Category Archives: economic news

economic news

Constitution lays it out there

Section 4 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, speaks with crystal clarity about how our government must treat the debt it owes.

Here is what it says: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

Wow, man. “Shall not be questioned,” the amendment states.

You know what this means? It means that the Republican dodge in demanding spending cuts before approving an increase in the debt ceiling is, um, an unconstitutional tactic.

President Biden is in the middle of talks with congressional leaders of both parties. He met with them in the Oval Office the other day. They’re planning another meeting on Friday. He said he is “considering” invoking the 14th Amendment if he and the GOP cannot reach an agreement on the debt ceiling.

I am not a constitutional scholar, but I certainly know a declarative statement when I see one.

Section 4 of the 14the Amendment is as declarative statement as anything I can find in the Constitution.

Joe Biden is as fluent in constitutional language as any man who’s ever held the office of president. Mr. President, you need to remind your congressional colleagues of what the nation’s governing document tells them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

They must avoid debacle

The debt-ceiling debacle that might befall the nation is an event that no sane politician anywhere should want to occur.

Republicans for the first time in the nation’s history are threatening to withhold the votes to raise the debt ceiling because they want cuts in spending to which they have contributed along with their Democratic colleagues.

Now that a Democrat is in the White House, though, Republicans are insisting on massive spending cuts to offset what historically — since the beginning of the republic — has been a pro forma vote to increase the debt ceiling. Where was the GOP outrage over spending when Republicans were in the White House?

Failure to do so would put the nation in default for the first time ever. The consequence of that? Well, every economist on Earth says the nation would spiral into economic catastrophe.

Millions of jobs would be lost; interest rates would skyrocket, making home- and auto-buying impossible; the stock market would collapse; retirement accounts would vaporize; and — this is where it really hits home for me — Social Security payments would be suspended.

I am on a fixed income. I rely on my Social Security income to pay my own bills. What’s more, if my retirement account goes poof!, then I won’t have that money on which could pay those bills.

How can I say this clearly? Do not allow any of this happen, GOP members of Congress! You will pay dearly for it at the next election.

That ain’t a threat. It’s a lead-pipe promise!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Word of warning: Don’t default, GOP

The men and women serving in Congress as Republicans seem to have lost their collective minds.

They are threatening to allow the United States — for the first time in its history — to default on its debt obligations. They want to negotiate big spending cuts to, um, reduce the national debt before allowing the debt ceiling to be lifted.

If Congress and the president fail to reach an agreement, well, catastrophe looms. President Biden says he won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling, because it’s an action the government has taken since the founding of the republic.

If we default on our debts, all hell is going to bust loose. All hell, I’m telling ya!

I don’t know about you, but I do not want to see my retirement portfolio flushed away. Yet that is what well could happen if we default on our debts.

I hasten to add that when Republicans served as president, the GOP was OK with raising the ceiling. No problem, man. They locked arms with their Democratic colleagues.

I also want to point out that the latest GOP pol to occupy the White House ran the debt up at a greater pace than any other administration in history. Where was the Republican outrage over that? I know the answer: There was none!

Congressional Republicans need to quit playing games and threatening to bring calamity to hundreds of millions of Americans’ financial well-being.

Time is running out. Raise the damn debt ceiling!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

‘New normal’ looks good

LUBBOCK, Texas — The “new normal” has become a welcome sight for this traveler upon returning to Texas after nearly a month on the road.

I am talking about gasoline prices.

There once was a time when spending $3 per gallon for gas would send me into fits of apoplexy. No more, gang.

I spent $6 for gas in California; $4 for gas in Oregon and Washington. Occasionally I would spot a gas dealer pitching gas for $3.99 per gallon.

I’m almost at the house in North Texas and today I topped off my truck’s gas tank at $3.19 per gallon. Good grief! I felt like the dealer was giving the go-juice away.

That’s the new normal for us who live in parts of the country where the cost of just about everything is less than it is in, say, the Pacific Coast, or in Hawaii, or the upper Atlantic Coast.

I noticed a billboard in California that seemed to boast about the fact that California charges motorists more than $1 per gallon in fuel taxes, which accounts for the unwieldly price of gasoline. Other states tax motorists far less per gallon.

