America's Talking - Episode 68: Biden Takes Heavy Fire, Defends Himself After Inflation Data Shows Continued Price Increases

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

Join The Center Square's Executive Editor Dan McCaleb & D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper as they discuss: Biden takes heavy fire, defends himself after inflation data shows continued price increases. 'Breathing Room': Social Security Administration announces major raise for seniors. Prices continue to rise with food costs soaring, inflation data shows. 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 back to the America In Focus podcast powered by the Center Square. America in Focus is a production of America's Talking Network. I'm Dan McAulib, 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 is Casey Harper, as he does every week. The Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief, how are you, Casey? Doing good, Dan. How are you? I'm doing well.

we are recording this podcast on Friday, October 14th. Casey, we just can't stop talking about inflation. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Consumer Price Index data on Thursday, showing consumer prices rose another 0.4% in September. That's contributing to an 8.2% increase in the last 12 months. Food prices in particular continue to skyrocket, leaving many American families struggling to keep up. Casey, what can you tell us about this? Well, you're absolutely right.

Many American families are struggling to keep up. And the overall increase for both producer prices and consumer prices in the month of September was 0.4%. They may not sound like a lot. And it's definitely lower than it has been. We saw full 1% increases in just one month earlier this year, which is really high. But when you consider, we're going to get more into this, when you consider that the Federal Reserve has hiked rates several times at this point, that you may forget that or may remember now that we passed an inflation reduction act.

And we're still seeing these percentages are pretty high considering all the things we've done to try to get inflation low. So the overall inflation, you know, price increase for consumer and producer prices for the last 12 months was over, over 8% for both of them. But if you start looking at specific categories, some things that Americans rely on every day were much, much higher. So food at home, you know, like growing to the grocery store was 13%. increase in the last year, right? And as we've said many times in this podcast, very few Americans are getting a 13% raise in the last year. So your budget requirements are getting higher and that income is not keeping up with it, which makes it difficult for Americans. And other things like energy, even though we've seen gas prices go down a little, you know, from their record highs in

the middle of June this year, one, they've started to inch back up. But then even if you look, gas prices increase or energy prices compared to this same time last year or over 20% increase. Right. So grocery, if you're just talking about the basics of your budget, we're not talking about going to buy a new car or even buying a new home, although that's very difficult now with interest rates. We're talking about the basics of paying your energy bills and going to the grocery store. Those things have doubled, maybe triple or quadrupled what the kind of raise that most Americans get. So they're seeing that cut, and they're having to make decisions. Polling shows they cut back on summer vacations. They cut back on things like school supplies.

The money's got to come from somewhere, and they're having to cut back. And with the, well, first, I'm looking at the AAA gas price index right now. A month ago, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.70. The current average is $3.90, so up $0.20 over the course of the past 30 days. That certainly hits. You referenced grocery prices being up more than 14% year over year. And with the Fed drastically increasing interest rates, American employers are starting to look at cost savings, and that means jobs. So we expect the unemployment rate to increase over the next several months. This is just a tough economy right now. It is. And gas prices were about $2.50.

when Biden took office. So I give you some context. We can talk about these increases months a month or things. But if you just go back to when he took office, it was a national average of about $2.5 per month. So these increases have been significant. Also, inflation rates were, you know, just a couple years ago, we're in the one or two percent neighborhood. Let's talk about President Biden, because let's face it, whether he's fully to blame, partially to blame, you know, whatever. these prices started rising shortly after he took office. What are his critics saying? Well, his critics are on him.

He's defended himself pretty ferociously. He's first, you know, they blame COVID. And then they said it was transitory, meaning temporary. Inflation was just here for a few months. It would go away. And then they later walked that back when it became clearly not true. Inflation's still here. It's still increasing.

And then, you know, they blame supply chains. They blame the Ukraine war. But in all, and it's, to be fair, those things do, did have an impact. And they have had an impact, you know, Ukraine is a major exporter of things like fertilizer and wheat. So it's really impacted, you know, it's going to impact food prices. It has and it will continue to for months. There's probably going to be real severe food shortages in other parts of the world because

of what happened to Ukraine. So we can't minimize and say those had no impact. But what we've seen is most consistently. is that federal debt spending and federal money printing has been the most consistent element over the last few years as we've seen this. We had supply chain issues that have mostly resolved. We had the pandemic, but it mostly resolved. The Ukraine war is bad now, but it wasn't here.

