America's Talking - Episode 63: U.S. Army recommends food stamps for soldiers struggling with inflation

Episode Date: September 9, 2022

Join The Center Square's Executive Editor Dan McCaleb & D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper as they discuss: Biden policy tying school funding to LGBT mandates comes under scrutiny. Report: Record 63% of small businesses freeze hiring. U.S. Army recommends food stamps for soldiers struggling with inflation. Independent voters say Biden’s attacks on ‘MAGA Republicans’ went too far. 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.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the America in Focus podcast, powered by the Center Square. American Focus is a production of America's Talking Network. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Our mission is to fund high-quality public interest journalism that promotes accountability and fiscal responsibility in government. To support great podcasts like this one, please donate by clicking the link in the show description. Joining me again today is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief.

How are you, Casey? Doing good, Dan. How are you? All right. We are recording this podcast on Friday, September 9th. Casey, I know this is the American Focus podcast, but we should take just a minute to join the rest of the world and acknowledging the death of Thursday of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96. She was queen for 70 years and the only British monarch that most Americans ever knew. Casey, do you have any thoughts? Yeah, I mean, it's just really sad, tragic passing. The queen was known for her humor. for her grace, for her connection with the people and the people's love for her. I know that the morning will continue for several more days,

and our thoughts and prayers are with the royal family and really the people of England. Very well said. Now King Charles takes the reins. But let's move into the purpose of this podcast, talking about all things Washington, D.C. and how decisions made in the nation's capital are affecting everyday Americans. Inflation remains top of mind for many Americans, Casey. I know today you're working on a story that even the U.S. military is impacted by 40-year-high inflation.

Tell us what you're working on. Yeah, this is a story. You're not going to see a lot of places. We've, you know, be checked at thecenterscore.com if you're listening to this on Friday. But basically, you know, I discovered that the U.S. Army has released official guidance to their soldiers. and they acknowledge what everyone knows is an open secret that inflation is at a, you know, the highest rate has been in four decades. You know, it's raising the price of gas and groceries and everything.

So that part's not that interesting. But then the Army went on to say in this official guidance that they sent to soldiers that they could, they should consider getting on food stamps to help cover their rising costs. And I just found this really interesting, pretty amazing that in a very formal, way that the army was saying, hey, if you're, you soldiers, I know you're having trouble paying your bills. So here's the way to apply for food stamps. They send on the link. They give them the phone number. Here's the application. And so it's basically, it's interesting one,

because, you know, the U.S. Army is openly, or is admitting what the Biden administration is somewhat trying to downplay, which is the hardship caused by inflation. Second, it seems a tacit admission that soldiers aren't paid enough if the Army is acknowledging, hey, you know, we pay you. And here's how you get on food stamps. I can't imagine, Dan, if applying for this job, you said, all right, Casey, here's your offer, here's your benefits. And also here's a link to apply for food stamps.

I mean, it's just kind of an admission that you're not, would not be paying me enough if you did that. So I think it's really interesting. I think a lot of people might even be upset to hear that, that those who are, you know, risking their lives for us are being urged to get on food stamps because inflation is so out of control. Yeah, that is that is quite remarkable. And I guess I wasn't aware of this until we started talking about this story. I guess it's not necessarily new for members of the military to apply for food stamps. So that does say something about what we pay

are the people who defend our freedom. But the fact that the Army is sending guidance or sending recommendations to its own employees, our soldiers to go ahead and do that because of record, the sky high prices on food, of course. It's just, it's a sad commentary on where we're at today. Yeah, you're right. This is not necessarily a new problem, troops being on food stamps, but I think we don't want to ever grow numb. There's a lot of old problems in Washington that haven't been solved. And so we kind of start to forget about it. I mean, the border crisis is kind of one of them. It's a very old, very difficult and serious problem. But there's been no solution for so long that people kind of move on. I think this could be in that category.

We don't want to move on too much. We want to keep bringing these things to the forefront, highlighting the impact that's having our taxpayers and regular Americans. And I think what's different this time, though, is that we are seeing this record high inflation. So it's taken what was already a problem, which is, you know, food insecurity for troops. And it's just really magnified it because prices are so high. This is give you kind of, you of our listeners, kind of an idea. We covered this federal inflation data that was released in August, which showed that food prices have risen at the fastest rate since the 1970s. So, you know, the food index increased 10.9% over the last year. The largest 12-month increase since

1979. The food at home index rose 13.1%, which is the largest since 1979. And the index for other food at home, 15.8. Serials and bakery products, 15%. You know, fruits and vegetables were up 14.9%. So, sorry, fruits and vegetables are up 9.3% and dairy-related products were 14.9%. So we've talked about how bad inflation is, and it's been around, you know, prices have been going up around 8-ish percent depending on the month. But some of these, I mean, if you want fruits and vegetables, it's higher. if you want to go get a, you know, a gallon of milk, it's going to be double what the normal inflation rate is.

