In a recent report, “Powering Human Advancement,” The Heritage Foundation laid bare the truth that the driving force behind wealth creation and raising human development standards is the innovative harnessing of energy.
As historian Vaclav Smil sees it, “Energy is the only universal currency.”
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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office this week revealed the magnitude of the federal deficit, growing to $1.7 trillion in one year, as the national public debt reached $34.7 trillion for the first time in U.S. history.
On Monday alone, the national public debt grew by $37 billion. By Tuesday, it surpassed $34.7 trillion overall.
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Democratic analysts don’t seem to understand why the all-out legal assault on President Donald Trump isn’t working. It’s because they keep talking among themselves and not with the American people.
The American people don’t live and work in the New York-Washington political-media-government bubble. If reporters and analysts listened to Americans, as we do at America’s New Majority Project, they would learn how decisive the choice between President Joe Biden or President Trump is. They would also see how difficult, if not impossible, it will be for President Biden to get easily re-elected.
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The RealClearMarkets/TIPP Economic Optimism Index, a leading gauge of consumer sentiment, dropped sharply 3.1 percent in June to 40.5. Since September 2021, the index has remained in negative territory for 34 consecutive months. June’s reading of 40.5 is 17.6 percent lower than the historic average of 49.2.
Optimism among investors edged up 0.4 percent from 46.3 in May to 46.5 in June, while it slumped by 6.0 percent among non-investors, from 40.1 in May to 37.7 in June.
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A large portion of small business owners are concerned about their future amid wider financial stress under President Joe Biden, according to a new poll from the Job Creators Network Foundation (JCNF) obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Around 67 percent of small business owners were worried that current economic conditions could force them to close their doors, ten percentage points higher than just two years ago, according to the JCNF’s monthly small business poll. Respondents’ perceptions of economic conditions for their own businesses fell slightly in the month, from 70.2 to 68.1 points, with 100 points being the best possible business conditions, while perceptions of national conditions increased from 50.4 to 53.2 points.
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In a yet-to-be-released episode of her podcast Unmuted, Sen. Marsha Blackburn spoke with former President Donald J. Trump’s economic advisor, Stephen Moore, about the state of the economy, which the senator said is in much worse shape than the Biden administration’s official numbers.
“[R]ight now, Tennesseans are spending about $1,000 a month more than they were spending in 2020 during President Trump’s time,” Blackburn said before introducing Moore. “And repeatedly, I hear these questions. How are they arriving at these inflation numbers when they tell us it’s really not that bad? And we go to the grocery store in the gas pump and go by the clothing store, and prices are through the roof.”
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While the Biden administration claims that the U.S. inflation rate is only 3.4 percent, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) released a guide disputing that figure, with evidence showing that Americans are suffering far more than the administration is letting on.
“Inflation is a top concern for Tennesseans and Americans,” says a guide called “The True Cost of Bidenflation. “Under the Biden administration, inflation has hit its highest rate in 41 years, and prices across the board are up nearly 20%. Meanwhile, the administration touts that inflation is ‘only’ at 3.4%.
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The former U.S. Comptroller General said Congress’ failure to address the federal debt burden was “irresponsible.”
David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States and a member of the Main Street Economics Advisory Board, said recent economic data should prompt lawmakers to take action before the debt problem gets worse.
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Even as Americans grow increasingly pessimistic and agitated about their personal finances, Congress is about to ask struggling families to cover the cost of more funding for Ukraine.
The $95 billion foreign aid package adopted Saturday by the House and facing near-certain passage in the Senate includes an additional $61 billion for Ukraine. Once added to the money already appropriated for Ukraine since 2022, the United States will have spent approximately $173 billion.
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Get married, have children, buy a house, and live comfortably on a single income. Not very long ago, that path was the reality, the norm, for the great American middle class.
But America has gone backward in this regard, and struggling citizens know it all too well. Experiencing the kinds of lives enjoyed by our parents and grandparents has become impossible for most Americans, leading to widespread disenchantment and a palpable loss of patriotism and confidence in America.
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Likely voters are focused on inflation and price increases, illegal immigration and the economy as incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump prepared for a rematch of 2020 in November.
The Center Square Voters’ Voice Poll, conducted in conjunction with Noble Predictive Insights, found that given a range of options to identify their top concerns, likely voters said inflation/price increases (45 percent), illegal immigration (44 percent) and the economy/jobs (24 percent) were the issues that matter most to them.
