America's Talking - Episode 9: Gas prices and mask mandates on the rise across the country

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

After experiencing low fuel costs last year in most parts of the country, gas prices have now hit a new seven-year high nationwide while multiple major U.S. companies announced Tuesday they would require vaccinations for their employees, a decision that has sparked controversy and likely legal challenges. 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.

Welcome to America in Focus, powered by thecentersquare.com. I'm John Spittaro, and this is the 31st week of 2021. Coming up, we'll take a quick look at one of the top stories from thecenter square.com and later, executive editor of the center square, Dan McAulip, and DC reporter Casey Harper, will take a deeper dive into some of the top stories of the week, including President Biden's plan to get more electric cars on the roads by 2030. questioning the legality of a new eviction moratorium and a new wave of vaccine mandates being issued by private businesses as COVID cases continue to rise.

Coming up right after this on America and Focus, powered by thecentersquare.com. Hi, this is Chris Krug, publisher of the Center Square. Our team produces the nationally read and recognized news stories at thecenter square.com, the country's fastest growing, non-profit, nonpartisan, state-focused news and information site. We deliver essential information with a taxpayer sensibility through reporting that's easy to understand and easy to share with your friends and family. We know that you need information that allows you to understand what the governor and your local legislators are doing. Get the news that you need to know at thecentersquare.com. That's thecenter square.com. Thecenter square.com.

Welcome back. Here are the top stories of the past week on the center square.com. nationwide gas prices have now hit a seven-year high. After experiencing low fuel costs last year in most parts of the country, the national average for a gallon of gas has risen to $3.19 a gallon. According to the website Gas Buddy, that's the highest average price for a gallon of gas since the week of October 12, 2014. In just one week, the national average rose by more than two cents. According to the American Automobile Association, or AAA, states that, saw the highest increase last week were Delaware, Nevada, Maryland, Illinois, Wyoming, and Idaho. Mississippi currently has the lowest average price in the nation at $2.78 per gallon,

followed by Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Arkansas. To read more about this story and many others, visit thecentersquare.com. Now for a closer look, over to Dan McAulb and Casey Harper. Thank you, John, and welcome back to American Focus, powered by the the CenterSquare.com. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me once again is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Dan, it's good to be here. Glad to have you as usual. Okay, so we're recording this on Friday morning, August 6th. Casey, lots to talk about this week, just as usual, with a Delta variant leading to rising infection

counts in states across the country. There's more COVID-19 news to talk about, no surprise there. But why don't we start with the latest news out of the Biden White House? Just yesterday afternoon, Thursday afternoon, President Joe Biden signed an executive order with a target of making 50% of all auto sales zero emission by 2030. That's nine years from now. That means in just this nine years, the president wants half of all cars that are bought by Americans to be electric powered vehicles as opposed to the gas powered vehicles

and that schmose like you and me drive. Casey, what can you tell us about this new executive order? Schmose, wow. Yeah, I'll talk to HR about that comment, but just kidding, we don't have HR. So this emissions, you call it a target, and that's the right word for it, because what Biden is put in this executive order, is not illegally binding, but it's definitely raised a lot of eyebrows. People are really just, it's a very accelerated timeline.

And 50%, now, you'd be curious to see if you wouldn't ask people on the street, what percentage of vehicles do you believe are electric? I think I'd be very curious experiment because you know, you see a Tesla on the road and it really catches your attention. And you know, you see these around and you might have the impression there's a lot of electric vehicles out there. But the Pew Research Center just released in June, you know, there's actually about 2% of new cars each year right now are electric.

And so, you know, and I have no doubt about the quality of these vehicles or anything, and I know people really enjoy them. But getting from 2% to 50% on anything is pretty amazing. In nine years, yeah. In nine years. And then, you know, not just changing consumer. habits, which is his whole issue because, you know, the cars are expensive. So a lot of middle class or lower income families, you know, it's a big cost issue. Buying a new car alone, you know,

let alone something that is more expensive like an electric vehicle. Also, just there's the whole, there's changing the whole manufacturing framework of the country to manufacture more electric vehicles and also to power them. So in Biden's initial, in Biden's initial, in Biden's initial infrastructure proposal, he had, you know, put quite a bit of funds in there to build electric charging stations all around the country. So this is in line with that. But it's a very aggressive timeline. California had a similar one. They had it for 2035 for all like all vehicles, new vehicles to be electric. We'll see, you know, these climate timelines are interesting because they're always set, you know,

ambitiously enough to get applause, but far enough out in the future where there's not immediate consequences for the politicians that make them, you know? So Biden won't be in office in 2030. It's very, you know, even if he has two terms. So we'll see, you know, what it plays out, but it's definitely going to have a big impact.