It wasn't a factor when inflation was soaring earlier. I mean, the Ukraine war is still pretty new, and inflation was soaring well before the Ukraine war. So yes, these things have had an impact, but the most consistent is the federal money printing. And even the big banks have said and pointed out, and we wrote about this to the center square.com, that the federal stimulus during the pandemic, especially the $1.9 trillion bill that was passed in March coming out of 2021, they blame that as like a key factor for the record inflation that we're seeing right now. Because when you pour money on this kind of

problem, it can be like gasoline on a fire that has this really caused it to leap up. And so they're pointing to that. They're also pointing out that wages have just not kept up. You know, inflation is one thing. But if wages are rising and keeping up, you know, it's, it really blunts the negative effects because, you know, people, things are more expensive, but people are making more money so they can handle it. But, you know, the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank just released this report, which looked at wages compared to inflation. It showed, it found that they have actually had the most severe pay cut in 25 years because of these higher prices. So, This is not just, I think I'd try to bring it down to these, how it impacts regular Americans.

Because inflation, GDP, producer price index, these numbers are kind of ethereal. They kind of just up in the sky. But when you talk about things like energy prices rose more than 20%, grocery prices rose 13%. Biggest pay, most of your pay cut in 25 years. When you started talking about these real world impacts, I think a lot of people listening to this will say, yeah, that's been my experience. I've had to cut back. I did have to skip my summer vacation because of gas prices. And so this is not something that can be ignored. Gas prices going back up right now and inflation going back up right now is also really poor timing for Democrats in the midterms. I don't think that's top of mind for

most people, but it's definitely top of mind for the Biden administration. Yeah, looking forward, with gas prices continuing to rise, you also mentioned grain and wheat prices. Steve Wilson, the Center Square Southeast Bureau editor wrote a story just yesterday about a drought in the Midwest, essentially leading to the Mississippi River water levels to be at 20-year lows, and they're worried barges are having a hard time navigating the Mississippi River, and that could affect food prices even more because, you know, we're winding down harvest season, and things like wheat, grain, soybeans, they need to be transported. And there's concerns that that's going to add to supply chain issues.

Yeah, that's right. And I mean, there's a shortage right now of oranges in the southeast. I mean, Florida's orange production is way down. And, you know, there's a lot of little things we can point to. There was an avian flu that really made the price of eggs skyrocket in the last year. And what, you know, these things, these things happened in the agricultural markets, natural disasters happen. But what this shows is that when you leverage federal spending and money printing so much and you get this inflation so high, you're not able to weather these kind of storms when they come along. You know, there's no tension left in the band.

You know, you've already stretched the economy. You've stretched Americans budgets. You've stretched spending to such a limit that you can't respond to crises. It's kind of the same principle that we've talked about with the strategic petroleum. reserve, which has been down to the lowest level in decades now because Biden has emptied out about 180 million barrels to get gas prices low. And I understand the reasoning for that. It did work to a certain extent.

It got gas prices lower to help Americans. And helping Americans make ends meet could be definitely a justifiable reason to use it. But now that it's so low, if something does come along, if we do have a real conflict with Russia, which is seeming more and more likely, unfortunately, well, guess what? We have, we've stretched our reserves so thin. And so because of a kind of our poor decision making, so many of our backstops and so many of our ways to protect ourselves, we use though, we've been using those. And so when crises like this come along, like the Mississippi River you're talking about, it's just the effect is amplified because we don't

have a way to address it because we've already used up those ways. Yeah, and you're still a young lad there, Casey. I'm a little bit older than you. And I've got, you know, I've got my eye on retirement at some point, but my 401k, oh, my goodness, it's taking a hit this year. What's yours looking like? Oh, yeah. Well, I'm planning on starting one here any day. It's going to be great. No, you're right.

I mean, it's no joke. If you're looking at your 401k, I do you have a 401k, though not as busty as Dan's is, I'm sure, with that executive editor salary and all those decades and decades and decades of investments. in it. I mean, if you if you're 401k survive the Great Depression, Dan, you can survive this. That's what else. But I'll bump. That's a good one. Well, speaking of retirement, because of this 40-year high inflation, the Social Security Administration announced Thursday a significant benefits increased for Social Security recipients. Tell us about that. Yeah, this is great news for you, Dan. Social Security announced really the highest ever increase for seniors that are still alive today.

It was an 8.7% increase. This is going to begin basically at the end of the year come January. About 70 million senior citizens are going to see this increase. It's about, you know, on average, $140 increase per recipient. And they directly tie this to rising inflation. They use the Bureau of Labor Statistics data that we've done. write about all the time. It's the same group that releases the producer price data, the consumer pricing data. So they're directly tied to this federal inflation data. We talk about all the time.

