America's Talking - Episode 66: Military Subsidizes Service Members’ Grocery Bills Amid Higher Prices

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

Join The Center Square's Executive Editor Dan McCaleb & D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper as they discuss: Military subsidizes service members' grocery bills amid higher prices. Republican leadership pledges to 'repeal' IRS auditor expansion if GOP wins majority. Taxpayer-funded cancel culture? Lawmakers ask Education Secretary to push for tolerant campuses. Running on Empty: Petroleum reserve hits low point, gas prices begin to rise again. Report: Higher energy prices nationwide tied to government policies. 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 McAaleb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. To support great podcasts like this one, please donate by clicking the link in the show description. Joining me today, as he does every week, is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. How are you, Casey? Good, Dan. Welcome back to your favorite part of the week.

Of course, this is my most precious hour. Yes. of the week. We can rename it, Dan's Most Precious Hour. Let's stick with America's American focus. Casey, we're recording this on Friday, September 30th, meaning tomorrow is October 1st, the month of Halloween. Are you a big Halloween person, Casey? Not particularly, but it's also my birthday month.

So that's really what overshadows Halloween in a big way. And I'm excited to see what you're getting me. But was that the point of that to remind me that it's your birthday month? Oh, yeah. I guess that's a nice side benefit, huh? All right. Why we got a lot to talk about Casey? Why don't we forget about your birthday and get into the news?

Inflation, of course, continues to be the top issue on Americans' minds heading into the November midterms. The significantly higher costs at places like grocery stores are impacting just about everyone. And that includes the brave men and women who serve in our military. You broke the story a few weeks ago about the Department of Defense encouraging soldiers to get on food stamps to help ease the pain of inflation. But after that story went viral and many media outlets across the country either picked up our story or wrote their own versions of it. The military is going down a different path. Tell our listeners about what the military's doing.

Yes. And this week in Casey patting himself on the back, our reporting, as you said, went really viral. It wouldn't be American focus without you patting yourself on the back. Yeah, it wouldn't be Dan's precious hour without it. But you're right. So the inflation rate has been really high, and I think that's no secret. But I think some people, they may know based on experience, but not on the data, that actually grocery prices have risen much higher than the already high inflation rate.

In the last year, I believe grocery prices have risen more than 13%, which is extremely high. And of course, as you said, this is the U.S. Army in particular, it was involved. It's been really hit by this. And so the Army sent out this advice saying, hey, telling the troops to get on food stamps to help cover the costs, which really upset a lot of people for obvious reasons. You know, there's some, one, it's an admission of how bad inflation is. And two, it's an admission that we're not, I guess, that we're not paying you enough. And so that went viral.

And now the U.S. Department of Defense has announced that via, Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder. He hit at a press conference speaking for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. He laid out ways they're going to help families deal with these rising costs, particularly in food, housing, and child care. And so on the food bit, they're going to be cutting commissary grocery prices by 25%. So on Army bases, they have special grocery stores where you can go and shop. And if, you know, you can't just, a regular person can't just go shop at this grocery store.

You have to be living on the base. but at those commissary stores, the prices are going to be cut by 25%. And that's going to help cover the cost for families. So if you are in the Army, you live on a base, this is great news for you. It's going to help you cover these costs. And they also laid out some changes having to deal with like child care and helping spouses get benefits or different things like that. But this is, you know, good relief.

But just the timing was really interesting. our initial story broke. And then over the next seven days or so, different various national media outlets, including national television covered the story. And then within, you know, I believe two weeks of our breaking the story, the Department of Defense announced this change.

So interesting thing. It was an optics thing that encouraging military families to get on food stamps just was not a good look. Yeah, I think that's what it came down to. I mean, I think, you know, There's some department within the Department of Defense is in charge of helping soldiers. And so they're creating a list of ways to help. And they pointed to food stamps.

And I think it's kind of the thing probably that Todd Brass, or it didn't really know about. And then they found out because the coverage was so bad and so critical. And so then they, you know, and who knows, maybe the Biden administration was involved. This is the kind of thing, though, because of the coverage it got that would have probably reached the White House, sent a flurricular. of emails gone around and then action was taken pretty quickly. You know, regardless of whether it's, you know, food stamps or, you know, lowering the costs at the commissary, which of course taxpayers are picking up that anyway, it is a sad commentary on both the state of the country and the economy with 40-year high inflation, double-digit

