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Posts Tagged ‘Biden’
March 16th, 2024 at 12:56 pm
More Legal Shenanigans from the Biden Administration’s Department of Education
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Among the foremost threats to individual freedom in America is the abusive and oftentimes lawless behavior of federal administrative agencies, whose vast armies of overpaid bureaucrats remain unaccountable for their excesses.

Among the most familiar examples of that bureaucratic abuse is the Department of Education (DOE).  Recall, for instance, the United States Supreme Court’s humiliating rebuke last year of the Biden DOE’s effort to shift hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt from the people who actually owed them onto the backs of American taxpayers.

Even now, despite that rebuke, the Biden DOE launched an alternative scheme last month in an end-around effort to achieve that same result.

Well, the Biden DOE is now attempting to shift tens of millions of dollars of student debt held by thousands of students onto the University of Arizona after the fact following U of A’s acquisition of the for-profit online university that it originally targeted.  In other words, the Biden DOE is compounding its habit of forgiving student debt by shifting the cost ex post facto onto the backs of Arizona taxpayers.

Not exactly the best way to flatter citizens of a swing state whose votes it desperately seeks amid sinking electoral prospects.

Here’s the background.

Amid a rapidly evolving educational environment, in August of 2020 the U of A announced its intent to acquire private online Ashford University in an attempt to extend its global reach, a pursuit shared by numerous other traditional universities.  The new entity was named the University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC).

Well, years prior to the acquisition California and federal bureaucrats had accused Ashford of “deceptive” tactics, and last year the Biden DOE announced that it would discharge $72 million dollars in debt held by 2,300 of Ashford’s former students.

Lo and behold, this month the Biden DOE announced that it would seek to extract those amount from the U of A, which obviously had nothing to do with the conduct alleged by the DOE and California.

It all adds yet another questionable element to the Biden Administration’s ongoing effort to boost its popularity among younger voters by shifting college student debt to anyone and everyone other than the legal borrowers themselves.  Whether that will please taxpayers in the swing state of Arizona might have been a consideration that escaped them.

 

March 8th, 2024 at 12:51 pm
Image of the Day: Top 1% Paid MORE Following Tax Cuts
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Among his parade of other outright untruths in his borderline unhinged State of the Union address, last night Joe Biden repeated his economically illiterate claim that “trickle down” tax cuts benefit wealthier Americans at the expense of federal revenues.  Our friends at the Committee to Unleash Prosperity once again provide an invaluable illustration of the falsity of that claim:

 

 

September 25th, 2023 at 12:07 pm
“It’s Working?”
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In our latest Liberty Update we highlight how replacing Joe Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket wouldn’t substantively change the left’s “Bidenomics” economic agenda that is the main voter concern driving his unpopularity.  In noting Biden’s strange and stubborn habit of whispering into the microphone that “It’s working” when promoting that failing agenda, we noted that poverty just surged at a record rate last year, according to the federal government itself.  From our friend Stephen Moore, here’s a helpful visual placing it in stark relief:

Bidenomics Is

Bidenomics Is “Working?”

July 27th, 2023 at 11:10 am
Image of the Day: “Bidenomics”
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Make of this what you will, as Joe Biden pitches “Bidenomics” in his reelection effort and maligns the alleged “trickle down” economic record of his predecessor:

Bidenomics

Bidenomics

 

May 15th, 2023 at 3:10 pm
Image of the Day: The Record Biden Earnings Bust
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We recently referenced how Joe Biden seeks a 2024 job extension from American voters even while he has presided over a record 24 consecutive months of earnings declines (wages minus inflation), and our friend Stephen Moore offers an instructive illustration of the point:

Record Biden Earnings Bust

Record Biden Earnings Bust

 

March 14th, 2023 at 9:21 am
Image of the Day: Paying Their “Fair Share?”
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We recently highlighted the preposterousness of Joe Biden’s ceaseless talking point that wealthier Americans don’t pay their “fair share” of taxes, as well as the insanity of resting his tax and budgetary policy on that false claim.  In reality, wealthier Americans’ share of income taxes paid dwarfs their share of income earned, and the Tax Foundation offers a helpful comparison graph illustrating our point perfectly:

Paying Their

Paying Their “Fair Share?”