And CPI is gone up, as I said, over 8%. And so Social Security Administration raised their income benefits by 8.7%. So if you're a senior, you're listening, you can expect those increases to take effect in January. Well, good for them. I'm just hope social. Social Security is still sustainable. I'm still a few years away from qualifying, but I'm just hoping it's still sustainable when I am ready to retire, which is not yet, particularly because of my 401k. Yeah, I think most people my age don't expect it to be around when we retire. Why don't we talk about another. Classic. Classic boom, just chuckles at the failing social safety nets. It's a lot. If you don't laugh about this stuff, you're only going to cry, so why not?

Yeah, yep. Well, let's talk about how inflation is affecting small businesses. You covered a survey this week that shows small businesses are really hurting. Tell us about that. Yeah, inflation is kind of like a disease that affects every part of the body, in this case, every part of the economy. So the National Federation of Independent Businesses released this survey, which shows that 30% of owners named inflation as the single most important problem in running their business,

not marketing, not finding the right people, not dealing with technology at the changing marketplace or dealing with the global economy. No, it's inflation. It's kind of a man-made problem here at home. And so this quote from chief economist Bill Dunkelberg, he said, inflation and worker shortages continue to be the hardest challenges facing small business owners. So worker shortages are up there as a concern, but inflation is still at the top. And especially for businesses that say they're struggling, so businesses say, hey, you know, like they're making less money or they've seen a decrease or they're struggling to, you know, make their payrolls or anything like that.

They in particular say inflation is their biggest concern. 42% blamed the rise and the cost of materials of those struggling businesses. So far in a way, you know, only 21% blamed weaker sales. Imagine that. I mean, you know, a business is struggling. You assume like, oh, you're not getting as many customers. But only 20% said it's the customers. 40% said it's their rising costs that are the problem.

Right. And with, I mean, small businesses are really getting hammered on many different fronts. From the rising costs of goods and inflation, the worker shortage, You mentioned the supply chain issues. You've written about at thecentersquare.com multiple times about Americans saying they're cutting back on certain spending. So that impacts small businesses, certainly restaurants and places like that. It just, I don't know how they manage it.

Yeah, and they've, you know, small businesses have been through a lot. They just had to deal with the COVID-era shutdowns where local governments basically made them shut their doors and just hope they've seen. survive and a lot of businesses went out of business, not because of COVID, but because of the government forced shutdowns of their businesses, right? And so now those who have survived that, now they're dealing with what is not entirely, but a largely government created a problem of inflation. And so I don't think this is always the case, you know, but right now I think small business as big as enemy is the government, which has shut them down, has made things really

difficult for them has, you know, spiked their cost. And it's not even the regulatory things that we can talk about that. I mean, that is a factor that does increase businesses cost. But right now, the inflation is killing the pandemic shutdowns. And so many have gone out of business. You know, earlier this year, we wrote about these surveys that were, you know, a third or even to, like almost half of small businesses thought they might go out of business by the end of the year. I mean, this has been the mindset for small businesses. really, I think, since the pandemic, this could be my last year in business. And they're just trying to make it buy, right? Trying to get by. And I also point out, when Americans,

their budgets are strapped and they have less disposable income, you know, who pays the price for that? It's the ice cream shop down the street because we can't afford ice cream anymore. We're just going to, you know, buy, make spaghetti because it's cheaper. We're not going out anymore. So when Americans have less disposable income, it's these local small businesses that are, you know, that discretionary spending, household spending, that pay the price. Let's transition away from inflation, Casey. You wrote a story this week about the U.S. State Department coming under some pretty heavy fire for including taxpayer-funded gender transition care for employees and their children.

Gender transition care has become a hot-button issue across the country with many states, even either introducing or passing legislation, particularly when it comes to children from banning it. What's going on here with the State Department? Yeah, this is really interesting. You know, transgender issues, transgender bathrooms, you know, transgender locker rooms, children getting transgender surgeries. I think this is very much an issue that is up for debate. Americans are still thinking through it. Some feel really passionately on both sides.

This is very far from kind of a settled issue in American politics. And I think it still remains to be seen kind of who wins out this debate over what's allowed to be done to kids, whether, you know, athlete, trained student or athletes really can't compete against women, even if they weren't born as women because of, you know, they're winning so much. And that's causing a lot of controversy. So I said, this is all very unsettled. But the Biden administration is proceeding 100 miles an hour as if it is settled. And I think that's what is causing a lot of controversy. So their Department of Education has been implementing rules really aggressively.

And now, as you mentioned in this story, the State Department is pushing gender transition for kids, even as several states have taken action to ban these things as child abuse. Because kids aren't 18, they shouldn't be able to consent to a surgery, is the argument. If they can't get a tattoo, if they can't buy a beer, they can't, you know, get a life-changing surgery or even puberty blockers, which there are some arguments out there saying puberty blockers are not permanent, but that's really not true. It's just not true. If you take them for a day-sitting period of time, they have permanent effects.