He won't be in office 2030 unless he follows the Trump plan and changes the Constitution to allow him to be president for life. Of course, Biden is a little, older, right? So let's not go down that path. So the issues I add, you mentioned, electric vehicles are significantly more expensive up front in terms of cost at the dealership. So the vast majority of Americans finance their cars. So they would have to borrow more money to make these purchases up front unless there was some sort of taxpayer subsidy. Now, is that Is that a possibility?

Would taxpayers be, because of Biden's aggressive plan, would taxpayers have to subsidize these purchases? Or is that you not known yet? Well, there's nothing, I don't think there's, you know, real final details and things. But I think what you're saying is something is definitely that is talked about in these circles and something that could very realistically happen. Now, I don't think we really have any details or anything across the finish line in that I regard. But tax payments, you know, know, you could even envision something, this is total speculation, but you can envision something

like interest-free loans from the government for this kind of thing. These are things within the federal government's power to do. They haven't said, you know, explicitly anything yet. But if you are going to hit this 2030 deadline, those are the kind of things that it will take because, you know, it's not the natural trend of the market is not going to take us. So it's going to take some level of government intervention. It's going to take making these cars cheaper, whether that's through, you know, very generous loans, whether that's through tax, you know, tax giveaways or either to the consumer or to the car company, which the car companies already do get, you know, tax giveaways for electric. So in that regard, it's already underway.

So while there are some benefits to electric and vehicles, probably the top one being is lower emissions helping to reverse climate change. There are also setbacks or negatives to this. Electric vehicles have a shorter driving range. You can't drive as far an electric vehicle before the battery runs out and you have to recharge it. You mentioned the shortage of electric charging stations

that are out there. Biden wants to use taxpayer funds to build more of those, but then it also takes longer to recharge electric vehicle. You drive into a gas station, you fill up your car, you're out in less than five minutes. It can take up to an hour to recharge electric vehicles. So it would lead to significant changes in consumer habits, in motorist habits. The folks who take longer, either longer commutes or are taking family vacations and they're driving, they would have to significantly change their habits in a very short amount of time.

And as you mentioned, the American economy just hasn't really been built on electric. And that's not necessarily saying that's a good or bad thing. It just hasn't been the way the economy has been designed. It's been very gas focused. And what this really means just on the national stage is that there's one really big fan of Biden's plans on this issue. And it's China. China does the vast, vast majority of manufacturing of green energy. products, particularly the batteries that go into these electric vehicles.

The United States, you know, Biden has had talks of building plants here and everything, but, you know, Trump had those same talks about building plants in the U.S. and not too much, not too much ever really came of it, but Biden has a China issue on his hands. And I don't know how he's going to handle that. It's just they do most of the manufacturing on this. So there's really two elements here. one, the economic impact of drastically and radically changing a significant part of the American

economy to benefit one of its rivals. There's that. And then there's also the national security issue of becoming two dependent on one of your rivals for its needs. You can imagine some kind of boycott, some kind of China hiking prices if tensions escalated. So of course, you know, maybe our younger listeners, don't, Dan, but you remember all the, especially the problems with OPEC and when we had a few countries that had control of our natural resources. And of course, they still have an important

role in that, but not to the degree they once had. And there was a time when OPEC could really control the gas price in America, not as much anymore. And that was a big national security concern. And that's because the U.S. just recently, in recent years, became energy independent when it comes to oil and gas because of hydraulic fracturing, fracking, and other new technologies, we're able to drill enough and pull enough oil out of American soil in the Gulf of Mexico and whatnot that we don't rely on Middle Eastern nations near as much for our oil and gas as we used to. So this would be essentially taking us in the opposite direction. We would be reliant on China.