February 13th, 2023 at 12:12 pm
Image of the Day: Joe Biden, Slashing American Wages Since Taking Office
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While Joe Biden simply repeats his claims to be building an economy “from the bottom up and the middle out,” and strangely brags about slight reductions in the rate of inflation that shot upward under him, our friend Stephen Moore provides yet another handy visual on how inflation has outpaced wage gains since Biden entered the White House:

Inflation Outpaces Wage Gains Undere Biden

Joe Biden the Wage Slayer

November 4th, 2022 at 11:12 am
USC Healthcare Fellow: Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” Already Killing Potential Pharmaceutical Cures
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We at CFIF often warn how attempts at “drug price controls” will only succeed in killing lifesaving drug innovation, in which the U.S. leads the world without a close second.

Joe Biden’s so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” constitutes a perfect illustration, and in a Wall Street Journal piece entitled “The Inflation Reduction Act Is Already Killing Potential Cures,” USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics fellow Joe Grogan shows how “we’re already getting signs of the damage”:

One poorly crafted provision is driving companies away from research into treating rare diseases.  In its Oct. 27 earnings statement, Alnylam announced it is suspending development of a treatment for Stargardt disease, a rare eye disorder, because of the company’s need ‘to evaluate impact of the Inflation Reduction Act.’  Alnylam’s decision turns on a provision in the Democrats’ bill that exempts from price-setting negotiations drugs that treat only one rare disease.  The company’s drug is currently marketed as treating only amyloidosis, and thus is exempt from Medicare’s price setting.  If Alnylam proceeded with research into treating Stargardt, it would lose its exemption.”

And that’s not even the end of it.  Earlier this week, Eli Lilly announced termination of a blood cancer drug because, “In light of the Inflation Reduction Act, this program no longer met our threshold for continued investment.”

Mr. Grogan proceeds to offer a must-read primer on how and why this is happening, then concludes by admonishing the next Congress convening in January to abandon this instant disaster and promote innovation instead of cheap Biden Administration talking point schemes:

The Democrats may have achieved a short-term talking point for the midterm elections, but in the long term this partisan healthcare bill will prevent patients from receiving innovative, lifesaving treatments.  A new Congress would serve Americans well by replacing the Inflation Reduction Act with an approach that recognizes the need for economic incentives to bring new treatments to patients.”

Good advice.

July 18th, 2022 at 1:13 pm
Image of the Day: “Putin Price Hike?” No, a Biden Inflation Blowup
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While Joe Biden attempts to blame a shifting array of scapegoats for inflation, the simple numbers demonstrate the unmistakable truth.  Consumer prices began skyrocketing upon Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, and wage gains plummeted toward an immediate deficit relative to inflation.  During the Trump presidency, wages consistently exceeded inflation, only rarely even coming in even, let alone in negative territory.  Economist Stephen Moore illustrates the reality unambiguously:

 

 

 

June 17th, 2022 at 12:18 pm
Inexcusable and Dangerous: Biden Administration Surrenders U.S. Patent Rights to World Trade Organization (WTO)
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For a man who constantly claims to support “Buy American,” Joe Biden demonstrates an inexplicable and almost fetish-like tendency to undercut American industries.

Since day one, the Biden Administration has ceaselessly besieged a domestic energy sector that finally achieved U.S. energy independence after decades of effort.  And now, it is following through on its inexcusably foolish assault against the U.S. pharmaceutical sector.

Each year, American pharmaceutical innovators account for an astounding two-thirds of all new lifesaving drugs introduced worldwide.  That’s the direct result of our system of intellectual property (IP) protections, including patents, which consistently leads the world.

Instead of protecting that legacy of American Exceptionalism, however, the Biden Administration remains bizarrely determined to eviscerate it.  Today, the World Trade Organization (WTO) announced agreement to forcibly waive patent protections for Covid vaccines, a dangerous effort that the Biden Administration for some reason supports.

This is nothing short of a license to steal U.S. patents.

The WTO effort serves no valid purpose, because Covid treatments are already being provided to poor nations across the world and the underlying pharmaceutical patents it targets are already being licensed at reduced prices or even for free.  Moreover, the  nations that the WTO claims to help recognize that lack of immunizations stems not from vaccine shortages, but rather from local logistical distribution problems and vaccination hesitancy among unvaccinated people in those nations.  Indeed, biopharmaceutical manufacturers remain capable of producing 20 billion vaccine doses this calendar year, so the problem isn’t lack of vaccine availability.