So anyway, that's the effect. What the State Department is specifically doing is, well, one, they're paying for transgender surgeries and drugs for their employees, right? That is, even though those employees may begin to live in states where it could be illegal. And so that's part of the controversy. Another thing that's really interesting here, though, is that that, the State Department is actually really pushing transgender issues on our allies and on countries around the world. And, you know, we're actually, I think, at the tip of the spear on the transgender

issue when you compare us to countries around the world. So the State Department, a lot of people don't know this, but the State Department pushes, you know, LGBT issues on countries around the world and they consider it like a human rights thing. They consider it part of their mission. So much of taxpayer funding goes to, you know, things like gay rights, right? And that's been happening for a while. And I think the State Department was not really tip of the spear on that. They were about in the middle of Western countries when it came to that issue. But when it comes to the transgender issue, I think we are really pushing something and advocating it for it to our allies in a way that a lot of them aren't ready for. And there's even talk about labeling countries that don't toe the line

on transgender issues as human rights abusers. And that would include some of like our closest Western allies, some of the freest countries in the world, some of the most like the bastions of Western freedom. Some places like the UK may not even meet our standards for transgender issues. So I think, you know, we probably can't get into everything the state department is doing and all the geopolitical like whatever nation feels on it. And honestly, I'm not familiar with what every nation thinks about this issue. but the State Department is being really aggressive in it.

They have a history of being really proactive and aggressive on the LGBT agenda, and it's starting to bump up against what other countries, including our allies, think on the issue. Well, just one final thought on this before we move to our last topic. We only have a few minutes, and that's something you said earlier. If you're an adult, you make your decisions and you can live with them, that's fine. But when you're a child, 12, 13 years old and you're looking at transgender surgery, That is life altering. Just a couple of minutes left, Casey.

One last story you wrote this week that I want to talk about. That has to do with feds paying to train graduate students in diversity, equity, inclusion. This is a really controversial thing. This kind of is part of my series of looking at, hey, what does all this federal grant funding go to? I mean, I've written about federal grant funding for critical race theory, training for teachers and different things. But because I think this grant funding is this almost unsupervised just infrastructure that the federal bureaucracy has. And it has slowly become more and more of one side. And that's the liberal side.

And so so much of what, you know, it may be pejoratively called woke ideology, has really fully infiltrated the administrative state. And they have billions and billions and billions of dollars to give out to grants to institutions around the country. and the criteria that they begin to use is more and more progressive. And so, and it even affects, you might think, okay, that could affect a few agencies, but it even affects things like health research agencies. It affects things you think might be immune to it. So the National Institutes of Health, which is, you know, largely in charge of researching new cures, researching new medicines, being on the cutting edge of developing the treatments and cures and medicines

that are going to fight and address the next wave of health challenges. Far Nation, they are very much supporting this agenda of training people in equity, diversity, inclusion. That's the language you use, but it so often is it goes into the territory of what's been so controversial teaching about things like white privilege and how do we have equity in the medical field. So in this case in particular, NIH allotted $103,380 for a federal grant to train students, molecular and cellular biology students at the University, California, Davis, in quote, equity and inclusiveness. So this grant is not training them in new techniques, new research things, new treatments. It's an equity and inclusiveness. And I think this would not, I just want to make

clear this would not be a story if UC Davis, of their own accord, had an equity and inclusiveness treatment. I think that's, you know, within their right to do that. But the fact is that it's taxpayer dollars are being used to it. And I think Americans and our listeners have a right to know that $100,000 of their taxpayer dollars were used to push an agenda that probably many people wouldn't agree with. And so the program was used to help students create a kind of a student-led 10-week course for graduate students called mentoring up in an equitable and inclusive manner. So of course, critics say, hey, shouldn't this money be spent on actual medical? research. Isn't this a distraction for students? And by the way, why are taxpayers paying for it?

I think those are all valid criticisms. But that's what's happening. If you can imagine what kind of things are in the equity inclusiveness training. I'm trying to get more details on that. But I think the biggest thing here is we're just shining light on the fact that taxpayer dollars are paying for a lot of things that are really controversial. And we just know from reading the news and for keeping our finger on the pulse that a lot of Americans wouldn't agree with how their taxpayer dollars are being spent. Yeah, and taxpayers should have a say in these things, too. Casey, as usual, thank you for your insight. But that is all the time we have this week. A reminder to 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. This has been the America in Focus podcast for Casey Harper. I'm Dan McKalip. We'll talk to you next week.