Yes. For many of the products to get us to President Biden's target. Right, even more so than we already are. Correct. Correct. So listen, Casey, I'm hoping you're going to, you'll humor me here for a minute and play a game with me. You up for that? Oh, I humor you every day again.

I don't know about that. So let's just make a little comparison. Let's say instead of auto emissions, President Biden wants to target Americans' health. Okay, okay. He's concerned that you and me and other Americans are, I don't know, getting too obese. Okay, go ahead. Casey, are you familiar with a hostess brand of snacks?

Oh, too familiar, yes. Right, you've got your ho-hoes, you've got your twinkies, you've got your dandongs, snowballs, cupcakes, Susie Q's. Do you have a favorite? The cupcakes are definitely my go-to. Okay. something I didn't know about you. Learn something new every day. Thanks.

Let's just say for the sake of argument, ding-dongs are much healthier than cupcakes or ho-hoes or twinkies. Okay. And all the other host of snakes. I know that's probably not the case, but just for the sake of argument, humor me. Okay, got it. Let's say ding-dongs have less sugar than ho-ho's cupcakes and twinkies for this argument. They have more vitamins, you know, that kind of thing.

As I said, President Biden is concerned about your health and mine. So he issues an executive order that by 2030, 50% of all hostess sales are to be the healthier ding-dong snacks. Got it. Even though Ho-Hos and Twinkies and probably cupcakes, just because of you, are the far more popular brand among consumers, are retailers supposed to stock their shelves half with ding-gongs and half with all the other brands, including cupcakes and Twinkies and Ho's? And what if people like you beat me to the market and buy up all the ho-hoes and Twinkies, knowing that there's probably going to be a less supply because of the president's orders?

Are retailers supposed to not restock their shelves until consumers buy up all the ding-dongs so we can get to that 50 margin? Am I going to have to settle for ding-dongs, Casey, because greedy people like you bought up all the ratchez supply of Twinkies, cupcakes, and a ho-hos? Yeah, well, you're absolutely right. that if any order like this took place, I would be stocking up on cupcakes. There would be, the shelves would be empty within days. So it's a valid fear. You know, and it raises a good point, which is you can make speeches and you can make

promises, but they have real economic impact. And so let's see. You can't imagine this situation where you go to the grocery store and your favorite desserts are gone and the shelves are just full of the ding-dongs, which is the one no one wants. But until you eat all of those, you can't get the thing that you actually want. And then what do you do? Just let the shelves. So at the end, it's particularly interesting to think about this from the grocery store owner's perspective. You know, why even sell the desserts at all at that point? With all due respect to hostess, I'm sure ding-dongs are good. I'm sure some

Americans do like the ding-dong brand. It's just not for me. I prefer, you prefer cupcakes. I prefer Twinkies and ho-ho's. But under this scenario, ridiculous as it may sound, are taxpayers going to be forced to subsidize my purchase of ding-dongs just to incentivize me to purchase them? Because I don't want ding-dongs, mind you. I want Twinkies and Ho's. But are taxpayers going to be forced to subsidize my purchase just to meet that quota, that 50-50 quota? Well, let me ask you. you. Would you buy the ding-dongs if they were half as cheap as the Twinkies because of a federal subsidy that made them half as cheap? That is a very good question. I'd have to really ponder that for a while, and I don't know that I'm prepared to answer it today, Casey. Why don't

why don't you give me a week to think about it? Maybe we revisit it next week. But to bringing this back to the president's auto admissions order. Let's say you and I walk into an auto dealership in 2030 about the same time. But you beat me to the purchase. You buy a gas powered vehicle. Is the dealer going to have to tell me, well, I can't sell you a gas powered vehicle right now because Casey just bought one. You ought to wait until we sell an electric vehicle first. Now, I know that sounds ridiculous. You set up top. This was not a mandate or whatever. It's just a target. But really, Are we heading in that direction? Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're right.