cost increases year over year for the prices of food. And the fact that, you know, the members of our military are brave men and women who serve our country, protect our freedoms, you know, are paid to the point where they have to have their income subsidized in this way. Good reporting on that, Casey, but let's move on. Another story you wrote this week with the midterm elections coming up, there's speculation that Republicans could take over the House and possibly even the Senate. of course, Democrats currently have a slim majority in the House, and it's a 50-50 tie in the Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris having the tie-breaking vote. Republicans pledging that if they retake control of Congress, that they're going to repeal President Biden's plan to expand IRS auditors and the auditing of Americans across the country. Tell us about this. Yeah, this plan is really – was really – was really –

controversial from the Biden administration. But Biden has pushed it really consistently from the beginning. And the reason he's done that is because he's trying to do something that's really difficult. He is trying to have, you know, all these aggressive spending bills without, you know, raising the deficit too much and also without raising taxes. So he's kind of got this commitment to not raise taxes on people like making less than $400,000 a year. And so this is kind of just like a policy, I don't know what you call it like a loophole way to raise revenue without raising taxes. And so you say, oh, well, we'll just increase enforcement. And there's really no way for them to know how much money would be raised through this. But they picked a number, you know,

they can estimate it. And they say, oh, this is going to more than pay for itself. And then they can, you know, pass, you know, all these billions of dollars in funding and say it's paid for because just trust us, the IRS is going to raise more revenue because they're auditing more people. And I'm sure they will raise more revenue. But this has been one of the most controversial provisions of Biden's spending bills. And now House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, along with House Minority Whip, Steve Scalese of California and Louisiana, respectively, have come out and said, hey, if you put us back in charge, we're going to repeal this. But, you know, famously or infamously, there's going to be 87 or over 80,000 IRS auditors, agents hired to do.

auditing and different things for the IRS, which is a lot, obviously. And so they're going to hire these guys, but the Republicans are saying we'll repeal it. Now, another thing to keep in mind on this that we've reported at the center square.com is that a lot of polling has shown that people overall think the IRS has become too politicized. I'm sure you'll remember during the Obama administration, the lowest learner scandal, where it was shown that the IRS was targeting conservative groups was specifically searching out conservative groups and treating them more harshly than other groups. And so, you know, we wrote about this polling from Convention of States Action, along with the Trafalgar Group, released this poll in August. It found that the majority of voters say that all

these new employees, 87,000 employees will be used to audit middle class Americans, low-income earners, and small businesses, or to target the political opponents of those in power. So I think just the gut feeling of Americans is, hey, this is going to be used for political purposes, and it's not going to just go after these big corporations. It's going to go after the middle class. It's going to go after small businesses. And a lot of the experts I've talked to have confirmed that small big businesses would be one of the number one targets in this rash of auditing. They think that's where the IRS get the most bang for their buck is by auditing small businesses. And the Biden administration keeps saying they're going to be going after big corporations

that have armies of lawyers and find loopholes or they don't have to pay taxes, cheat on their taxes. But you're talking about 87,000 additional new, not existing, 87,000 additional IRS agents. They're not enough big corporations in the United States. You know, unless you put 10 IRS, 10 of these new IRS auditors on a single corporation for the entire year. I mean, 87,000, they're going to be digging into many Americans, including small businesses, taxes. That's right. And you pointed out, the biggest corporations are the ones who seem to have the best loopholes

and the best international. They can start international things and claim losses on all kinds of things. They can buy big buildings and then write off losses because of appreciation of equipment in the buildings. I mean, there are lawyers who have become very rich off of helping law. large corporations evade taxes. And it's all legal, but they're really, really good at it. And your mom and pop shops can't afford to do that. They can't afford to buy a rusted out warehouse in Missouri and then tear it down and claim it as a loss so that they can, and then, you know,

so that they can avoid their tax value. They're just not thinking in that realm. So, and you know, we famously, you know, the biggest corporations like Amazon seem to pay relatively the least taxes, right? I think that's the best example. You can say you're going after these people, but what comes on to it, the biggest corporations just don't, you know, they do pay a lot, but relative to what they make, it's not what the average American is paying in income taxes, for example. So, you know, small businesses are going to be hit by hard by this. Whether it's really enough to move the needle on people supporting Republicans in the midterms, I don't know, it remains to be seen. All right. Thank you for that, Casey, but let's move on. Interesting story this week about