So food has been hit especially hard by this inflation crisis. And it's kind of all, it's all coming to a head for a lot of Americans right now. Yeah. Casey, just a side note. We want to give our listeners a chance to go read that story before the, so let's make sure we get that out before the podcast is uploaded for our listeners by producer Cole. But no pressure on that. Yeah, yeah, no, it's okay. I appreciate the protecting. Let's stick with the subject of inflation, Casey. According to a new poll, the majority of Americans say inflation is now causing them financial hardship. Tell us about this poll and what it says.

Yeah, this poll really shows that the problem we've talked about for soldiers is not reserved just to them. This new poll from Gallup, very reputable pollster. for the month of July indicates that Americans are feeling to pain more now than at the beginning of this year, which is really interesting because inflation has been up, up, up, and last year was up, all beginning

of this year was up. And then in July, we saw kind of this leveling off, like a pause. And we don't know if inflation is going to continue to level off or if this is just a good month and then everything's going to go back to this unfortunate new normal of rising prices.

And this new Gallup poll at least gives a hint that regardless of what the data is saying, Americans are feeling it more now, and we'll see what the official inflation data is next week for the month of August. But this poll, which was taken in August, so it's after this month of July, which was the, you know, the pause and higher prices. So that's worth pointing out. But this poll taken in August found that 56% now say price increases are causing financial hardship for their household. That's up from 49% in January and 45% in November. So, you know, this is really tracking along as prices have gotten higher.

We're now from a minority of Americans to a majority saying they're experiencing financial hardship. And what's interesting of this is that, you know, poor Americans are being hit the hardest, of course, because they're the ones who feel the impact of things like these grocery costs. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it's just a higher percentage of their overall, uh, income so they feel it the most but even on top of that uh middle income Americans are saying that they're experiencing this more so uh 63% of middle income and 40% of upper income Americans remain significantly less likely they're still less likely but um they're actually struggling much more than they were in November so they're doing better than lower income but they're struggling a lot more than they were in November. So for example, yeah, middle, yeah, middle income Americans are up 17 percentage points as much as they're,

for what they're struggling last year. Upper income Americans are up 12 percentage points, the number who are saying they're struggling compared to November. So this is across classes and it's not just hitting, you know, the poorest Americans, even middle class Americans are saying, hey, we're really feeling the pain of inflation. And the poll found that Americans are cutting. back on certain expenses. They're traveling less, spending less on on entertainment type things, things that aren't essentials to their everyday lives. And that has another impact on the economy.

Of course, we've had two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, which generally signals that we're in a recession. Now, there's some debate, I guess, among economists and certainly the Biden administration about whether or not we're in a recession. But if this print, And continues, there's no doubt the U.S. is going to be in a recession if we aren't already. Yeah, I mean, you can only have so many negative economic factors that just keep getting worse every month before you can't hide it anymore. And we even reported that the unemployment rate, which has been pretty good during Biden's administration, it actually, the most recent data showed that it ticked upward a little bit. And so that was another worrying one. Of course, the GDP is decreasing.

inflation is still really bad. And now we're seeing that the unemployment rate has started to increase. Now, maybe it'll go back down and it's kind of a false alarm. But that's definitely something to keep your eye on, that the unemployment rate has started to go up. And that's been the one statistic that the Biden administration has pointed to again and again saying, no, the economy is doing fine. Look at the unemployment rate. But the latest data shows it going up.

So we'll see. Right. And that'll lead us nicely into our next story that you wrote this week, A survey of small businesses across the country show that most of them are in a hiring freeze and many of them are starting to cut back or lay off employees because of inflation, because of the rising costs around their business. Tell us about this. Exactly.