It's not a mandate, but it's interesting to just think about, you know, the implications of a world where you're trying to manipulate the market to get it to a certain place that people just don't really want it to be. And we've seen how hard it is to, you know, quote unquote, control human behavior, even with things like the vaccine, not to get too off track or anything. But even for a, you know, a vaccine during the time of a pandemic, I mean, getting up to 50% of people on that was a very, a big chore. So the idea of getting people to buy the kind of car that you want them to buy, even though it's more expensive. And doing that in a short period of time, I mean, I don't know. It's a big job. I don't know what's going to happen. All right.

Well, we need to move on. But right before we do, let me just say, stop hoarding all the cupcakes, the hostess. or the ho-hoes and the Twinkies, Casey. Buy some ding-dongs for the rest of Americans' sake, okay? Okay, got it. All right. Also this week, Casey, news about the eviction moratorium. Since the beginning of the pandemic, early last year,

there has been a national, federal eviction moratorium in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, couldn't afford rent, couldn't afford to pay their mortgages. That eviction moratorium was set to expire over the weekend, on July 31st, but this week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended a very similar eviction moratorium until October 3rd, even though the U.S. Supreme Court in a ruling this summer said that Congress would have to do that, not the administration. What can you tell us about this?

Yeah, you're absolutely right. It was interesting. In the Supreme Court ruling you referenced, the Supreme Court pretty clearly said this is not allowable for the executive to do. Like the president cannot do what Biden did. But because the order is already set to expire, we're not going to intervene. But just to be clear, he overstepped his authority. He can't do this. And if this wasn't set to automatically expire, they probably would have intervened. And so after that order, you know, it's kind of been lingering.

Biden has been getting a lot of pressure from certain Democrats in the House in particular to extend the eviction moratorium. Basically telling landlords they can't remove people from their property, even if those people haven't paid rent in a year or something, right? Even since the beginning of the pandemic, if they haven't paid rent on the landlord has to keep footing that bill. And Pelosi has been really, particularly has really been pushing Biden to make this, to issue another. moratorium, another extension. And in response, Biden basically said that it's not constitutional. He didn't quite say that explicitly, but he said that he had really had doubts that he could have the authority to do that and really Congress need to pass something. And then Pelosi said, no, you do. And they basically paid this game of chicken up until the July 31st deadline and it

expired. Right. And so then the heat really turned up to do something on this because people, we're going to be getting, you know, evicted finally after a year, potentially not paying rent. And it's over, it's like, it's like 3.6 million Americans could potentially face eviction over this. So, you know, it's a big deal. And so Biden quite, you know, actually, almost like, you know, within days of saying that he didn't think he had the power to do it, even the day before. Then the next day issued a moratorium. And basically reading between the lines a little bit here, what a lot of people or experts are saying happened is Biden knows that this is unconstitutional, but he issued it for another 60 days, and that buys time politically for him to kind of kick this can down the road. And also for these people who are going to be evicted, it buys him some more time.

And by the time the moratorium gets, you know, challenged legally and overturned, you know, it'll have been, that's going to take some time, right? So in the meantime, he's going to keep doing it. You know, White House Press Secretary Jensacki said that the president feels that he had the authority to do it. But there's a lot of people kind of skeptical of that because of the president's previous comments. So you mentioned 3.6 million Americans would face eviction. no doubt if 3.6 million Americans were evicted within a short period of time, that would be a crisis, right? But didn't Congress pass through a couple of pieces of legislation? Didn't they try to address this problem by passing billions of dollars in housing and rental assistance?

And what's going on with that? Right. And so before we quickly, before we get on to that, I would just say the 3.6 million number is interesting because just because you're not paying your rent doesn't mean you can't pay your rent. right and you can imagine I mean it's not right but you can imagine human nature this situation where you can afford to pay your rent but you know because of the new government mandate that your landlord can't kick you out even if you don't so you know okay I'll just won't pay my rent I'll pocket this extra money so you can imagine a situation where the landlord says hey you have to pay your rent now the law has changed they would say okay I'll pay I'll

start paying now and I'm not saying that that's the case for everyone but I'm sure there are people in that category. Certainly there's some percentage of that 3.6 million people who haven't been paying their rent who could and just chose not to take an advantage of the, taking advantage of the system. But the really interesting thing in this and, you know, some Republicans who are pointing out, Senator Pat Toome, he's been very vocal on this, is that Congress has passed billions of dollars in funding to help with this very problem. to help people, the money just would go to people to help them pay their rent. So they get to pay their rent.