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As the economy worsens, multiple industries continue to shed jobs.
U.S.-based companies laid off 82,307 employees in January, a 136 percent increase from the previous month, according to a report by the business and coaching firm, Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. The Wall Street Journal reported companies are still cutting white-collar jobs in an attempt “to do more with less.”
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Don’t look now, but U.S. labor markets appear to be churning in the wrong direction, as the unemployment rate jumped to 3.9 percent in February, and the unemployment level hit a new high for this cycle at almost 6.5 million, up 760,000 from its low this cycle of 5.7 million in Dec. 2022, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Commercial real estate foreclosures increased 97 percent in January 2024 compared to last year, reaching a high that has not been seen in nearly a decade, according to new data.
With 635 commercial foreclosures in January 2024, foreclosures increased 17 percent from December 2023 and 97 percent from January 2023, according to a report last week from property data analyst ATTOM.
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The original number of jobs reported by the federal government in 2023 was revised down by a total of 749,000 jobs, meaning nearly one-fourth of jobs thought to be created in the year were not actually there, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) analyzed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The sum of the initial estimate from each of the government’s monthly job growth reports in 2023 totaled 3,140,000 new jobs, with later reports revising down the number of jobs added by a collective 443,000, according to the BLS. The BLS also announced in August a revision in total employment for March, subtracting another 306,000 jobs.
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Moody’s Investor Services has upgraded Ohio’s credit issuer rating to “Aaa” from “Aa1” and revised the state’s financial outlook from “stable” to “positive.”
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Anyone still wondering why voters trust former President Trump more than President Biden on the economy should read what the White House posted on X about inflation last week: “Ahead of the holiday season, costs are down for everything from airline tickets and car rentals to toys and TVs.” Biden and his underlings continue to believe public disapproval of his disastrous economic performance can be improved with happy talk and cherry picked statistics. It assumes Americans can’t remember how much less the cost of living was when Biden was elected.
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Ohio State Representative Haraz N. Ghanbari (R-Perrysburg) recently announced his intent to introduce legislation focused on combating rising losses from organized retail crime in the Buckeye State.
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It’s the economy, stupid.
Bill Clinton political strategist James Carville’s famous quip in the 1992 presidential election is truer than ever for 2024.
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The GOP holds its largest advantage on the economy in over 30 years, with 53% of Americans trusting Republicans more than Democrats on the issue, according to a poll released Tuesday.
Republicans held a 14-point lead over the Democrats, of whom only 39% of Americans said handle the economy better, according to a Gallup poll. The GOP scored 10 points higher on the economy than last year, marking the largest margin between the two parties since 1991.
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Presidential candidate and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum joined The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Friday to share his thoughts about Wednesday’s debate and to lay out his vision for the country, without the worry that his microphone was going to be cut off. TRANSCRIPT Michael Patrick Leahy: 7:33 a.m.; broadcasting live from our studios on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee, in-studio, the original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael. On the newsmaker line right now, my friend, Governor Doug Burgum of North Dakota, one of the seven candidates who was on the stage Wednesday night at the GOP debate. Governor Burgum, welcome to The Tennessee Star Report. Doug Burgum: Mike, great to be with you. Thanks for having me on. Michael Patrick Leahy: Doug, you and I have known each other for over 40 years. You were a year ahead of me at Stanford Business School. I remember you sort of in the halls talking with the guys that started with Sun Microsystem, and then you went on to be very successful. Went back to your hometown, Fargo, North Dakota, literally bet the farm, started Great Plains Software – very successful. You ended up selling it to…
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Republicans hold a commanding lead among voters’ views toward which party handles the economy better as President Joe Biden continues to pitch his economic policy to the American people, according to a new NBC News poll.
Republicans lead Democrats 49% to 28% among registered voters surveyed on the economy, which is the largest lead in NBC polling since 1991, according to NBC News. Biden has sought to sell his economic policy, dubbed “Bidenomics,” to Americans, which consists of high-spending stimulus programs and green energy subsidies.
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Amazon will hire 250,000 seasonal workers this year to meet holiday demand, including 7,600 in Tennessee, according to several reports.
According to WVLT, 1,000 employees will be hired to work in Knoxville and Blount County.
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Data from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office shows that new business filings in Tennessee for the second quarter of 2023 were the highest in the state’s history.
