Last week was an awful one for President Biden -- in light of the Special Counsel report, his reaction to it, and fresh polling showing that massive majorities see him as too old for the job. People won't blame Biden for losing a step or five with age, but it certainly will impact many voters' assessments of his ability to remain on the job for another term. Where people will blame Biden is on policy failures that make their lives harder and put the country at risk. Tuesday brought two pieces of bad news for the president and his team, in the latter realm. On inflation, the January CPI number came in hotter than expected, with real wages taking a hit, too. As we alluded to in a prior post, missing inflation reduction expectations is especially bad given voters' ongoing frustration over chronically-higher prices.
This goes a long way toward explaining why Biden continues to suffer immensely on economic approval and is getting stomped by Donald Trump on the issue, in spite of some brighter economic numbers elsewhere:
Inflation rose more than expected in January thanks to a jump in grocery and housing costs, underscoring the challenge of taming price pressures within the economy...The Labor Department said Tuesday that the consumer price index, a broad measure of the price of everyday goods including gasoline, groceries and rent, rose 0.3% in January from the previous month. Prices climbed 3.1% from the same time last year. Both of those figures came in higher than the 0.2% monthly increase and 2.9% headline figure forecast by Refinitiv economists...Other parts of the report indicated that inflation has been slow to retreat. Core prices, which exclude the more volatile measurements of food and energy, climbed 0.4% – the largest monthly increase since April 2023. It rose 3.9% annually. Both of those figures are slightly higher than estimates... Housing costs were the biggest driver of inflation last month. Rent costs rose 0.6% for the month and are up 6.1% from the same time last year. Rising rents are concerning because higher housing costs most directly and acutely affect household budgets. Other price gains also proved persistent in January. Food prices, a visceral reminder of inflation for many Americans, rose 0.4% over the course of the month. Grocery costs also rose 0.4% last month and are up 1.2% compared with the same time last year.
Prices are still rising, and are still far higher than they were when this president took office. Biden's happy spin is butting up against stubbornly unpleasant realities:
In reality, today's inflation report showed that since Biden took office, prices are up 17.9% and real wages are DOWN 2.1%.
— Tommy Pigott (@TommyPigott) February 13, 2024
Biden is not "lowering" costs. In fact, food prices are up 21%, rent costs are up 19.4%, and electricity prices are up 28.6% on his watch.
As we noted in response to Biden's empty whining about 'shrinkflation,' he is in no position to evince faux anger over a phenomenon his destructive decisions helped cause: "Biden was not the sole cause of this phenomenon, of course, but his foolish and destructive policies exacerbated it. He ignored warnings from even left-leaning economists over the inflationary impact massive new spending programs would have, pushing forward with them anyway. He and his party rammed through trillions in wasteful spending, in party-line votes, further overheating the economy. One of the ways some companies have tried to combat these effects without dramatically raising prices was to offer less of their products (fewer potato chips in the bag, etc)." That was written before yesterday's CPI report contained disappointing news, causing the markets to tumble considerably.
Then there's an issue on which the president is even less popular -- the border. Rather than releasing monthly encounters numbers weeks late, and on a Friday, the administration seemed more motivated to publish the January statistics in a timelier manner. Why? Maybe with another Mayorkas impeachment vote looming (and now complete), they wanted to spin about "progress." As Spencer pointed out yesterday, while encounters were down sharply from December -- which was the worst month on record, ever -- January's 'improved' encounters still set a benchmark of their own. "January 2024 saw the highest number of encounters for any January on record:"
Of which 176k were at the southern border. Texas’ enforcement — fought tooth and nail by Biden admin — perhaps making a difference, but illegal immigration is seasonal, and this is still an all-time January record: https://t.co/8ZZWcW3CLC
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) February 13, 2024
The overall monthly number of 242,587 includes other encounters elsewhere, including an uptick in illegal immigration coming from the north. The administration likes to talk about 'seasonality' when it suits them, so it's worth noting that for this season, they've now racked up the worst number recorded in any January, ever. And as I suggested in my tweet above, one wonders what the January stats might have looked like if Texas hadn't clamped down at a major crossing, over loud objections and legal challenges from the Biden administration. Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott's effective push to force 'sanctuary' jurisdictions to shoulder even a fraction of the burden created by their preening policies continues apace:
Under #OperationLoneStar, Texas has transported over 103,100 migrants to sanctuary cities:
— Gov. Greg Abbott (@GovAbbott) February 12, 2024
Over 12,500 to DC
Over 37,800 to NYC
Over 31,400 to Chicago
Over 3,400 to Philadelphia
Over 16,200 to Denver
Over 1,500 to LA
Texas will not stop until President Biden secures the border.
I'll leave you with this:
On very the day that the official count of illegal crossings on Biden's watch passed *9 million* (not counting an entire universe of unknown got-aways), Biden's Homeland Security Secretary has been impeached by the House. https://t.co/Hz4cAynOYa
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) February 14, 2024
Whatever you think about the question of whether Mayorkas has committed an impeachable criminal offense, his scandalous dereliction of duty is unmistakable. Don't you feel reassured that the self-proclaimed "adults in the room" are back in charge?