the U.S. Department of Education and what's going on there, Republican lawmakers are concerned, and they're questioning the Biden administration about cancel culture on college campuses. And as you wrote in your story, asking the question, why are federal taxpayer dollars funding it? Tell us about this story. Yeah, this is one of those instances where, yes, there is a controversial issue that many on the left, think one way about many on the right, think another way about, and it hasn't changed much, recently. But then the secondary question is, wait a minute, are taxpayer dollars being used to support one side of a really controversial issue? We've written about that with something like

critical race theory. And, you know, that's a very divisive issue. But we found out of reporting that a lot of federal funds were being used to support critical race theory. So it's kind of a similar story here. House Committee on Oversight and Reform, the ranking member, James Comer, and Virginia Fox, who's on the House Committee on Education and Labor. She's the ranking member there. They sent a letter to the Biden administration this week. And they're just raising the issue. They laid out a litany of times where both private and public universities have silenced conservative or right-leaning viewpoints.

And it's across the board almost always right-leaning viewpoints. And they've been silenced, have been kicked off campuses. They have been threatened. Speakers have been kicked off campuses. And that's one. thing. And I think that's not a secret. That's been in the news. That's a really controversial thing. But the lawmakers said, you know, hey, wait a minute. We are giving actually billions of dollars to these universities where conservative viewpoints are regularly being silenced. And so in a way,

we are subsidizing cancel culture against the right on these college campuses. And so they're kind of starting this process of asking the Department of Education, what are you doing about this? Are you keeping track of it? Are you taking any steps to make sure that, both viewpoints are heard on college campuses. Or are you even promoting it, encouraging it? Yeah, yeah. I think the answer to that is no. You know, former President Donald Trump's created a hotline where people could report when

their free speech was being silenced on their campuses. And that hotline was discontinued when the Biden administration came over. That's kind of a small thing. But I think it is illustrative of kind of the view on this. I think this is one just politically where the Biden administration can let it run its course. they don't want to disturb the more militant liberal wing and of their own party on this. And that's really what it is in the college campuses.

It is the most angry, most militant, most ideological wing of the Democratic Party finds its roots on these campuses. I mean, we've all seen the videos where people are screaming or really just throwing a tantrum because of different things. And so why from just a moderate Democrat or even liberal Democrat, Democrats' perspective, why try to stir up that rage politically when you can just keep the status quo on college campuses, which is college campuses get billions of dollars and we can go through how much they get. And conservatives are mostly silenced on these campuses.

It's a shame because colleges and universities are supposed to be a place where you share ideas, not just one idea or one side's idea, where you can discuss and debate issues from all perspectives. Unfortunately, the trend has been going in the other direction where only one side of the issue ideas are encouraged and promoted. The folks that real clear have done these annual surveys of college students regarding free speech on campuses. And sadly, their survey results every year they've done have shown that conservative students are much more afraid to speak out about how they feel about topics just because of the culture of campuses. And that's just, that's just not right. Why don't we move on though, Casey? We talked about inflation up top. Gas prices hit the peak.

Their peak, all-time highs in June, national average of a gasoline topping $5. They've steadily declined since then until recently. The past week or two, they're starting to rise again. Euro story this week. about that, but also the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, where the U.S. government is supposed to be storing tons of oil and gas in the case of an emergency, particularly national security, but President Biden has depleted that. What's going on here? This is a really interesting story. A few things are happening at the same time, as you pointed out, gas prices have steadily dropped. They hit over $5 a gallon in the middle of June, earlier this year, which was an all-time high for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline.

And it steadily dropped since then. And actually Tuesday of last week, the Biden administration really touted that gas prices have dropped. They were bragging about it. And I don't know if this was fade or what it was. But the very next day, the prices actually went up. And they've gone up since then. And so according to AAA, the average price for a regular gallon of gas is $3.80.

So we're at $3.80 a week ago, the average was $3.70. So we've gone up a dime in the last week after all this steady decline. We've almost erased already the last month of decline. We're almost at the same price it was a month ago, even though it's been steadily declining for a month. So you could say it's actually rising faster than it was declining during this decline, which is poorly timed because, as you pointed out, the strategic, petroleum reserve is hitting a low point. It has the lowest point in nearly 40 years. Now, a big reason the gas prices have declined is because earlier this year, Biden authorized

something like 180 million barrels could be released this year to keep gas prices low. And so they were just going to release, it's kind of a steady trickle. It's not all, it wasn't 180 million, you know, all of once, they steadily release it over several months to to depress those prices, right? And that was, you know, it was a way to respond to help Americans struggling, all that. But now we're almost out. We've only got about 15 million barrels that have been authorized to be released, that haven't been released yet.

