Search Results for: gas tax

Commentary: Joe Biden’s Top 10 Blunders

Admin
Joe Biden outside

As I’ve watched the events of the past few weeks – and thought about the nature of Joe Biden’s young presidency – I began to ask myself: How much more of this can we take?

In just seven months, President Biden has overseen a remarkable number of complete blunders. To make sense of them all and consider how to overcome them, I decided to make a list of them. Of course, it would take months of time and writing to list all the errors Biden has made in his 48 years in politics, so I decided to start at his inauguration in January. These are roughly in chronological order. It seemed impossible to rank them as so many of them could have lasting, unforeseeable consequences.

1 – Bipartisan Baloney

As I write in my upcoming book, Beyond Biden, which will be released on Nov. 2, the first major mistake Biden made was immediately failing to live up to the pledges he made in his inaugural address. In his inaugural address, Biden said: “Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this: Bringing America together. Uniting our people. And uniting our nation.”

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Commentary: Biden’s Electric Car Plan Means Rigging Manufacturing to Favor Unions

RealClearWire
At NREL future research should focus on understanding consumer driving and charging behavior and the nuances determining the choice of residential charging infrastructure for plug-in electric vehicles (PEV). Shown is in the Power Systems Lab in the Energy systems Integration Facility (ESIF)

In a highly orchestrated and publicized White House gathering this month, President Biden presented a detailed plan for the development of a U.S. fleet of clean, high-mileage electric automobiles that would reduce reliance on gasoline and generate thousands of good union jobs. It’s a new, government-encouraged, taxpayer-subsidized auto world. The plan calls for U.S. auto production to become 50% electric by 2030. Today, the electric share stands at a paltry 2%.

Top leaders from Ford, GM, and Stellantis (formerly Fiat-Chrysler), along with environmentalists and governors, were prominently invited to share in the announcement. Yet the absence of any non-union, America-located auto producers was glaring. There were no representatives from Hyundai, Nissan, or Toyota – companies that have long produced popular vehicles within our borders and recently expressed some support for Biden’s goal. Also striking was the absence of Tesla’s Elon Musk, the world’s acknowledged leader in the electric car and battery revolution. Tesla is an American firm, but it is not unionized.

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Commentary: How Unions Could Save America

Admin

The general perception within Conservatism, Inc. and libertarian circles is that collective bargaining is a violation of the right of the individual to seek work without being compelled to join a union. That sounds good in principle, but there’s much more to the story.

A few years ago, the workers at a local grocery store chain in California went on strike. The reason they voted to strike was that management had implemented a new policy whereby most of the employees, including full-time career workers, had their hours reduced to fewer than 25 hours per week. At the same time, these employees had their health coverage taken away.

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At Conference, Northam Says Virginia Is Ideal for Offshore Wind Industry

Eric Burk

RICHMOND, Virginia — Governor Ralph Northam and Dominion Energy CEO Robert Blue announced that the Port of Virginia will lease 72 acres of the deep-water Portsmouth Marine Terminal for staging and pre-assembly of Dominion’s offshore wind project.

“This announcement is yet another milestone toward making Virginia the national leader in offshore wind power,” Northam said. “The Commonwealth and Dominion Energy are standing together to promote clean energy, reduce carbon emissions, create jobs, and build a new American industry on the East Coast of the United States.”

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Judge Blocks Massive Alaskan Oil Drilling Project Backed by Trump and Biden

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A federal judge blocked a massive Alaskan oil drilling project Wednesday after ruling that the Interior Department inadequately measured its environmental impact.

Judge Sharon Gleason of the U.S. District Court of the District of Alaska wrote in her opinion that the Bureau of Land Management’s assessment of the ConocoPhillips’ Willow project was “arbitrary and capricious,” noting that it did not even include the likely level of greenhouse gas emissions in its environmental impact report.

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Five Counties in Tennessee End Vehicle Emissions Testing

Hayley Feland

Five counties in Tennessee are ending vehicle emissions testing. The counties are five out of six total Tennessee counties that require emissions testing on vehicles. According to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) Commissioner David Salyers, “It’s a recognition of the improvement of our state’s air quality and demonstrates the diligence Tennesseans have shown toward achieving and maintaining this goal.”

