The European Union has added to the pressure. It threatened to target $107 billion of U.S. goods with higher retaliatory tariffs and start a World Trade Organization challenge to Trump’s tariffs, including his duties on European cars and car parts. The EU has already approved tariffs on $23 billion worth of American goods in retaliation to Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs.

Also, Trump’s needs to boost his lowest approval ratings on the economy —43% approval and 55% disapproval — since he took office. Although blue-collar workers remain positive, their disapproval numbers have shot up by 14% since his first term. And 54% of independents see the economy getting worse. Even in safe harbor Texas, 39% strongly disapprove of the Trump’s performance as President.

These results reflect the pressure on him to convince more than his base that his economic policies will work overtime.

Trump officials have predicted for weeks that the first trade deals to result from his tariff strategy would likely come from India, Japan and perhaps South Korea, but the financial markets are still holding their breath.

And there is limited reason to cheer about the trade agreement Trump announced with the UK. Britain was already in the lowest group for the “Liberation Day” across-the-board tariffs, already facing a 10% tariff rate. And negotiators representing both countries ignored long-standing disputes such as a digital-services tax that Britain levies on tech giants and its food-standards that block “chlorinated chicken” and the like from entering the country.

Less than one-third of U.K. respondents and 44% of Americans believed Trump would abide by the U.K. deal. A 42% plurality of British respondents said China would be a more reliable trading partner than the United States.

GOP China hawks told the country that the Chinese leadership would be desperate to negotiate a trade deal to avoid economic pain that could threaten their hold on power. They were wrong. Some mistakenly believed Treasury Secretary Bessent’s false rhetoric that China is suffering from a “severe recession, if not depression.” So, Xi’s caustic denial of Trump’s claim that he was in trade talks with China revealed the Trump administration’s negotiating and guile.

Moreover, Beijing had prepared for the trade war. It pushed businesses to strengthen supply chains and cultivate overseas markets, implemented monetary measures to support small businesses and boosted consumer demand to mitigate any reduction in exports. China has also discouraged companies from complying with U.S. sanctions by making it Illegal to do so. Xi’s stunning ability to organize and prepare his country compared to Trump’s impulsive and thoughtless decisions explain China’s advantage.

Although U.S. and Chinese officials (without Xi) will meet in Switzerland later this week, the any real progress is impaired by the lack of trust in Trump. They recall how he launched a trade war following a friendly and productive meeting in Beijing in 2017.

Shortly after Trump unfurled his April 2 tariff barrage, China began a marketing offensive with other countries to proove itself as a better trading partner. He visited several Asian countries to discuss economic partnerships and made overtures about expanding trade ties with the European Union. 

Trump has repeatedly bragged about his negotiating skills, telling America he’s “the best deal maker.”   As for his tariffs, he’s claimed that world leaders  are “kissing my ass to negotiate and pleading ‘I will do anything, sir.’” Where are the deals? What has he accomplished? The answer: Trump’s gifted many of our trading relationships to China, where negotiating skills were most needed.

The post TRUMP CAN’T WIN A TRADE WAR WITH CHINA first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

The justices noted but didn’t disagree with two Colorado courts’ factual findings that Trump had “engaged in insurrection.” SCOTUS had previously held that a state court’s factual findings must be accepted by federal courts unless they’re clearly erroneous. No factual error was found. Yet SCOTUS chose to let a judicially determined insurrectionist run for President. 

To justify this decision, the majority relied on Section 5 of the 14^th Amendment, which provides “Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article,” which Congress has not done. But it is Section 3, not Section 5, of the 14^th Amendment of that gives Congress the power to ban from or restore candidates to state ballots by a two-thirds vote by removing a disqualification. Inexplicably, the majority held that Section 3 merely “reinforces” Section 5, which empowers Congress to “prescribe” how determinations of eligibility should be made. 

Curiously, the word “prescribe” is nowhere in Section 5. The majority opinion’s focus on Section 5 constitutes an end-run around Section 3. It’s common sense that the more demanding exercise of power (a two-thirds vote) would replace — not “reinforce” — the easier one (a simple majority). As the Court’s minority’s opinion put it, “It is hard to understand why the Constitution would require a Congressional supermajority to remove a disqualification if a simple majority could nullify Section 3’s operation.” 

Although there was no dissent, the minority accused the majority of being gratuitous in an attempt to insulate Trump and all other insurrectionists from future challenges to their eligibility for federal office. 