The backbone of the American economy, small businesses are, almost the vast majority, are in a hiring freeze. So this is a new survey. It came out from Alignable, which is a small business. Network. They released it this week and it found that 63% of small businesses are putting a hold on hiring, quote, because they can't afford to add staff. And 10% of that group is actually laying off workers. So this decline is very serious. It's 18 percentage points higher than it was in July. And beyond that, this is according to the report, beyond that, the percentage reducing their

staff jumped 6% to 10% this month. So the number, the number, the, percentage of small businesses who are laying people off has doubled just in a month. So this is no small survey. They surveyed nearly 6,000 small businesses, you know, in late August and early September. So there, the number of small businesses laying people off has doubled. 63% we're nearing three quarters of small businesses. If you go knock on their door, they say, hey, we're not hiring. We can't afford to bring anybody else on. And one of the main reasons they cite is what we've been talking about for much of this episode, which is higher prices because of inflation. And so those fairly good employment numbers under the Biden administration, you have to wonder

if the survey is accurate and no reason to believe it's not, whether that's going to change here in the coming months. Of course, the data that we get from the U.S. Labor Department will bear that out when they see it. But this seems to end. indicate there is going to be a rise in unemployment here in the coming weeks and months. Yeah, it does hint that way. I mean, you can't have such an increasing number of small businesses firing people and then being unwilling to hire more without it eventually showing up. I think it will be a lagging metric. We'll see it, you know, in the weeks and months to come. And some of the federal unemployment data is a little, I won't think it's off, but it often paints a rosier

picture of the employment situation than actually is, because, Because when people give up, you know, looking or remove themselves from the workforce, they're not counted in the same way. And so, yeah, and so some of the ways that the unemployment rate is calculated, makes the picture look a little better. And it is imagine that federal data is a little skewed to make the incumbent administration look a little better, but it's true. So let's move on from inflation.

Casey, another interesting story you wrote about this week, one that you you've been staying on top of for several months now has to do with the U.S. Department of Education proposing a new rule that would tie billions of dollars in federal education funding to a widespread amount of LGBT mandates. Schools to receive federal funding would have to essentially abide by the administration's guidance on LGBT issues. Tell us about this. Yeah, this, I think this is one of the most underreported stories of the year. There's an administration-wide effort to implement a range of, you know, transgender-friendly policies in all kinds of different agencies, just not through Congress, but through the executive powers that they hold. And it's most coming to a head in education. And so

There's really two big agencies that we wrote about. One is, you know, we wrote about earlier this year, which is the USDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture, which actually oversees funding for reduced lunch programs at school. So you might think that'd be under the Department of Education, but it's actually under the Department of Agriculture. And they give funding for schools so that kids coming from lower income families can get free or reduced lunches. I think we're all pretty familiar with that.

But now USDA, under the Biden administration, is saying, saying they're going to change how they interpret the word sex in Title IX, which says you can't discriminate on people based on sex. They're going to change the way that's interpreted to include sexual orientation and gender identity. And so then later in the summer, the Department of Education followed suit with the new proposed rule that does the same thing. So what does this mean practically? Practically, and I think this is going to be a big, this is really going to play out, Practically, it means that if schools don't accommodate in regards to transgender bathrooms or let's say there's a biological male who's saying, you know, he's a female now and wants

to use a women's locker room and they don't accommodate that. They could actually be endangering federal funding for all kinds of things, including, you know, low-income kids getting to eat lunch or if colleges do it, you know, Pell Grant funding. So there's all kinds of ways that schools, in colleges receive federal dollars from school lunches to some of the grants they get. And if they, essentially, if they don't kind of tow the line on the new, I guess the more what's being pushed by Democrats, the gender ideology, transgender ideology, they can risk their federal funding for a whole range of programs.

And so this is, I think this has been really underreported. We've covered at the center square.com. And in part, because of our reporting, a dozen Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the Biden administration raising real concerns about this that, for example, colleges can be forced to choose between, and especially religious colleges, forced to choose between their federal funding and standing up for their values

or just being kind of doing the thing that they've done for decades and years and years could put their federal funding at risk. So this is a big story. They're definitely going to be keeping on. I mean, just to break it, down in real terms for people to understand. So essentially the Biden administration would be holding lower income kids, kids who in some cases, their only meal they get is when they, their meals they get is when they get free breakfast or free lunch at school, holding them hostage

to require schools to allow biological males who identify now as females to use women's or girls, bathrooms, and locker rooms, or allow biological males who now identify as females to participate in girls or women's sports. Is that essentially what's happening? Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what's happening. And what it is, I think, another way to look at it is just, this is the kind of thing that can't get through Congress right now. It's too hot. It's just it's too controversial to get through Congress right now, especially with the razor-thin majorities that Democrats have. So some of the more

aggressive ideologues in the Biden administration, I think have brainstormed, how can we get this stuff through? Let's do it through the agencies and let's hold these federal funds hostage. And so that's what they've done. They can't change the law,

Title IX, which is pretty, is a very important law is really clear. So they just said, we'll change how we interpret the law and then make new rules based off of our new interpretation. And then, by the way, if you don't follow our new interpretation, you don't get federal funding. And so I think, you know, this hasn't been reported on as much now, but it's going to be when it starts to hit local schools.