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Tennessee Finishes 2020-2021 Fiscal Year with a $3.1 Billion Budget Surplus

Laura Baigert

The State of Tennessee finished the 2020-2021 fiscal year with a $3.1 billion surplus in revenues, as compared to the budgeted estimates, Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Commissioner Butch Eley reported Friday.

After adjusting for the increased revenue estimate of $1 billion recommended by the Funding Board in November 2020 and passed by the General Assembly on April 29, Eley announced total tax receipts for fiscal year 2020-2021 are $2.1 billion more than the budgeted estimates.

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Commentary: American Armageddon

Admin

Americans are growing angrier by the day in a way different from prior sagebrush revolts such as the 1960s Silent Majority or Tea Party furor of over a decade ago.

The rage at the current status quo this time is not just fueled by conservatives. For the first time in their lives, all Americans of all classes and races are starting to fear a self-created apocalypse that threatens their families’ safety and the American way of life.

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Conservative Comedian and Political Writer Evan Sayet on the Left: ‘They Own the Media, but We Own the Truth’

Julie Carr

Wednesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed conservative comedian and political writer Evan Sayet to the newsmakers line to explain why he aims to spread the conservative message of truth one person at a time.

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Inflation Crisis: Consumer Prices Surge 5.4 Percent, Led by Food and Energy Costs

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Inflation increased at a rapid 5.4% clip compared to August 2020, the Department of Labor said Wednesday.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), a common tool used to measure inflation, increased 0.5% between June and July, according to the Labor Department report.

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Atlanta, Dallas, Tampa, and St. Louis Among the Cities Experiencing the Highest Consumer Price Spikes

The Center Square

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve Bank and Congress have taken unprecedented steps to stabilize the economy after entire industries and sectors ground to a halt last year amidst the public health crisis. The Fed has kept interest rates near zero, created lending programs to pump trillions of dollars into the economy, and bought securities to support financial markets. Congress passed three major COVID-19 stimulus packages in response to the crisis: the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March 2020, the $900 billion Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act in December 2020, and the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March 2021.

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Exclusive: Trump’s ‘America First’ Ohio House Seat Pick Tells How It Happened

Neil W. McCabe
Mike Carey

The Republican nominee for Ohio’s 15th Congressional District told the Star News Network about his August 3 primary win with 37 percent of the vote, how he decided to run for Congress, and his relationship with President Donald J. Trump.

“The numbers in my race show you that you can have all kinds of endorsements, but when you are supported by President Trump, you win,” said Mike Carey, a native of Sabine, Ohio, and a former president and chairman of the Ohio Coal Association.

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Federal Infrastructure Bill Could Pump $7.8 Billion into Michigan Roads, Bridges, Internet

The Center Square
aerial shot of Michigan highways

Michigan could be on the receiving end of $7.8 billion in federal dollars if the U.S. Senate’s $1 trillion infrastructure spending bill becomes law.

The estimated total is derived from $7.3 billion for Michigan highways and an additional $563 million to fix an estimated 1,200 bridges currently deemed in disrepair.

The monies earmarked from the bill would be in addition to the $3.5 billion in bonds issued by the Michigan Department of Transportation to fix the state’s roads and bridges, which is in addition to the $1.8 billion increase in the state’s transportation spending since 2012.

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Commentary: Trump and Trump-Backed Candidates Are Major Threats to Democrats

Admin

One of the residual effects of last year’s chaotic election is the palpable fear of former President Trump that still haunts the Democrats. Their congressional antics, from the absurd post-election impeachment to the parodic House investigation into the Jan. 6 “insurrection,” confirm that they are still very much afraid of the man they ostensibly defeated last November. This has nothing to do with any threat that Trump or his supporters pose to the republic, as media alarmists insist. The actual source of Democratic trepidation can be found in their lackluster performance in the 2020 presidential and congressional elections combined with Trump’s clear intention to become very much involved in boosting Republicans in next year’s midterms.

First, a reality check concerning the 2020 election: Biden didn’t win a popular vote landslide as the Democrats still claim. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) totals, he won 81,268,924 of 158,383,403 ballots cast. In other words, 77,114,479 people voted for Trump or one of the third-party candidates. That nearly 49 percent of the voters cast ballots against Biden, despite the unprecedented support he received from the media and Big Tech cannot fail to worry rational Democrats. Nor can they help being unnerved by a poll conducted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) that strongly suggests their anemic 2020 congressional showing portends worse results in 2022.