The landlord gets paid. The money is sitting there. It's almost $50 billion. And the vast majority of it has left unspent. There's a few reasons for that. But really, it goes to the states and they distribute it. One example is Missouri, which I write about in the article. If people haven't seen it or want to read it, but they've only distributed about little over 5%

of their federal assistance funds. Wow. And this money has been there for a while. People have not been paying their rent for a while. And so if you're a landlord in Missouri and you own a couple houses, you have your own home and you own like two houses and people haven't paid rent since March of last year when the pandemic began. And you just found out that the government extended the moratorium

in other 60 days and you're paying three mortgages. And meanwhile, your state government has billions of dollars that could be going to you if they just got it out the door, right? Because there's a lot of people pretty frustrated about this. And even, you know, the Senate Republicans are saying, we pass this money states, you need to use it because people are hurting. So it's up to, it's essentially up to state legislatures and state governors to allocate this money to make these federal dollars, some of which were approved during the CARES Act,

which was March of 2020. So well over a year ago. So it's up to these state legislatures and these state governors. to get these money, these monies in landlords and others' hands to relieve renters who haven't been paying their rent. Which brings me back to how, I mean, this latest extension goes through October 3rd. Of course, there'll probably be legal challenges to it just because of the Supreme Court's earlier decision saying the executive branch couldn't do this. But you know how long it takes to get things through the courts and get up to the Supreme Court. So October 3rd might be here, might be here by the time it actually gets to the Supreme Court.

But then again, President Biden and the CDC can continue extending this, theoretically, barring the Supreme Court just completely shutting it down. So the question remains, how long is this going to go on? How long are landlords and apartment owners and whatnot who are still paying property taxes, who are still paying, maintenance costs, any of these, particularly these smaller landlords who rely on rent to pay their bills, how long could this go on? Now, that is the million dollar question right now. There've already been a lot of talks from even real estate companies on challenging this provision or this, you know, moratorium.

So I think that that's going to come very quickly, the legal challenges. I could definitely see a federal judge issuing a. stay of some kind because the precedent is so clear. And if this really did go to court, I think, you know, a lot of people are saying the president has already sunk his own case because when you have, you know, one, the plaintiff, I guess, saying on the record that he, what he did is probably not legal. That can really expedite things for a judge. And so, and get, get it up to this, you know, Supreme Court quickly. But there's questions about Supreme Court, you know, not even be in session stuff. So I do think, I do predict that this will be resolved this year. But there's a lot of

political things around this. I think a lot of Republicans don't want to be seen, you know, as the eviction guy. And so as much as there is some push, you know, and some criticism of Biden, it's not, it's going to be difficult to get a big rallying, you know, group people championing, championing, kicking people out. And I think it's more complicated in that, but that's how it'll be betrayed by their opponents. Some people in the media will say, you know, you're heartless, all this stuff. And the people who are fighting to keep people in their homes or heroes,

as is usually the case of politics, it's a little more complicated than the two sides are making a scene. But yeah, the short answer to your question is no one knows when this will be over, but I do think that we're going to have some legal challenges, you know, getting real traction quickly. And that definitely this year we're going to have some resolution. This is another story we'll be following closely. the CenterSquare.com. Casey, we have time for just one more headline. President Biden mandated

last month that a number of federal government employees are mandated to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and now a number of private employers are following suit. What can you tell us about that? Yes, this has been really controversial, but as a Delta variant has grown, there's been increasing pressure for Americans to be basically required to get the vaccine. So the real tipping point for all this was when the CDC reversed their previous guidance recently and said that even if you're vaccinated, you have to wear a mask. Now, this got, you know, was a big controversy because, you know, people said, well, if the vaccine works, why do I have to wear a mask? You know, the response to that is it almost always works, but it better safe than sorry. Biden quickly after

the CDC reverse their position announced that federal employees would have to get the vaccine or face, you know, or they'd have to get the vaccine. And California had a similar thing. But there's also talks if you can get a weekly COVID test instead of the vaccine, but those are pretty uncomfortable. And we would see how long that lasted. And now we've seen multiple major U.S. companies have follow suit. So we have Tyson's Chicken, Microsoft, Walmart. These are not small companies. Your Walmart is, I believe the largest employer in the U.S. in over 30 states. And so they're a major, major employer. They're requiring the vaccine.