This was just one Supreme Court holding that stretched the Constitution to protect Trump. Here are others that are equally or more egregious 

Why We Need to Recuse the Whole Supreme Court Majority

The Manipulated Path of Conservative Justices to the Supreme Court

For Donald Trump, Undue Delay Is the Name of the Game | Opinion

The post The Supreme Court Majority is Really Trump’s Majority first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

It took the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, to prevent then-President Donald Trump from misusing the country’s nuclear arsenal during the last month of his presidency, presumingly out of anger at losing the 2020 election and to manufacture a crises that would keep him in office. Milley received intelligence that China believed the U.S. was going to attack. He called the head of China’s military and assured him there was no such plan and prevented a crises. There will be no Milley there to stop Trump next time.

Trump had a pattern of making decisions that triggered by anger regarding events unrelated to America’s needs. For example, against advice from nearly all economists, he sprung his 2017 tariffs on our allies out of outrage over Hope Hicks’ testimony regarding Russia’s election interference and the treatment of his son-in-law by his chief of staff. He gave no vetted explanations, had no plan to alert foreign trade partners or Congress. No one at the State, Treasury or Defense Departments were told that a new policy was about to be announced.

The tariff’s results were, predictably, higher cost of imported components, lower profit margins, weaker wage growth and greater job loss. China found companies in Europe, Canada and South America  to replace commodity sales from U.S. farmers, including soy beans. And two thousand U.S. pecan growers saw their sales hit hard by Chinese retaliatory tariffs which also cut pork sales by 65%.

To punish Barak Obama for mocking him at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ dinner, Trump criticized and abandoned Obama’s multi-country agreement with Iran to curb its nuclear progress. Before abandoning it, Iran was many years away from developing enough fuel for a bomb, now it’s only months away, which gives them the leverage to incite and support terrorists in the Middle East. Without that nuclear threat, the middle East would be a more stable region today.

In another move to erase Obama’s accomplishments, Trump exited the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement with eleven Pacific rim countries that excluded China and would have eliminated 18,000 tariffs on American exports and established stronger labor standards and environmental protections that would have put state-owned enterprises on a level playing field with U.S. businesses. After Trump pulled out, China stepped in and took our place. The result: Trump  gifted one-third of global trade to China. Again, the decision had nothing to do with what was best for America. It was motivated solely by anger from being mocked by Obama.

Trump also tried to overturn Obamacare, which would have lost 23.1 million Americans their health insurance and no one would be covered for preexisting conditions. Because he didn’t have the votes in Congress, he sabotaged it by cancelling a provision that lowered premiums and halved its enrollment period, and more than 2 million people including 700 children lost their insurance.

Add to Trump’s aberrant motivations that he’s less coherent and far from the same Trump who seduced his base in 2016. His narrative has plunged to new depths of absurdity and incoherence. He increasingly slurs or stumbles over his words, signaling cognitive decline and the inability to reason or process reality, leaving him controlled by random anger and self-aggrandizement. 

Donald Trump is not a person we want anywhere the nuclear button.

The post It took General Milley to stop Trump from misusing the country’s nuclear arsenal during the last month of his presidency. There’ll be no General Milley to Stop him Next Time – only Yes Men and Women. first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Previously published in The Hill on 09/25/24 and edited by Neil Baron

In the wake of the only presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris is leading nationally. But the Electoral College race is still close.
Recently she’s has been doubling down on the same tactics that worked for her win, taunting Trump and baiting him. But that may not help her to win. In fact, it could stiffen support for her opponent.

Voters tend to seek consistency with their beliefs. Pummeling them with facts and criticisms inconsistent with their beliefs may actually cause them to dig in. Democrats might want to reconsider their strategy and learn from an experiment that a team of Israeli psychologists conducted during the 2013 Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

To get beyond intractable, hardline support for the conflict, the researchers proposed a fruitful approach they called “paradoxical intervention.” Instead of bombarding Israeli hawkish voters with facts and opinions that challenged the Israelis entrenched support for continuing the war, they validated it, but with information that led the Israelis to discover for themselves what would be perilous about doing it. As Kahlil Gibran wrote in “The Prophet” a century ago, the teacher “does not bid you enter [his] house of…wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”

In the experiment, hawkish Israeli Jews were shown 30-second videos. Instead of asserting that the conflict threatened peace in the region and should stop, the videos argued Israel couldn’t afford to discontinue the conflict because continuation demonstrates the morality of Israel’s position and encourages their unity. This counterintuitive approach did what more conventional messages couldn’t: It unfroze the Israelis’ insistence that the Palestinians were exclusively to blame for continuing the conflict.
That prompted center and right-oriented Israeli Jews to vote for more dovish political parties, and made them more open to compromise in order to reach a peaceful resolution, including eliminating Jewish settlements in the West Bank. These changes were remarkably long-lasting, especially given the intense counter-messaging voters were subjected to during the period.