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June General Revenue in Florida Exceeds Economic Forecasts

Casey Owens
Florida’s Historic Capitol and Florida State Capitol

The Florida Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research (EDR) reported just under $4.1 billion in general revenue (GR) for the month of June to cap off the 2020-2021 fiscal year (FY).

On Monday, the EDR released the report that shows $975.7 million (31.2%) more than the forecasted amount of $3.124 billion, which was updated on April 6th during the EDR’s last General Revenue Estimating Conference (GREC) for the 2020-2021 FY.  

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Phoenix Housing Market Booms as Migration from California Continues

The Center Square

Phoenix was the most popular migration destination in the second quarter of 2021 for users of Redfin.com, a technology-powered real estate broker, who were looking to move to a different major city. 

In Phoenix, institutions or businesses that purchase residential real estate, known by Redfin as investors, purchased 24.5% of homes sold in the second quarter of 2021. Redfin said that out of the 41 U.S. metropolitan areas analyzed, Phoenix had the highest percentage of home purchases by investors. The Valley was followed closely by Miami, Atlanta, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Las Vegas.

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Commentary: Democrats Brace for Inflation Attacks During August Recess

Admin

Iowa Rep. Cindy Axne, one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents heading toward the 2022 midterm elections, spent an early July afternoon talking to constituents’ from the cool environs of an ice cream shop in her district when the discussion suddenly heated up.

“I just wanted to ask, are you concerned about the rising gas prices and the rise in the cost of consumer goods here in Iowa and in America?” one constituent asked.

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Labor Shortage Slows Oil Production in Major Fracking State

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A shortage of workers has contributed to a significant crude oil production slowdown in North Dakota, the second-largest U.S. oil hub behind only Texas.

The labor shortage has caused oil output to become “flat as a pancake,” North Dakota State Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms told The Bismarck Tribune. Energy companies have struggled to find workers needed to do the laborious work — injecting water, sand and chemicals into wells to extract oil — associated with fracking.

“Most of these folks went to Texas where activity was still significantly higher than it was here, where they didn’t have winter and where there were jobs in their industry,” Helms said, according to the Tribune. “It’s going to take higher pay and housing incentives and that sort of thing to get them here.”

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Mineral Town Council in Virginia Split by Surprise Vote to Revoke Charter

Eric Burk

The Town of Mineral voted three to two to launch the process of dissolving the town at its monthly meeting on July 12, according to The Central Virginian. In a special meeting Thursday, town residents turned out to protest the decision in a public hearing, and three of the six members said they didn’t support disbanding the town.

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Commentary: Inflation Has Arrived

Admin

Wildly excessive federal spending is causing major inflation and shortages, which may lead to a recession and perhaps a financial crisis. Despite the evidence of inflation, Congress is proposing to spend $3.5 trillion on top of the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill passed earlier this year and the intended $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. For comparison, federal revenue is only expected to be $3.8 trillion this year.

Evidently, the Democratic Party and President Joe Biden have adopted Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) to the peril of every American citizen. MMT, which is similar to Keynesian economics, says that the U.S. should not be constrained by revenues in federal government spending since the government is the monopoly issuer of the U.S. dollar. MMT is a destructive myth that provides cover for excessive government spending. And it’s not modern, since reckless government spending has been around for thousands of years.

Embracing MMT is similar to providing whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. We know the outcomes will not be good.

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Tennessee’s June Revenues $372 Million over Budget for a $2.8 Billion Surplus

Laura Baigert

Tennessee’s revenues for the month of June exceeded the budget by $372.3 million, putting the year-to-date surplus at $2.8 billion, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Butch Eley announced Thursday.

State taxes for June 2021, which is the eleventh month of the current fiscal year, were $321.1 million more than June 2020.

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No Questions for Gov. Bill Lee at CPAC about His ‘Woke’ Cabinet Members Penny Schwinn and Juan Williams

Julie Carr
Screencap from C-SPAN video with Bill Lee and Matt Schlapp

CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp failed to ask Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN) a single question on Saturday about the “woke” policies of his administration as implemented by two cabinet members appointed by the governor: Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn, and Commissioner of Human Resources Juan Williams.