You know, they're saying is because Delta, Tyson's even offered, so they have varying deadlines in ways they're going about this. But Tyson, for example, said all employees must be vaccinated by November 1st and will receive a $200 bonus for doing so. So it's a little bit of a stick. treat, I guess you would say, for the motivation on this. But, well, let me, let me jump in here for a minute. So there's, there's been this hiring crisis across the country, right?

Well, first let me say this. I've gotten the vaccine. I encourage Americans to get the vaccine. I know there's some skepticism. It has not been fully approved by the FDA. It's been approved for emergency use only, but it does early. data suggests that it does work it's not 100% perfect there are some breakthrough cases but the vast majority of folks who get the vaccine are not hospitalized even if they do contract um COVID-19 so i do

encourage it but mandating it seems to be a bit of a slippery slope for me but going back to this hiring crisis are these companies not concerned with these companies there's millions of jobs available. It's been hard to get some people who have been on unemployment for a year or more or however many months back to work in part because of the federal supplemental unemployment benefits. Are these companies not concerned that by mandating the vaccine, that they might, because of some vaccine skepticism in certain pockets, that they might lose employees and it might even grow the hiring crisis? Yeah, it's a great question. There is definitely a hiring crisis around the country.

I think it's a valid concern. I think that they've probably done the math and are trying to, one thing, I think they're trying to avoid some of these mass outbreaks that cause shutdowns. In Tyson's, I think they've had some trouble with basically a case of COVID runs through the whole plant and shuts it down. So I think that's kind of the other side of this is that they've already had to shut down for things because of COVID. But it's no question. I think they're playing the long game, which is that, you know, over time, they think that enough people will get vaccinated, that they'll be able to hire. The other interesting thing of this is that the racial breakdown is not even at all. And so, you know, it's a lot of areas minorities are less likely to be vaccinated.

And so another way of stating this mandate is that we're putting in place a requirement that makes minorities less like, less hireable. Wow. And so that's some of the criticism or that was a big criticism for in New York when, you know, New York passed some regulations about needing a vaccine passport to inner businesses or in restaurants. But in New York, it's, you know, minorities are much less vaccinated. And so that would run contrary to President Biden's one of his menacee, many Paul

positions is to is is to is to is racial equity um so so so that that would have a negative impact on on certain minority communities um that have not been uh right well that's and that's a starting to know but that's kind of a theme actually seems in this podcast is that uh good intentions are good but there's always unintended consequences for government action so you can mandate private, you know, you can mandate electric vehicles by 2030 and people understand the motives for that. You know, you can try to help people from getting evicted and people understand the motives for that. And you can mandate vaccines and we understand why. But for every one of these stories, there's a long list of downsides and problems and fallout,

as there always is when the federal government really steps in and takes a big action like this. And sometimes, you know, sometimes it's for the, better. Sometimes the fallout is worse than the, you know, the cure is worse than the disease sometimes. Kind of sort of a side issue, but also related. Just just sort of an interesting story that I read last night. CNN, the cable news network, also has a vaccine mandate for folks who go to the office. They fired three employees recently this week. Never mind that legal analyst Jeffrey Toomey, who's got his own, who's had his own separate issues and controversies. He's still employed.

Chris Cuomo, their most popular nighttime host, who's been advising or had advised his brother, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has his own separate issues on how to push back against his accusers. He's still employed, but they did fire three people for not getting the vaccine. Yeah, what's the name of the network? Cable News Network. CNN, have you heard of it? Never heard of it.

Okay. Well, get yourself educated, Casey. Now, that's all the time we have. Get yourself educated. Stop hoarding, hostess cupcakes. We'll talk to you next week. All right, thanks.