Additionally, a  supermajority of American voters spanning the political spectrum oppose this forcible waiver of Covid vaccine patents, favoring instead the licensing of patents to boost the global supply of vaccines.  Specifically, over 70% of voters believe that waiving Covid vaccine IP could have significant negative implications on the safety and efficacy of supply.

American patent protections explain our unmatched record of innovation, and also why we produce the overwhelming share of new drugs worldwide.  As the pandemic demonstrated once again, that includes Covid vaccines.  The WTO proposal egregiously sacrifices U.S. property rights and undermines the rule of law, which in turn will mean fewer lifesaving vaccines and treatments in the future.  If the Biden Administration won’t correct course, Congress must intervene to do so.

 

 

 

 

May 19th, 2022 at 12:51 pm
Image of the Day: More Economic Freedom = Higher Standard of Living
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In last week’s Liberty Update, we highlighted the Heritage Foundation’s 2022 Index of Economic Freedom, which shows that Joe Biden has dragged the U.S. down to 22nd, our lowest rank ever (we placed 4th in the first Index in 1995, and climbed back up from 18th to 12th under President Trump).  As we noted, among the Index’s invaluable metrics is how it demonstrates the objective correlation between more economic freedom and higher citizen standards of living, which this graphic illustrates:

 

April 18th, 2022 at 9:54 am
Image of the Day: “Light Touch” Regulatory Policies Have Kept Broadband Prices Low
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As Americans express growing alarm over consumer price inflation that commenced in January 2021 under the Biden Administration and Pelosi/Schumer Congress (see here), it’s worth highlighting how critical broadband access on which our economy increasingly depends has diverged from that trend.  It’s also worth highlighting that stems from the fact that internet service has so far escaped Biden Administration regulatory attempts to reverse free-market progress achieved under former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai:

April 4th, 2022 at 12:05 pm
Image of the Day: Biden’s Silly “Putin Price Hike” Excuse
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Apparently nothing is too preposterous for Joe Biden and his apologists.  They attempt to rationalize out-of-control inflation and wage erosion as a “Putin Price Hike,” but a simple chronology immediately refutes that (unless Vladimir Putin somehow took control of the U.S. economy in January 2021):

 

“Putin Price Hike?”

January 10th, 2022 at 10:11 am
Image of the Day: Biden, Pelosi and Schumer Faceplanted On Jobs in 2021
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On the heels of Friday’s unsettling jobs report from the Labor Department, we can now judge the performance and promises of Joe Biden and the Pelosi/Schumer Congress against actual reality.  They promised 10.3 million jobs would be created in 2021 if their massive spending and regulation blowout passed, versus 6.3 million jobs if their agenda wasn’t passed.  So how did it turn out?  Their agenda was passed, but only 6.1 million jobs were created as the U.S. economy slowed and struggled to recover from the Covid dip, as AEI’s Matt Weidinger highlights.  They apparently made things worse, not better, illustrating the sardonic adage, “Don’t just do something – stand there.”

Biden Jobs Performance: Worse Than Doing Nothing

Biden Jobs Performance: Worse Than Doing Nothing

 

December 10th, 2021 at 12:39 pm
Image of the Day: “Build Back Better?” More Like Build Back Bigger Inflation
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As if enough reasons to oppose Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, from destructive drug price controls to higher taxes, didn’t already exist:

Build Back Bigger (Inflation)

Build Back Bigger (Inflation)

 

November 1st, 2021 at 9:20 am
WSJ’s Holman Jenkins on Congressional Climate Extremist Emperors’ Lack of Intellectual Clothing
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Late last week we highlighted how some far-left climate radicals in Congress mindlessly, obsessively and ostentatiously continue to demonize domestic energy producers – who achieved what was once considered fantasy by securing U.S. energy independence and lowering energy costs for American consumers – even while they and the Biden Administration beg OPEC and Russia to increase petroleum production.  The Wall Street Journal’s always-insightful Holman Jenkins brilliantly notes the proverbial emperor’s lack of clothing on that same Congressional obsession:

 

As it cyclically does, the hypocrisy show returned this week to ‘Big Oil.’  To cover up the political class’s, and particularly Joe Biden’s, inability to do anything meaningful about climate change, a House hearing on Thursday accused industry CEOs of blocking action as if somehow the pennies they spent on advocacy could haven countered the 30-year torrent of climate-change propaganda coming from governments, universities, green lobbyists and scientific organizations.  ‘They are obviously lying like the tobacco executives were,’ intoned Rep. Carolyn Maloney, in windup-toy fashion.  This line she was guaranteed to utter no matter what was said at the hearing (in fact, executives repeated what their companies had long said about the risks of climate change and the lack of alternatives to fossil fuels).

Most of us would be repulsed to behave the way politicians routinely do, which brings us to an unexpected counterpoint.  For want of something shiny to wave at next week’s global climate summit, and not too discerning about what it was, President Biden caused the U.S. intelligence services to gin up a new climate assessment.  Lo, the result is notable mainly for its skepticism about the kind of summits Mr. Biden will be attending…

At least one establishment institution has stopped paying lip service to the pipe dream that the world will give up fossil fuels on a timespan relevant to our climate risks.”

 

 

October 15th, 2021 at 12:30 pm
Statistic of the Day: Going Carbon-Free Would Cost Every American $11,300 PER YEAR
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From realistic climatologist Bjorn Lomborg, writing in The Wall Street Journal this week, a jarring analysis of the cost of imposing the Biden/Pelosi/Schumer/AOC carbon-free “Green New Deal” agenda for every American annually:

A new study in Nature finds that a 95% reduction in American carbon emissions by 2050 will annually cost 11.9% of U.S. gross domestic product. To put that in perspective: Total expenditure on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid came to 11.6% of GDP in 2019. The annual cost of trying to hit Mr. Biden’s target will rise to $4.4 trillion by 2050. That’s more than everything the federal government is projected to take in this year in tax revenue. It breaks down to $11,300 per person per year, or almost 500 times more than what a majority of Americans is willing to pay.

But don’t you dare ask any questions.  Just do what they say (not what they necessarily do, of course).

October 12th, 2021 at 8:59 am
Image of the Day: Biden’s Unwelcome Gift of Inflation to America in One Chart
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From Andy Puzder, a snapshot of how inflation dreadfully continues to outpace American workers’ paycheck gains:

Biden's Inflationary Gift

Biden’s Inflationary Gift

September 17th, 2021 at 12:54 pm
Notable Quote: WSJ on H.R. 3, Biden & Pelosi’s Dangerous Healthcare Bill
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In this week’s Liberty Update we highlight the potentially catastrophic threat of H.R. 3, the healthcare and drug price control bill that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are attempting to rush through Congress.  The Wall Street Journal helpfully offers further insight this morning on how H.R. 3 would threaten lifesaving U.S. pharmaceutical innovation and leadership, including on things like the Covid vaccines:

Companies that refuse the government’s price must pay a 95% excise tax on all revenue they generate from that drug in the U.S.  They’d also have to offer the government price to private insurers.  There’s no “negotiation” when a gun is pointed at your head.  A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that drug spending in the U.S. would have been 52%, or about $83.5 billion, lower in 2020 based on the bill’s formula.  The research outfit Vital Transformation estimates the bill would reduce bio-pharmaceutical earnings by $102 billion a year…

The hugely successful mRNA Covid vaccines are the result of years and billions of dollars in research.  BioNTech initially set out to create cancer vaccines and linked up with Pfizer in 2018 to work on a more effective flu vaccine.  Biotech firms are trying to use mRNA technology for personalized cancer vaccines, autoimmune treatments and gene therapies.”

Americans cannot allow Biden, Pelosi and Schumer to jeopardize our future health on behalf of their hyper-partisan agenda.

August 24th, 2021 at 4:51 pm
Image of the Day: Meanwhile, the Biden Inflation Boom Continues…
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The Biden Administration’s failures aren’t exclusively overseas in nature.  For seven consecutive months now, average U.S. hourly wages have declined when adjusted for inflation.

 

The BIden Inflation Boom

The Biden Inflation Boom