Schlapp moderated a panel at Saturday’s CPAC in Dallas on ‘A Conversation on Leadership, Justice, and Jobs in the Age of Wokeism’ with a two-member panel of Republican governors, Gov. Stitt of Oklahoma and Gov. Lee of Tennessee.

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As Lawsuits Proceed, Virginia’s Skill Games Ban Remains in Effect

Eric Burk

Skill games in Virginia remain closed as two lawsuits fighting to allow the slot-like electronic games despite a recent law banning them. On Friday, Norfolk Circuit Court Judge Junius Fulton III denied a request for an emergency injunction in one of the lawsuits that would have temporarily allowed the games to reopen while the lawsuit proceeds, according to Courthouse News.

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Commentary: Gelding the Left’s Trojan Horse

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by Thaddeus G. McCotter   Across the Left, rage and panic reign. America has seen the Marxist and racist dogma undergirding “critical race theory” and, indeed, the entire falsely labeled “anti-racist” cult. And a revulsed America rejects it. Having pinned their hopes and put so much time, energy, and money into weaponizing race to attain their socialist aims, the Left cannot abide this rejection. Long years of failing to advance socialism led the Left to tone down its “class warfare” rhetoric—a hard sell in the most affluent nation on earth that has spent trillions in a “War on Poverty” and a social safety net for its less fortunate citizens. Instead, the Left decided to leverage the inherent decency of Americans (who have made enormous and ongoing strides to create a more equitable country) by replacing class with race. The Marxist/Maoist roots of this pernicious doctrine are manifest: critical race theory is communist race theory. The Left has created a Trojan horse: the outward appeal to people’s sense of decency regarding race is a covert effort to subjugate Americans beneath the socialist agenda. While burrowing its way through bureaucracies both governmental and corporate, the Left concealed the moral odiousness and pernicious consequences…

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DraftKings and FanDuel Back Amendment to Allow Sports Betting in Florida

Steve Stewart

Two of the largest companies in the daily fantasy sports industry, DraftKings and FanDuel, are backing a political committee’s efforts to legalize sports betting. The political committee, Florida Education Champions, is proposing an amendment that will allow sports betting at professional sports venues, pari-mutual facilities and through online platforms. The amendment would also raise money for education.

The amendment, as detailed on the Division of Elections website, states that if betting revenues are taxed, the monies would be required to go to the state Educational Enhancement Trust Fund.

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Governor DeSantis Will Appoint Two More Florida Public Service Commissioners

Casey Owens
Florida State Capitol

Tuesday was the deadline for candidates seeking an appointment to the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) to submit applications to the Florida Public Service Commission Nominating Council.

The Council will interview all the candidates and determine a select few for Governor Ron DeSantis to choose from in his decision to fill positions of two current members of the PSC, whose terms expire in January 2022.

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Commentary: Making Sense of the Post-Pandemic Economy

Admin
Guy on phone with stocks on computer screen

Are you having a hard time understanding why the housing market is heating up, and why the cost of essentials such as milk, eggs, and gas is climbing? Are you in the market for a used car? Then you know how expensive those are right now. And why can’t businesses find employees, yet millions remain unemployed? Economists agree the recovery isn’t like anything we’ve seen before. That’s because we’ve never had a situation before where the heavy hand of government shut down private enterprises on a nationwide scale. The market distortions are enormous. As states reopen, there is a herky-jerky feel to the economy that has many people unsettled.

Former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently, “the recovery is not linear. Rather, it is proceeding in fits and starts. Sales of physical goods, for example, dipped only briefly when Covid hit, recovered quickly, and are now well above their pre-pandemic levels. In stark contrast, businesses that deliver personal services, such as restaurants and hotels, suffered a devastating depression and are still below their pre-pandemic levels.”

By far the most uneven outcome so far since the economy crashed in spring 2000, besides the 7.6 million fewer jobs compared to pre-pandemic levels, has been inflation, which is up 5 percent the past 12 months.