I’m glad to be home, or at least closer to home than I was about two weeks ago. The price of gasoline causes far less sticker shock these days now that many of us have become accustomed to the new normal.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

A downtown treasure

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Not even a monstrous earthquake could destroy this downtown, which I understand is making a remarkable comeback from the misery of nature’s wrath … as well as a worldwide pandemic.

Downtown Santa Cruz is “the place to be.” No kidding! It’s fantastic. My niece brought Toby and the Puppy and me to see the downtown district in this coastal city. Frankly — and this is no exaggeration — it blew my noggin!

A gentleman, about my age, was playing a musical saw. He saw my great-niece, Ayla, and asked if she wanted to see him perform a trick. He pulled out a banana and balanced it on his nose. Then he played “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” on his saw for Ayla.

She was impressed.

I understand that the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake devastated several businesses in the downtown district. They had to rebuild after Mother Earth opened that day. You remember, right: ABC TV was broadcasting the World Series from San Fransisco that evening when the picture went black. I managed to come this way later that year and we went to near Ground Zero of the quake. The devastation was horrendous.

So it was in Santa Cruz. Downtown is back. It is full of retail activity. There remain a few empty store fronts, made so by the COVID pandemic of 2019-2020. I have noted many times that cities’ well-being more often than not is traced to the health of their downtown. Santa Cruz is on target.

What just boggles my mind is how a city of about 65,000 can invest what it has done in ensuring it has a vibrant city center. I now will doff my proverbial hat to the Santa Cruz power brokers for keeping its municipal identity alive.

Well done.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Taxing the rich: sensible

President Biden’s decision to seek greater tax loads for wealthy Americans makes sense on a couple of levels.

He unveiled his plan while announcing a proposed $7 trillion federal budget he said would reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. Biden wants to protect programs such as Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. As an elderly American patriot, I welcome the president’s initiative.

Taxing those who make more than 400 grand annually? That makes sense too.

It does because even by increasing the tax burden by a few percentage points will not make rich Americans “un-rich.” They’ll still be wealthy beyond belief. They just will have to pay more to finance the government from which they seek favors.

Billionaires will still be billionaires.

Moreover, it makes no sense to realize that working-class Americans pay more per capita in taxes than rich folks.

Spare me the argument that taxing rich Americans will harm the economy. It damn sure won’t! We’re all in this together, isn’t that right? So, make the rich men and women pay their fair share of taxes and — so help me! — find some method of closing those damn loopholes through which they avoid paying taxes.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

‘Pork-barrel spending’ has vanished?

Whatever happened to the term once used by budget hawks to vilify politicians who spend money “recklessly”?

That would be “pork-barrel spending.” It has vanished, seemingly, from the contemporary glossary of verbiage in today’s contentious political climate.

I remember when a former U.S. senator from Texas, Republican Phil Gramm, would boast about “bringing home so much pork, I was afraid I would come down with trichinosis.”

“Pork” is the term that refers to special project appropriations that members of Congress sneak into legislation. You know what I mean: money for bridges, airport control towers, road-and-highway improvements, federal office complexes. The late Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, another Republican, once was vilified for his “bridge to nowhere” for which he managed to get money appropriated.

I am not entirely opposed to “pork-barrel spending” if the project that the Congress member is pushing actually does some good for the public. I mean, these men and women, do work for us. We demand certain things from our lawmakers and, as always, it takes money to make those things appear in our states and congressional districts.

In Collin County, Texas, we have a first-term Republican, Keith Self, representing our interests. I don’t hear much about his work to ensure federal money to improve our infrastructure. Instead, I hear him talking about “election integrity,” and a whole array of social issues that, frankly, mean next to nothing to me.

And our state’s two GOP U.S. senators — John Cornyn and Ted Cruz? They, too, are busy condemning Democrats to concentrate on matters of more immediate concern to their state.

If the MAGA crowd among the GOP congressional caucus is interested in controlling federal spending while they threaten to renege on our national debt — a truly catastrophic proposal — then they will resurrect “pork barrel spending” as a fiscal talking point.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

Biden budget = political weapon

Let’s put it all on the table: President Biden’s announcement of a new federal budget proposal is aimed at a political audience, not at anyone in Congress who he can persuade to join him in the effort to advance the “values” he espouses.