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The national unemployment rate dipped to 3.5 percent in July, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, once again hitting more than 50-year lows.
It’s still peak employment as far as the eye can see. Even with the past two years’ high inflation dropping dramatically and disinflation usually correlating with higher unemployment and a recession, that simply has not occurred yet, despite all the warning signs typically associated with an economic slowdown or downturn.
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The state of Tennessee launched a dashboard with data showing how the state has spent funds granted to it via the American Rescue Plan Act, a federal bailout package for states whose economies were decimated due to lockdowns during the COVID-19 panic.
The dashboard explains the parameters of the usage of the federal funds, and notes that Tennessee received almost $4 billion of taxpayer money:
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The U.S. economy added 209,000 jobs in June, according to the latest establishment survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than expected as 306,000 were added in May, as hiring slowed down nationwide. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained about the same at 3.6 percent.
Historically, when hiring slows down by establishments, that usually coincides with economic slowdowns and recessions. In the recent cycle, the 2020 and 2021 recovery from COVID notwithstanding, hiring peaked at about 5.2 percent annualized increase in Feb. 2022. Now, it’s down to 2.5 percent.
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Time is of the essence for the Evers administration to act on a critical energy pipeline relocation project in northern Wisconsin, according to the state’s largest chamber of commerce and manufacturers’ association.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) is urging the state Department of Natural Resources to swiftly move forward with a slow-moving permitting process of Enbridge Energy Co.’s Line 5 relocation project in northern Wisconsin.
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At a Fargo events center packed with family, friends and neighbors, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum stressed his small-town roots, his success in building a multi-billion dollar software business on the Great Plains, governing a growing state, and his vision for an innovative America in announcing his bid for the White House.
The newly minted presidential candidate joins a crowded field of declared Republican presidential candidates, launching his campaign on the same day former Vice President Mike Pence kicked off his in Iowa.
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The U.S. Senate on Thursday evening passed a compromise deal to suspend the debt ceiling until after the presidential election while capping the rate of spending growth in subsequent years.
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The unemployment rate still remains at historic lows of 3.4 percent in April, according to the latest data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, amid other worrying signs for the U.S. economy including a continued collapse of job openings, a string of bank failure and an overall slowing Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
In the survey, as the population increased by 171,000, those not in the labor force increased by 214,000 as labor participation dipped slightly by 43,000. Those who said they had a job increased by 139,000 after a 577,000 increase in March. As a result, the unemployment rate has actually ticked downward for two consecutive months from 3.6 percent in February, to 3.5 percent in March and now 3.4 percent in April.
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The quote from Tolstoy’s War and Peace is a useful way to begin addressing the Washington Post editorial board’s confident assertion that “’A collective national incompetence in government’” was at the root of the U.S.’s alleged failure vis-à-vis the coronavirus in 2020. According to the Post quoting from a recently released report (“Lessons from the Covid War”), “The United States started out ‘with more capabilities than any other country in the world,’ but “it ended up with 1 million dead.” Were he still around, one guesses Tolstoy would mock the conceit of the Post’s editorialists.
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In a new release on Thursday, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD) announced March 2023 decreases in the unemployment rates in all but one county. Meigs County, a rural area situated between Chattanooga and Knoxville with a population of around 13,000, was the only one of 95 counties that saw an increase in its unemployment figure – by 0.7 percent.
Meigs County also had the highest unemployment rate of any county, with 5.6 percent. Most of the other top ten highest unemployment rates were in rural counties, including Bledsoe, Haywood, Lake, Scott, Clay, Cocke, Decatur, Lauderdale, and Grundy Counties.
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As President Biden embarks on his reelection campaign, a majority of American voters are dissatisfied with his stewardship of the U.S. economy. Aware of the general angst among the electorate, Biden is threading the needle by saying he’s running on the strength of his overall record, while vowing to “finish the job” that he started when he stepped into the Oval Office. It’s a daunting task, with an overwhelming majority of registered voters expressing deep pessimism about the economy: 40.2% say the United States is currently in a recession, 17% call it a general state of stagnation, and 10.4% believe the country is in an outright depression.
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At the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference this weekend, a straw poll of right-leaning activists from across the Keystone State found election integrity tops their public concerns.