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The Washington Post Calls Fulton County’s Absentee Ballot Chain of Custody Documentation ‘Shoddy’ and ‘Sloppy,’ Cites Georgia Star News Reporting

Laura Baigert

In a story this week, The Washington Post referred to Fulton County’s record-keeping of the chain of custody documentation of the absentee ballots deposited into drop boxes during the November 3, 2020, election “shoddy” and “sloppy.”

While the apparent goal of the story was to deliver “Four Pinocchios” to former President Donald Trump for what The Post called “baseless claims about ballot drop boxes in Fulton County, Ga,” it made arguments supporting claims of election irregularities.

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Tennessee’s Revenues for May $1.6 Billion, $432 Million More Than Budgeted

Laura Baigert

Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration Commissioner Butch Eley announced Thursday that the state’s revenues for May were $1.6 billion or $432 million more than the budgeted monthly revenue.

Revenues for the ten-month period put the surplus at $2.4 billion for the 2020-2021 fiscal year.

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Inflation Surges Five Percent, Largest Spike Since 2008

Admin

The Consumer Price Index has increased 5% over the last 12 months, the fastest pace of inflation since August 2008, according to a Department of Labor report.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), a common tool used to measure inflation, increased 0.6% between April and May, according to the Labor Department report released Thursday morning. Economists projected that the CPI increased by 0.5% and 4.7% over the 12-month period ending in May, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Commentary: Benefits Under Biden’s ‘America Last’ Policies

Admin
People protesting

Many of the independent, undecided and even Democrat voters who chose Joe Biden over President Trump last November did so in hopes that his “moderate” demeanor would signal a return to some sort of “normalcy.”

However, from the moment he took office on January 20th, Biden has proven himself to be anything by moderate. So far Biden seems far more concerned with pandering to the “AOC” wing of his party while the American people pay the price.

On day one of his presidency, Biden rescinded permits for the Keystone XL pipeline, killing an estimated 40,000 high-paying American jobs with the stroke of a pen. He followed this blatant swipe at the American worker again last week by voicing his approval for Vladimir Putin’s plans to build a similar pipeline through Russia and Germany. Critics say this will only strengthen Russia’s dominance over Western Europe’s gas supply. All this while America went from energy independence under Trump, to gas shortages and price hikes under Biden.  Lunch Bucket Joe supports Russian jobs over American workers. And we were led to believe the other guy was the “Russian asset.”

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Buckhead Grapples With Another Violent Weekend as City Officials Campaign to Leave Atlanta

Chris Butler
View of Buckhead, Georgia

Buckhead, already trying to formally break away from the City of Atlanta so they can address an out-of-control crime wave using their own resources, had another violent weekend, including a murder. According to the Atlanta Police Department’s (APD’s) website, someone shot a man Saturday as he jogged through the 1200 block of West Wesley Road in Buckhead.

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New Report Says Biden Energy Policy Is Misleading and Unattainable

The Center Square

Recent experiences in three states provide an insight into how problematic President Joe Biden’s push for renewable energy could be for electric customers nationwide, according to a new report from Power the Future.

The report, titled “Lights Out: How Green Mandates are Undermining the Affordability and Reliability of Electricity,” was written by Larry Behrens, western states director for Power the Future, a nonprofit trade group that speaks for oil and gas workers.

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DeSantis Slams Nikki Fried After She Enters Race for Governor

Peter D'Abrosca

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) slammed Florida Agriculture Commissioner and Democrat gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried at press conference Wednesday in New Smyrna Beach, after Fried announced that she is running against DeSantis.

“Nikki Fried has done nothing in office. She does nothing,” DeSantis said. “All she does is emote on social media, virtue signal to small dollar donors in California and New York. She put her face, spent millions of dollars to put her face on every gas pump across this state, purely to boost her own image at your expense as a taxpayer.”

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Virginia on Track to be Fastest State to Reach $1 Billion in Sports Betting

Eric Burk
Sports Book Betting

Sports betting in Virginia launched January 21, and Virginians have already wagered $865 million, according to press releases from the Virginia Lottery. In April, Virginians wagered $236.43 million according to a May 28 press release.

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Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: The New Regressive Dark Ages

Admin

Once upon a time long ago, we agreed there were certain immutable laws of human nature. These laws were based on facts, reality, and data. 

In other words, we accepted common sense about the way the world worked according to logical and even “scientific” principles. That assumption defined us as “enlightened” rather than Dark Age reductionists and ideological- or myth-driven zealots. 