And all of a sudden, you know, your school board talk. We've seen a lot of protests and angry parents of school boards. I can't imagine when they're all forced. I mean, there's been fights locally on this issue across the country before these rules. will in local school districts, for example, themselves put in place new rules that allowed transgender women to use the girls' bathrooms and so forth. I mean, these fights have started or started a couple years ago across the country. Now, to make it a federal mandate in order to receive federal dollars, there's going to be

outrage everywhere. Yeah, and even setting aside the kind of all the debate over the transgender issue, there's a couple of other just more top-level principles at play here, which is one, the federal government in its role in local education. I mean, since the founding of the country, education has been a state's issue. And states do their own education. They set their own curriculums. So much of the power in education is at the local level.

And so you can argue regardless of how you feel about the transgender issue, is it really right for the federal government to be putting this kind of dictate and these kind of mandates on schools when this is this kind of thing has for so long been a local issue and a state's issue. And then the second thing is this really plays into a pattern the Biden administration has, which is really, I think, taking power from Congress via the power of the purse. We have seen the Biden administration really bump up against the borders of executive authority time and time again, we saw it with the eviction moratorium. You know, they can't, they can't pass a law to pay people's rent. So they issue an executive order to prevent landlords

from evicting them. And of course, that was, that was overturned. And we saw it, you know, the student loans. They can't pass a law. You know, Biden can't pass a law to pay student loans. So he just canceled them via, you know, executive action. And I think in some ways, this is a similar thing, which is they can't pass a law making these schools do things, but they can just use money, you know, use money to kind of bully different powers into submitting to what they want to happen. And so I think this, you know, there's those high level principles should the federal government be involved in local education and has the Biden administration gone too far in using its power over funds, which really the power of the purse and the Constitution is given to Congress. And I think that is a big top level role of government thing that's really we're trying to figure out right now in this country.

and I don't think we've solved it. Time for one more story, Casey. We led last week's podcast with President Jill Biden's speech, very controversial speech, where he labeled MAGA Republicans Trump supporters a threat to democracy. This week, a new poll came out that showed that most Americans thought Biden's speech was too divisive. Tell us about this one. This is an interesting poll. You're right.

that speech was very controversial and it kind of went viral in part just because of one of the biggest press communications department faux pauses of this administration, which is putting Biden in front of this background that looks like he is the emperor in the Star Wars movies. I mean, he's got this glowing red, almost demonic looking background behind him. You see these soldiers flanking him and all that he's got his fist raised and I'm like he's, you know, angry like it's almost like a musil needy-looking image. And so I think that right there, people who, you know, I think most Americans didn't watch the speech because Americans don't really watch that kind of thing. But they do check social media. And all they saw was that image. And then they heard that Biden was really angry

and attacking them. And so they saw that image. And I think the speech has in a lot of ways backfired. I think it could have, you know, been played better. And I think I understand some of what Biden was trying to do. But it doesn't seem like it was executed well. And this poll shows that. So Convention of States Action, along with the Trafalgar Group, released this data this week, showing that 56.8% of those surveyed said that Biden's speech was, quote, a dangerous escalation and rhetoric designed to incite conflict among Americans. So that is, you know, well, you know, definitely a majority who are saying this went too far. Of course, only about 20% of Democrats agreed. But this is really interesting. 62.4% of independence said it was dangerous and went too far. was about conflict, which is really interesting. Only 31% said it was acceptable rhetoric during an election year. So you got two to one, independents who are in the middle, who aren't,

you know, loyal to Biden or Trump ostensibly. And two to one, they're saying, yeah, that speech, I heard about that. I saw that photo on Instagram and it just seemed too far. It seemed divisive. which is also interesting because Biden kind of ran on being the uniter in chief and kind of bringing the country back together again and saving the soul because Trump was allegedly so divisive and corrosive. So he kind of played against his image here. And at least for now, it seems like it hasn't played well with independence. Of course, we've got the midterm elections less than two months away now where control

of Congress is at stake. control of the U.S. House and control of the U.S. Senate is at stake. This is obviously a political speech. We'll see if it works or if it backfires or not. But anyway, Casey, that's all the time we have this week. A reminder to our listeners, you can find all of the Center Squares podcast at Americastocking.com. Take a look. Please subscribe. There is no cost. This has been the America In Focus podcast for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McKeel. We'll talk to you next week.