where legislation goes to die in this Biden administration right now, because it is split 50-50. Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrat and Kirsten Sinema, another Democrat, had both been swing votes, at least on federal spending. They've been really concerned about federal

spending. And so when these gun control bills, and I'll talk a little bit more about what they do, but when they came to the Senate this time around, all eyes, you know, went on Mansion. And he is said that, you know, he wants to cut a deal. But the big question, which everyone was wondering, he said no to, which is, we're not going to nuke the filibuster to pass gun control. And that's probably, not certainly, but probably the only way they would get something through is to nuke the filibuster or to water down the passage so much that it's like very narrow and it doesn't do very much. And so they could get enough Republican votes. Because I think there is an appetite for maybe some Republicans to say that they did respond to this shooting. But any real substantive

change is going to be pretty tough. So there was a large gun control package that was passed on Wednesday in the house. And then there was another one, a smaller one on Thursday. So the one passed on Wednesday would be in high capacity to magazines. It would raise the age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. It would put in like new regulations around gun gun storage. And of course, there would be criminal penalties attached to all these. If you don't store your gun correctly, or you own certain, you know, magazines you could be facing criminal penalties, which raises a lot of red flags for many on the right. But the, the second Thursday, bill was the red flag gun control bill, which basically allows a federal, which allows a judge

to prevent someone from purchasing a weapon if they decide you're a danger to yourself or to someone else. That one did get five Republican votes in the house. But the big argument against that one is just a slippery slope argument. You know, you're just giving a judge basically power over whether someone has Second Amendment rights or not. If you get an activist judge that could really be abused And so those are the things you're going to hear more about right now. You know, the House is gone on recess now. So they kind of, they did their part in their mind. They passed some gun control stuff in response to these tragic shootings.

They sent it over the Senate and they left D.C. And so now it's in the Senate, but it's really anybody's guess whether something is actually cobbled together to really become law in the Senate. And Joe Biden seems like it would almost certainly sign any kind of gun control measure. that they did get him. And you referenced the filibuster in the Senate, which as you mentioned is also a 50-50 split with the filibuster. The Senate would need 60 votes to break any filibuster to get these gun control measures pass.

So that would mean at least 10 Republicans would have to side with Democrats if the Democrats just don't torpedo the filibuster, which, Democratic senators like Joe Manchin, as you mentioned, aren't in favor of doing. So it's really going to, it's hit, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, and, and, and, um, and, um, even if they do, uh, there's just a big political cost to, to, to, to, to use your torpedoing that the filbuster, because you could, you know, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you had, who may have been wanting to work with you, you, are going to immediately abandon ship because that is such a politically toxic thing. It's kind of a it is the, I don't know, I mean, it's just the red line in American politics right now, the filibuster. So far, no one has crossed it. But man, I think that would be the thing where you have to have a really good reason where basically the piece of legislation you're passing in your mind has to be

worth not passing anything for a while and maybe losing a midterm. It has to be really, really worth the risk because it's really controversial. You're probably going to lose a lot of people on it in Congress. And so I don't know, but, you know, I mean, who knows? Nobody's done it. So it could be seen as bold and amazing. And plus, if you end the filibuster for something like this, that opens the door. It's like you reference to the slippery slope when it comes to red flag laws.

you know with it being a midterm election year if democrats were to end the filibuster for something like this and and many polls are showing that republicans have a significant advantage because of things like the economy inflation and gas prices you know if republicans regain control of the senate and how and democrats do decide to end the filibuster you know republicans could very well do the same after they take control. Oh yeah, they probably almost certainly would. And that's the thing with constitutional. I mean, this is not a constitutional protection,

but with these kind of protections with limits on government and on federal power, that is like the nature of them, which is when you have the power, they're very frustrating. But man, when someone else is in power, you're really grateful for them. So every Democrat, you know, right now that is frustrated that the filibuster is holding back some of your agenda. It's just, I think the reminder would be to just remember that Donald Trump had to abide by that same filibuster, you know, so it's when or if the other way around, you know,

of course, if you supported Trump, then you're glad that the filibuster is holding Democrats back right now. But that's the nature of these restrictions. You know, the founders wanted there to be 60 votes in the Senate so that there, you couldn't have the mob. They called it tyranny of the mob, which is 51. percent of the country taking the rights of the other 49 percent. So they purposely made it 60 votes. So you had to have broad consensus. And they couldn't have tier any of the 51 percent,

especially when the 51 percent changes their minds pretty often and becomes, you know, 45 percent as we see in polling. So it is, it's really interesting. I don't think they're going to nuke the filibuster. I think if they were going to do that, they would have done it by now. But, you know, I don't have a crystal ball. I think you should definitely follow the center square com. We're going to keep writing about this. We're going to be following what the Senate does. I think the most interesting thing is, are they going to try to come up with some watered down version that they can get enough Republicans to stomach to say that they did something, especially Republicans who are facing re-election this year?