Not now. “Progressives,” especially the media, are most often regressive, anti-Enlightenment, and intolerant people, who start with a deductive premise and then make the evidence conform to it—or else. 

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Inflation Spiked While Personal Income Dropped in April, Key Economic Report Shows

Admin
Two men in grocery aisle, shopping

A key measurement of consumer spending and personal income showed the economy experienced higher-than-expected inflation in April, according to the Department of Commerce.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index — a main inflation indicator used by the Federal Reserve that measures consumer price increases  — ticked up by 0.6% while the core PCE index, which excludes food and energy, increased 0.7% in April, the Commerce Department reported Friday. The Disposable Personal Income index, which measures how much after-tax income Americans have — decreased by 14.6%, or $3.22 trillion.

Economists had expected the PCE measure to come in lower than it did, CNBC reported.

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Commentary: The ‘Woke’ Are Sleeping on China

Admin

Every day I read online about systemic racism, transgender issues, President Joe Biden’s latest faux pas, and other American social ills.

All well and good. I’ve written about some of these same issues as well. But are we elevating the trivial at the expense of the significant? Many of our citizens are focused on the ongoing cultural battle over subjects such as racism and transgender athletes.

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Commentary: Time to Confront the U.S. Capitol Police About Its January 6 Lies

Admin

The body of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick wasn’t even cold before his employer leveraged his untimely death to stoke more outrage about the events in the nation’s capital on January 6.

“At approximately 9:30 p.m. this evening . . . United States Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick passed away due to injuries sustained while on-duty,” read a press release issued January 7. “Officer Sicknick was responding to the riots [and] was injured while physically engaging with protesters.  He returned to his division office and collapsed.  He was taken to a local hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. The death of Officer Sicknick will be investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch, the USCP, and our federal partners.”

The agency intentionally included the word “homicide” to suggest Sicknick was killed by homicidal Trump supporters. The next day, the New York Times, citing two anonymous law enforcement officials, claimed “pro-Trump rioters . . . overpowered Mr. Sicknick, 42, and struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher.”

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Republicans Release Plan to Address Growing Inflation Under Biden Administration

The Center Square
High gas prices

Congressional Republicans grabbed headlines this week after releasing an aggressive budget they say would cut taxes and spending, but key measures in the plan also would address one of the country’s most serious economic problems.

The House’s Republican Study Committee released a budget that lays out several measures to deal with inflation, a growing concern among economists after the latest federal data showed a spike in consumer prices. Notably, the index for used cars and trucks rose 10%, the largest one-month increase since BLS began recording the data in 1953. Food and energy costs rose 0.9% in the month of April, prescription drugs rose 0.5%, and gasoline rose 1.4% during the same month. The energy cost index rose 25% in the previous 12 months.

Republicans on the committee say their plan would address concerns over inflation by balancing the budget within five years, thereby eliminating the need to monetize debt, a process where the federal government prints money to make payments on what it owes. The national debt has soared to more than $28 trillion and is expected to continue climbing under President Joe Biden’s new spending plans.

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Consumer Prices Outpace Americans’ Wage Growth as Inflation Surges

Admin
Woman shopping in clothing store

Massive government spending has decreased the value of the American dollar and triggered increased consumer prices, which economic experts said will only get worse.

Americans will continue to see higher prices across the board, from food and gasoline to home appliances and cars, as the federal government continues to propose more stimulus into the economy without an adequate plan to pay for it, according to several experts. Even if the government doesn’t pass legislation increasing taxes, higher prices ultimately amount to an “inflation tax,” some of the experts said.

“Over the past few months, we have seen an inflation rate that is much higher than where we’ve become accustomed to,” Heritage Foundation research fellow Joel Griffith told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “When we are going to the grocery store, going to the gas station, building our new home, we’re noticing that prices are really accelerating at a much faster clip than what we’re used to.”

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Group Forms to Oppose Buckhead’s Proposed Secession from Atlanta

Chris Butler

Buckhead residents organized earlier this year and announced they wish to secede from Atlanta, but members of a new group formed within the district this week and they say seceding is dangerous. This, according to a press release that members of the group A Committee for a United Atlanta emailed to The Georgia Star News this week.