Joe Biden ventured to Pennsylvania to unveil a budget he says will cut the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade. That is, to borrow a phrase, a Big F****** Deal.

He wants to raises taxes on rich Americans and corporations. He wants to preserve Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act. The president wants to shore up our military, our national intelligence network, the fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty. Biden wants to make community college attendance free.

Is this going to fly with what he referred to continuously today with the “MAGA Republicans”? Not a chance, man!

Instead, he has laid out a predicate for his 2024 re-election effort, which many believe he will announce soon. President Biden is going to put congressional Republicans on record as opposing the very things he said he wants to do.

I am all in with what he wants to accomplish.

Of course, looming mightily over all this is the threat by Republicans to crash the world economy by allowing the United States to default on the national debt that it has accrued since the beginning of the Republic. The president made that point, too, telling Republicans that they had a hand in running up that debt and that the U.S. Constitution requires the nation to maintain its “full faith and credit.”

Republicans, particularly the know-nothings who comprise the MAGA cabal, need to understand that they cannot mess with the national debt without collapsing the entire world economy. Got it? They had better!

President Biden’s budget as he has presented it won’t get through Congress. A big part of me believes the president — who knows how Congress works — understands that, but he has thrown down the gauntlet and dared the GOP to pick it up.

johnkanelis_92@hotmaial.com

economic news

Who’s playing politics?

How in this good ol’ world can Republicans say with a straight face that Democrats are guilty of “playing politics” when the GOP has turned the politics-playing game into an art form.

Consider the upcoming fight over the debt ceiling.

A Republican president ran up 20% of the total national debt during his single term in office. Congressional Republicans were silent when Donald Trump managed that feat. The debt happens to be on the books already as money is already spent. Meanwhile, the U.S. Constitution calls for the “full faith and credit” to be free of the political games now being played.

Now that we have a Democrat in the White House, congressional Republicans want to hold the national debt as a weapon to use against Democrats. What the hell?

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met today to discuss this debt ceiling matter. McCarthy came out of that meeting and suggested the two men made progress in settling their disagreements.

I get that we need to control government spending. I’m fine with that as a matter of principle. However, the debt ceiling must be lifted to allow this nation to maintain its full faith and credit. Bringing the debt ceiling crashing down would bring financial ruin. That is the truth. How about raising the debt ceiling, which is always done, and then talk about looking for greater fiscal responsibility?

Refusing to raise the debt ceiling arguably is the most brazen act of political gamesmanship imaginable. Thus, when the GOP accuses Democrats of playing politics, they are projecting their own sin on their opponents.

It is beyond shameful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

economic news

New U.S. rep to hold our debt hostage?

It is with chagrin that I must report that my new congressional representative has joined the cabal of right-wing fiscal hostage-takers in suggesting that we must cut spending before increasing the nation’s debt ceiling.

Keith Self, a McKinney Republican, wrote a letter to the editor of the Dallas Morning News in which he declared that unrestricted federal spending poses an existential threat to our nation’s economic health. Therefore, he implied, he won’t approve measures to increase the debt ceiling until we curb spending … and thus will put the nation’s “full faith and credit” in dire peril.

Self’s Third Congressional District constituents might have to watch their retirement accounts vanish if Self’s world view becomes policy in the House of Representatives.

Increasing the national debt has been a perfunctory act since the beginning of the republic. Only now, with the GOP’s narrow House majority being led by the MAGA cultists who comprise a loudmouthed minority of Republicans in the House, it has become an “issue” worth debating.

This is crap! Reneging on our national fiscal obligations would plunge the nation into economic “calamity,” according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Why do Republicans in Congress insist on threatening to do such a horrendous thing? What the hell kind of statement are they trying to make?

Furthermore, why are GOP members taking this posture only when we have a Democrat sitting in the White House? Where in the hell was the Republican insistence on spending cuts when one of their own — Joe Biden’s immediate predecessor — sat in the Oval Office?

These congressional clowns are showboating and grandstanding — and holding our life’s savings, yours and mine — hostage to their preening and prancing.

And the man who represents me in Congress is one of ’em.

Despicable.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com