So that means that we are almost running out of the oil that was kind of artificially depressing these prices. And even with that oil, prices are still going up now. And so then it begs a couple questions. What's going to happen when we run out of the authorized released oil, right? And then there's the other question of, hey, the petroleum reserve as a whole is at the lowest point in nearly 40 years, which as we, you know, puts us in a, you know, there's more natural disasters. If there, if, you know, God forbid, some kind of conflict or more serious war broke out tomorrow, we'd be in a really tough pinch because we've depleted the oil that's supposed to be reserved for. for the worst of times.

And if we've seen, you know, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, you know, a war can have a really impact on the global oil markets. It's made all the gas prices go up. It's made it really hard for things to be transported, supply chains. You know, Europe is really struggling with energy because of this war. So it's just, I think it has a lot of people feeling uneasy. Republicans really been attacking Biden on it. But even experts are raising kind of the red flags that the reserve has gotten really low.

So the last thing I'll say to it, I'll toss it back to you is that we have seen a kind of a leveling off in the last two months of the overall inflation numbers. But when you look closely at the data, the price of so many goods and services has continued to increase, even though the overall inflation number hasn't really increased. And that's been because the price of gasoline has declined so much that it's offset the increases in other things. But that decrease in gas prices was only really happening in large part because of the strategic petroleum reserve. So what's going to happen when we don't have the petroleum reserve anymore artificially lowering not only gas prices, but the overall inflation rate, which I think we're going to see inflation shoot back up by the end of this year. And then I said the last thing. But then there's a political question of this, which is it was well-timed that we saw inflation go down right before the November midterm elections. But it may have been played a little too hard too early because of those prices starts to go back up again in October and then into November.

It could be really bad news for Democrats. So we'll just have to keep an eye on that. Let's stick on the topic of energy. Tomorrow is October 1st. We are going to be heading into the winter months when home heating bills are going to start going up. You wrote a report yesterday from the American Legislative Exchange Council that studied and analyzed energy policies state by state. And one of the things they found that was that in states that are pushing for green energy, putting restrictions on fossil fuel and other things like that, that their energy costs significantly higher. Tell us more about this report.

Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, there are different factors that affect, you know, oil and gas. It's harder to get energy to place Hawaii and Alaska because they're not contiguous. You know, there are some outlying factors that affect things. But overall, the biggest tie that this report from Alec found is that government intervention leads to higher price. So I'll read this quote from the report. It says, when the government inserts itself into the energy markets, taxpayers foot the bill. And they added that inefficient government mandates, driven by political interests, often pick winners and losers,

and individual energy markets causing at best skyrocketing costs through poor investment decisions. So there's a few things happening here. And there are some states that fare better than others. We can take a look at and see our listeners if your state's doing well or doing poorly. But when the government makes these rules that limit things, obviously a lot of that is motivated by the climate, but by interest related to the climate. But when they do it, so often it's the devil. and the details, it's really hard to influence a free market, influence a sector of the economy without there being really negative externalities and creating a policy that hurts one industry

really bad. And then the other one does fine. And then you look at the, it all washes out. There's actually not a huge environmental benefit. So even if you agree with maybe some of the motives for trying to do these policies, it's extremely difficult to do them in a way that doesn't do more harm than good, especially when you look at, you know, choosing different energy sources and then promoting others. I mean, you know, we've talked to a little bit about like electricity, you know, electric batteries and things. And that is seen as a quote-up, a good energy source and there are benefits to it. But so much of the mineral mining that has to be done to find, you know, provide the minerals and the metals needed for the batteries for really

harmful to the economy. There's sometimes child slave labor involved overseas. And so I think that's one of the things to keep in mind at this report is even if you agree with the motives, it's not so simple. It's just saying oil bad, other things good. It'll, you know, and we'll just take the economic consequences. It's more complicated than that. And we see that when the government does intervene, it makes everything more expensive for regular Americans. Yeah. And I mean, throughout history, you can provide example after example of that when when government gets involved and starts regulating things putting you know strict rules in place about stuff certainly everything's going to go up with inflation where it's at gas prices starting to tick back up now home heating bills heading

into winter um expected to be last year they were significantly elevated uh over 2020 this year you're expected to be significantly elevated over this year you just got to wonder what's what's americans breaking point when it comes to these high costs. But that is a rhetorical question, Casey, because we are out of time. A reminder to our listeners, you can find all of the CenterSquares podcast in America's Talking.com. Take a look. Please subscribe. There is no cost. This has been the American Focus podcast for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McAleb. We'll talk to you next week.