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All Star Panelist Clint Brewer Ponders the Fate of the Republican Party

Julie Carr

Tuesday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer in studio to discuss the removal of Liz Cheney as House conference chair and the future of the Republican Party.

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Senator Marsha Blackburn: ‘Biden Surcharge’ the Hefty Price Americans Pay for President’s Policies

Corinne Murdock

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) blamed the “Biden Surcharge” for the climbing prices of goods in this country. Blackburn coined the term during a Senate floor session on Thursday. She had a poster propped up next to her that read: “THE BIDEN SURCHARGE: PAYING A PREMIUM JUST TO LIVE FROM THE MOMENT YOU WAKE UP, TO THE MOMENT YOUR HEAD HITS THE PILLOW.” In a statement to The Tennessee Star, Blackburn claimed that Biden’s spending was to blame for the increasing cost of living nationwide.

“President Biden has recklessly spent American tax dollars throughout his first 100 days in office. Now, future generations will bear the burden of Biden as inflation catches up and grips our nation,” said Blackburn. 

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Crom Carmichael Talks Biden’s Villainous Priorities, Cronyism, and Critical Race Theory

Julie Carr

Friday morning on the Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael in studio to weigh in on Biden’s cronyism and priorities that do not favor middle-class Americans.

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Tennessee’s Revenues in April Push Budget Surplus to over $2 Billion with Three Months Remaining in the Fiscal Year

Laura Baigert

Higher than expected revenues for the month of April resulted in the state’s budget surplus exceeding $2 billion with three months remaining in the 2020-2021 fiscal year.

Commissioner of Tennessee’s Department of Finance and Administration Butch Eley made the announcement Friday that April revenues of $2.5 billion resulted in a $596.7 million surplus for the month of April 2021.

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Commentary: Biden Mocks Ancient Wisdom

Admin

Human nature stays the same across time and space. That is why there used to be predictable political, economic, and social behavior that all countries understood.

The supply of money governs inflation. Print it without either greater productivity or more goods and services, and the currency cheapens. Yet America apparently rejects that primordial truism.

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Consumer Prices Increase 4.2 Percent to the Highest Level Since 2008

Admin

The consumer price index has jumped 4.2% over the last 12 months, the fastest pace of inflation since 2008, according to a Department of Labor report.

The consumer price index (CPI) increased 0.8% between March and April, according to the Labor Department report released Wednesday morning. Economists projected that the CPI increased by 0.2% last month and 3.6% over the 12-month period ending in April, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Commentary: Tuning Out Wokeism

Admin
Group protesting; "no justice no peace" sign

If wokeness should continue and “win,” by now we all know where it will end up. After all, this is not a prairie-fire, peasants-with-pitchforks, spontaneous bottom-up revolution.

The woke Left seeks a top-down erasure of America, engineered by the likes of LeBron James from his $40 million estate talking revolution to Oprah at her $90 million castle, as Mark Zuckerberg throws in $500 million here, and his colleagues $400 million there, and as the top executives of Coke, Target, and Delta Airlines believe their $17 million-a-year salaries make them experts on the crimes of non-diversity, exclusion, and inequity. Anytime revolutionaries at the outset of their enterprises seek exemption from the consequences of their own ideology, we know their plans will end badly for everyone else.

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Commentary: Joe Biden, Economy Killer

RealClearWire
President Joe Biden

Along with a working vaccine, Joe Biden inherited a V-shaped economic recovery, but he is now planting the seeds of its destruction. Inflation, federal deficits, high taxes, incentives for workers to stay home, and incentives to avoid investment – they’re all coming back. Together, these elements create the perfect brew for a Lyndon Johnson-style stagflation. If Biden and the Democrats so quickly wreck the good economic path they were given, it will be one of the worst examples of government malpractice in U.S. economic history. 

In the first, dark days of the COVID-19 national economic shutdown last spring, there was a clear need for major stimulus. Both parties united to pass an effective and much-needed response. 

The U.S. gross domestic product saw a 33.4% surge in the July-September third quarter of 2020, after plunging 31.4% in the April-June second quarter. The economy continued to grow at a 4% rate in the fourth quarter, and the stock market (despite COVID) ended 2020 with the S&P 500 index up 16% for the year as a whole. 

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