Cybersecurity Association of Pennsylvania President Scott R. Davis, who administered the survey, told attendees at the Penn Harris Hotel west of Harrisburg that 38 percent of those who voted called election integrity the foremost issue facing the state General Assembly. Trailing that topic were the state budget (28 percent) and gun laws (six percent). Eleven percent chose another issue.
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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee addressed the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce on Thursday at the JW Marriott in Nashville. In attendance of the annual event were Chamber members, economic development investors, and other Nashvillians.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
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Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed United States Senator Marsha Blackburn to the newsmaker line to comment on the Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States, the Biden family compromise, and economic effects of China.
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Property taxes are a concern for taxpayers across the nation. Iowans, just as with many other states, are confronted with skyrocketing property taxes. The reason for high property taxes is local government spending. Spending drives taxes. This is the main reason why past property tax reforms in Iowa have failed to provide relief.
Montana state Rep. Caleb Hinkle understands that spending is driving higher property tax bills. To remedy this solution, he has introduced a local government spending limitation that will help slow the growth of local government spending and provide much-needed property tax relief.
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The Federal Reserve is likely to further slow its historically aggressive pace of interest rate hikes at its Wednesday meeting as inflation cools, but consumers will still feel the pinch of higher interest rates, according to economists who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Fed is likely to hike interest rate hikes by just 0.25 percentage points after its Wednesday meeting, setting the range for its target federal-funds rate to between 4.5% and 4.75%, due to slowing inflation, The Wall Street Journal reported. Although consumers may see some relief from inflation as a result of the Fed’s rate hikes, they might give back some of those gains as heightened interest rates drive up borrowing costs, Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni told the DCNF.
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Tennessee ranks near the middle of the pack, tied for 23rd, in a new ranking of state corporate income tax rates heading into 2023.
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With the nation stuck at its $31.38 trillion debt limit and the Department of the Treasury imposing “extraordinary measures” to keep the government running, one GOP lawmaker is floating a new proposal to default federal spending to current levels to avert recurring standoffs over raising the debt ceiling.
Democrats are demanding a vote on a clean debt ceiling increase, while House Republicans, in particular the party’s conservative wing, hope to match any such increase with spending cuts. The White House has thus far rebuffed calls from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to negotiate.
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Although Arizona’s state income tax recently dropped to one of the lowest in the nation, a rookie lawmaker disagrees with the concept of having an income tax at all. Rep. Austin Smith, a West Valley Republican, filed House Bill 2395. He said taxpayers have struggled to make ends meet due to the current economic environment.
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Nokian Tyres officials recently announced that the company will invest $174.1 million to expand operations at its Dayton facility to “double its tire production capabilities.”
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by Benjamin Yount Wisconsin’s Senate majority leader says there is plenty of money available to reconfigure the state’s personal income tax rates. State Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, on Friday said Wisconsin’s record $6.6 billion surplus will help get the state over the hump. “So, for sure in the first two years of the budget we’ll have plenty of revenue,” LeMahieu said. His proposal would move Wisconsin from a top personal income tax rate of 7.65% to a flat rate of 3.25% for everyone by 2026. LeMahieu estimates that his plan will save taxpayers $5 billion. “It maybe looks a little daunting in years three and four,” Lemahieu said of the impact on state coffers. “When other states have done this, sales tax revenue goes up, and other revenue goes up because there’s more money in the system. It changes people’s spending habits.” LeMahieu said Wisconsin’s economy has grown over the past several years, and he expects that to continue. He also said lowering the tax rate to 3.25% would make Wisconsin the lowest among its neighbors. Minnesota’s income tax rates start at 5.35%, while Illinois, Iowa and Michigan all have flat taxes that are or would be higher than…
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Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
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The gridlock that paralyzed House Republicans over the past week in their quest to elect a new Speaker could be a foretaste of more to come, with party moderates and conservatives set to tangle in the months to come over raising the debt ceiling and reining in reckless government spending.
Although newly elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy ultimately prevailed in his bid for the office over a small but determined band of House Freedom Caucus members, his slim GOP majority in the House will be vulnerable if and when conservatives rebel again down the road, as some are predicting, in an effort to reassert debt reduction as a top priority for the party.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Finance Professor Murray Sabrin to the newsmaker line to give his take on the 2023 economic forecast.
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Americans are not optimistic about the economy this year.
A new poll from Gallup found that about 80% of those surveyed expect higher taxes, a higher deficit, and a worse economy in 2023.
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