Neighborhood Ministries

We saw the same thing with welfare. When I worked for the welfare department back in the 1970’s, many of those on welfare did not want to go to work because most jobs available to them paid less than they got on welfare. I encouraged them to get starter jobs which would reduce their welfare check but their pay plus the remaining welfare assistance would be more than the welfare alone. However, the other welfare workers discouraged them from getting low pay starter jobs because the workers had to refigure the client’s checks every month which was a lot of extra work. When politicians realized that people were making no effort to get off welfare, they realized they had to limit the time that clients could get assistance, or the clients would never make any effort to get off welfare. Now Democrats are pushing for a guaranteed minimum income. It would encourage those earning under the minimum amount to quit work since they would still receive the income which would be more than if they worked. It would also  increase the control of Democrats who continually tell those receiving government subsidies that if Republicans get in power, they will abolish the program so the people receiving subsidies will continue to vote for Democrats.

During covid, we saw in a small way why socialism is attractive and why it is destructive. The government expanded unemployment to help those out of work. That is a noble gesture designed to help people. The government also extended small business loans to help businesses continue paying the salaries of their workers while laid off, however there was a very angry reaction of workers against those businesses that got the small business loans because the workers could receive more from unemployment than they were making while working and they didn’t have to work for the unemployment. Socialism creates the same problem. Why work if you get paid anyway and if you have to work, there is no incentive to work longer hours because you do not receive anything extra. Therefore, the first do not work at all and the second work only as much as they are required. That is why socialism always fails and results in poverty for everyone. Everyone wants to take but very few want to give and those willing to give don’t give anymore than the minimum required.

President Biden pushed financial institutions to support investments that promote Social and environmental programs rather than picking investments that show a solid base with good promise of being profitable. This is risky because many such investments are new and do not have a solid track record. Many of those investments were environmental companies owned by Democrat lawmakers or ones that they had major stock holdings in. Since those stocks would ordinarily be very risky, they would not have much value and could be bought cheap. Since Democratic politicians knew ahead of the announcement, they could  have bought up additional stock in them. By directing financial institutions to support them, it drove the value of those stocks up and enabled those lawmakers to profit from it. That is called inside trading and is illegal. There is increasing evidence that such risky investments may have led to the failure of the Silicon Valley Bank which in turn led to the fall of a number of other major banks and set off a banking crisis. While President Trump canceled that order and allowed banks to return to choosing investments based on sound business procedure, the threat remains if another Democrat President is elected.

Democrats blame Republicans for refusing to pass the budget but they aren’t willing to give in either. Democrats want to increase the debt limit and spend billions of dollars on health care for illegal immigrants but don’t want to increase payments to Medicare insurance providers. In fact President Biden cut payments to Medicare in the last couple months of his term, forcing Medicare insurance providers to cut services covered under Medicare or increase copayments hurting Seniors who are already hard pressed to meet expenses. Republicans are trying to hold the line on the debt limit and reduce spending so they can begin paying off the national debt. The mid-term elections are coming up next year. Voters need to decide if they want Democrats to continue bankrupting the federal government to benefit illegal immigrants who will then illegally vote to elect Democratic Congressmen or if they want Republicans to cut spending and stimulate the economy so the American people benefit.

https://www.udemy.com/course/economics-102/?referralCode=A64E23B9A6657623E1D8

Many people see the price increases resulting from the new tariffs, and don’t bother to understand the reasons behind them.  The United States prospered after World War II because the manufacturing plants in Europe were destroyed and the United States was supplying the manufacturing products to the world with no competition. In addition, many of the homes and businesses were destroyed so they needed a lot to rebuild. Our manufacturing was not destroyed in the  war and had greatly expanded to produce a lot of the war materials for the Allies. They were quickly converted to peacetime production. Without competition, unions forced pay increases which greatly increased the cost of goods and companies did not bother to modernize equipment to cut production costs. With the newfound prosperity, Americans could afford to pay the higher prices. When Europe began to rebuild its manufacturing, they built the most modern facilities.  Their  wages were far lower and with new cost saving equipment, they were able to sell far below our cost. In addition, Europe imposed tariffs on goods from the United States to protect their manufacturers from American competition, but the United States did not impose tariffs in return. As a result, we lost the overseas sales and our retailers began importing goods from overseas because they were cheaper than American made goods. It destroyed our manufacturing and forced many manufacturers to move their plants overseas where they could produce goods cheaper.  It not only cost us jobs, it also reduced the money received from taxes on the goods produced. In addition, it made us dependent on foreign manufacturers which was evident after 9-11 and after Covid when our borders were sealed cutting off goods from other countries, because our manufacturers were not ready to produce what we needed. By President Trump imposing tariffs on other countries, he increased the cost of goods from overseas so our manufactures could compete.  It also forced other countries to reduce their tariffs on our goods. More important, it encouraged manufacturers to move their plants back to the U.S bringing the jobs and the money from taxes with them. It will raise prices some because we will no longer have low cost foreign goods available but that should have been done a long time ago before we became addicted to low cost foreign goods. It boils down to which you want more, a job, or low cost foreign goods you can’t afford.

Critics accuse President Trump of causing price increases by instituting tariffs. They forget  some critical things. President Biden raided the treasury in the last three months of his term to give out trillions of dollars, which were not in the budget. A lot of those funds were untraceable. The huge government spending further fueled the inflation beyond that from his previous spending.  In addition, it added a tremendous amount to the national debt. It was designed to break the bank and force the country into a depression which they would blame on President Trump. He also added a large number of new workers which vastly increased the cost of government. Many of those workers were assigned to  spy on and harass those who opposed their socialist policies. We have no record of any previous President going so far to ensure that his successor failed.  To avoid a financial meltdown, President Trump had no choice but to make drastic cuts in spending to offset the trillions of dollars that President Biden spent. In addition, he had to lay off many of the workers that President Biden hired since they served the Democrat party and not the country.

It is apparent that the Democrat politicians are following a pattern they have followed since President Trump first took office. It you want to prevent people from investigating your crimes, you blame your opponent of committing them. When suspicions began to leak of Clinton’s dealings with the Russians, she set up the fake reports to implement Trump and they pushed an investigation of him based on the fake report. The media picked up the accusations and worked to turn voters against Trump to insure a Democrat victory, however, it failed. The Democrats in Congress then pushed the impeachment trial and continued it despite the lack of any supporting evidence. They abruptly ended the investigation when it revealed that Clinton had created the documents to prevent investigation into her dealings with the Russians. They then pushed another impeachment trial blaming Trump for Jan 6 and suppressed evidence showing Trump tried to prevent it by calling for National Guard troops to protect the capital but Nancy Pelosi rejected the request, leaving the capital unprotected. They continued to claim Trump was illegally nullifying the executive orders that Obama created when Obama had no  authority to make them and Trump was just removing them from the books. In fact many of Obama’s executive orders openly violated federal law. He sent a lot of money to Planned Parenthood to spread abortions here and overseas in spite of federal laws which prohibited federal funds from supporting abortion both here and abroad. In addition, they now cry that Trump is planning to destroy Medicare and Social Security in spite of the fact that Biden made severe cuts to Medicaid payments shortly before leaving office that were not set to take effect until after Trump took office so they could blame the cuts on him. As a result, many doctors have dropped Medicare and no longer accept it, leaving many Seniors to pay out of pocket. Biden also removed barriers to those eligible for both federal pension and Social Security allowing a small number to double dip into both funds further threatening future payments to all recipients. It is time that the real criminals are held accountable.