A Willful and Dangerous Game

I think we need to accept, at this point, that the Biden Administration and Democrat willingness to continue subsidizing Americans to stay unemployed is part of a plan to either force an employer-led increase in the minimum wage or try a universal basic income.

At this point, the evidence is too overwhelming that people are staying out of work because the federal unemployment benefit is so big. In fact, right now people do not even have to show proof they are attempting to find work in order to get the federal supplemental unemployment benefit. Nonetheless, as recently as Friday, Joe Biden insisted this was not true.

The Democrats are arguing that if employers just boost their wages, they’ll incentivize people coming back to work. The problem is many employers are already doing that and still cannot get workers to come back to work. Some people are fine making less on unemployment while doing no work and not having to worry about eviction thanks to additional federal policies.

The consequences of these policies are going to be disastrous for the nation.

Companies are raising wages to attract back employees. The rising wages are forcing prices to go up as businesses pass along the costs to consumers. The consumers buying are the consumers who have already gone back to work and those consumers are the ones whose pay is not going up. So costs go up and wages of the purchasers have not, which means they have less take-home pay.

Separately, the Biden Administration has worked to raise gas prices to curtail the consumption of gas. From cutting pipelines to obstructing drilling to even walking away from the Saudis in the Yemeni situation, the Biden Administration is driving up energy prices. That too will lead to increasings in the costs of goods.

Inflation is coming. It is going to affect us all but will affect us all in a way most people do not appreciate. The national debt is largely sustainable at this moment due to low interest payments on the debt. As interest rates rise to combat inflation, that will cause the interest payments on the debt to increase. That will reduce available money for federal discretionary funding. That will necessitate taxes to go up. That will, with inflation, further reduce available household funds.

All of this is foreseeable. The left is getting the economic policies they want — increased wages without a federal mandate and tax increases — but they are getting them at the great cost of a robust economy with long term negative consequences.

Perhaps none of this is willful or by design. It just seems more and more that the denials despite overwhelming evidence points to a recognition from Democrats that this is all part of their plan.

I went into a restaurant on Friday night, a restaurant that is already paying $15.00 an hour, and the restaurant had a sign at the counter that they were short-staffed due to COVID unemployment benefits. A friend in Columbus, GA sent a picture of a similar sign at a restaurant there. A friend in Atlanta is paying his restaurant staff $20 an hour with benefits and vaction and is still short-staffed. Across America, the businesses being hardest hit are the restaurants and small shops. They are already the most affected by COVID and may not survive the Democrats’ continued subsidization of unemployment. They’ll be most impacted by inflation. Many progressives argue that if businesses cannot pay a “living wage” they should be out of business anyway. They’re so focused on the workers in businesses without ownership interests, they’ve forgotten businesses have to make a profit to survive. They’ve forgotten the workers who own the businesses who are making less now as costs keep going up.

The war on small business in America may be unintentional, but it is happening and it will most likely be the single biggest factor in a restoration of the GOP to a congressional majority and could lead to a restoration of Donald Trump in the White House. It would be a bitter irony for the Democrats if Donald Trump gets re-elected in 2024 because they sparked an economic crisis in their quest to fundamentally transform America.