All right. Casey, as we've been talking here, I just got an alert that stocks dropped significantly on Open this morning after the inflation news. So don't plan on retiring anytime soon. All right. I know you're probably you're counting down the days, Dan. So really this is, you're the one getting the alerts, not me. So, you know. I was counting down the days.

I just threw my calendar out. Right, right. There you go. There you go. Inflation just has its grip on everything. now, particularly including this next story we're going to talk about. You wrote about the demand for mortgages falling in the U.S. Of course, home prices along with everything else have gone up. The Fed has raised interest rates and probably will continue to raise interest rates to try and slow

inflation. But tell us about these mortgage demands. So this is interesting in your right to tie to inflation. So we've experienced really low mortgage rates for several years now, which have been kind of a, I think we've gotten used to, but are not really the norm. And they've kind of been artificial. And so are, you know, kind of created. They didn't just happen on their own. And now that because inflation is so high, and now the Fed is raising rate, their own rates. And when that happens, the mortgage rates go up as well. And so mortgage rates have increased. They are, you know, they went up, they were, have been in the three percent for, for a long time. And then in March, they surpassed 4%

for the first time since 2019. And now they're coming up over 5.4% roughly. So mortgage rates are much higher is what I'm saying. And of course, we've known that home prices have been steadily rising. They're really how they've been rising for for a long time. So the market It's been really hot. But now more of the demand for refinance and mortgage applications has dropped 22% or they drop the lowest in 22 years, rather. They drop 6.5% to the lowest in 22 years. So really the demand for new houses are refinancing your house has plummeted.

It's really down. Mortgage rates are probably only going to keep rising. So if you were going to jump in at the heat. the housing market. It looks like you may have missed that window. So we'll see how this plays out. I don't know. I'm not, you know, forecasting any kind of like bubble or, you know, terrible housing market down the road. But I think we're going to see what has been a really hot market cool off. And I think that we'll, I think we do think we'll continue to see at least lower mortgage demand. If not, it continued to decrease. And it makes sense with the price of houses,

you know, gone through the roof, no pun intended. Oh, that's several years. The Fed raising interest rates, that means the cost of borrowing money is significantly more. That's certainly going to affect consumers, homebuyers' perspective on whether now is the right time to get into it. Time for one, time for one last story quickly, Casey. your summer intern, Richie Maloof. Interesting story this week.

He's doing a good job for us, by the way. Richie Maloof at thecentersquare.com. I wrote an interesting story about a poll of veterans and their thoughts on forgiving student loan debt, which President Biden has floated doing. Tell us about this poll. That's right. Right after he got my third coffee and donut of the day,

Richie came in and asked he could write this story and said, you know what, you can't. And so, no, I treat our interns well and they don't give my coffee. Don't worry. But this poll by Mission Roll Call, which is like a veterans advocacy group, it found that three quarters or 76.6% of U.S. veterans are against a very controversial proposal right now. That is forgiving student loan debt. So, you know, I'm sure a lot of students probably. you probably have 76.6% of students would support it. But three quarters of U.S. veterans oppose it.

And so it's pretty interesting. Again, tying everything back to November, what will that mean? You're going to have a lot of angry veterans come November who don't support the student loan forgiveness. And for those who aren't up on the story, Biden has at first there was talk about Biden for giving $50,000 of student loan debt per person. And now it's from the talks and things he said, it's looking more like 10,000 per person. Though, I don't know if it's actually going to happen because there's been several stories or several times with Biden will kind of hint that this is going to happen.

But it still hasn't happened. And so I'm starting to wonder at this point if this is some kind of political posturing, kind of dangling the carrot. And we're going to keep dangling the carrot all the way through November past the election and maybe they're going to use it. And then all of a sudden the carrot will get dangled again.

And then Biden will be, be talking about how he's definitely going to do this after he wins re-election. You know, so there's been a lot of talk, but no action. But for now, it looks like veterans do not support it, which is an interesting thing to kind of throw into the calculus as we think about this. It's another thing that I think, you know, makes sense. I was not surprised by this. When you voluntarily, you know, join the military, serve our country, potentially put your life

and health on the line. In exchange for that, members of the military can have their education paid for through the GI bill. But what's the incentive to join the military if President Biden is just going to forgive your student loan debt anyway? That's a great point. So many people join the military to get a free education. So I know we're wrapping up, but that is a great point. Why don't we end it on that note, Casey, as we are out of time. For those you listening,

you can find all of the Center Squares podcast at America's talking.com. Take a look. Please subscribe.

There is no cost. This has been the America in Focus podcast. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan Mcaleb. We'll talk to you

next week.