“Paradoxical intervention” might also help the 85 percent of white evangelical voters who identify with the GOP to drop their fealty to Trump by leading them “to the threshold of their own knowledge”– that Trump’s professed devotion to the Bible and personal relationship with God is disingenuous and false campaign rhetoric.

This process could start with messaging that respects evangelical beliefs and their desire to have a devoted Christian in the White House. Then it could revisit videos like Trump discusses the Bible, Trump the Bible Salesman or Trump’s personal relationship with God. Validating their beliefs might take them to a threshold where they can recognize Trump’s palpable ignorance of the Bible and disrespect for Evangelical beliefs.

This counterintuitive logic could help unfreeze conservatives’ obsession with smaller government and their support for hamstringing or dismantling most of the 439 federal agencies created by Congress.
In this case, the “paradoxical intervention” would start by agreeing that abolishing or undermining federal agencies restores the balance of power and checks and balances among the three branches of government required by the Constitution. It would also concede the point that allowing administrative agencies to make and enforce their own interpretations of the law (a hot topic given the recent Loper Bright decision) subjects the country to rulings by unelected bureaucrats whose decisions can be influenced by whoever is in the White House at the time.

Then, taking these views to their logical conclusion, it would propose federal courts hire the expertise they need to address the thousands of diverse, complex, pressing public interest issues Congress entrusted to the federal agencies. That should help Republicans recognize what they may already know deep down: This is an impossibility.

It’s like the Aesop’s Fable about the old man who wants to be released from his difficult life and comes face to face with the Grim Reaper. Confronted with death, he learns the moral: “Be careful what you wish for.”
It’s a lesson evangelicals and conservatives might learn. But before that can happen, Democrats need to learn how to curb their knee-jerk opposition and show that they can appreciate the reasons of the other side.

The post KAMALA IS AHEAD NATIONALLY BUT IT’S STILL CLOSE IN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE RACE. MAYBE THIS DIFFERENT APPROACH WILL HELP HER first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Hurricane Helene left a trail of destruction across North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida.

President Biden and Harris reacted by deploying 1,000 soldiers to support search and rescue operations and deliver essential commodities to the states, and had FEMA ship over 8.5 million meals, more than 7 million liters of water, 150 generators, and over 220,000 tarps to aid response efforts 

Biden also sent more than 4,800 personnel from the federal workforce to support state response efforts. And the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) established medical treatment sites at hospitals in North Carolina.

Restoring Power and Communications

Federal efforts to restore power cut the number of outages by 65% from its peak of 4.6 million. FEMA, the FCC, and private telecommunications providers are establishing temporary cell sites to allow roaming.

Financial Assistance

President Biden has approved Major Disaster declarations for North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Virginia, allowing individuals to apply for FEMA assistance.

Trump Tries to Capitalize Politically from Helene by Claiming Biden gets Poor Reviews

Yet Donald Trump is seeking to capitalize politically on the devastation by falsely claiming  that Biden and Harris “are universally being given POOR GRADES for the way that they’re handling the Hurricane, especially in North Carolina.”

Trump’s wrong. Biden’s response to the hurricane has received bipartisan praise from political leaders in affected states. Trump lied that Georgia GOP Gov. Kemp couldn’t get Biden on the phone, though Kemp said  that he had already spoken to Biden.

Praise from Republican governors

Republican governors in the states hit by Helene praised Biden’s response. Republican South Carolina Gov. McMaster said federal assistance had “been superb,” noting that Biden and Transportation Secretary Buttigieg called and told him to let them know whatever the state needed. “So we’re getting assistance, and we’re asking for everything we need,” said McMaster.

Republican Virginia Gov. Younkin said  “I’m incredibly appreciative of the rapid response and the cooperation from the federal team at FEMA.” He specifically thanked Biden, among others, in a press release.

Republican Tennessee Gov. Lee said  the response to his emergency declaration “was quick from the federal government.” At a Tuesday press conference, Lee spoke of a “rush” of federal officials to local emergency management agencies, local officials said, with tears in their eyes.

One would think that, if there ever were ever a time for bipartisan support of an all-out effort to help victims of a devastating multi-state disaster, as from the destruction caused by hurricane Helene, it would be now; but shamefully, not for Donald Trump.

The post Biden Administration Shines in Hurricane Helene Response Amid Trump Criticism first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, most voters in battleground states believe that former President Donald Trump would do more for the economy than President Biden in a second term.reflecting their belief in the Trump economy’s potential.

Polling Results and the Trump Economy

A new poll shows Trump leading in all swing states except Wisconsin (where Trump and Biden tie), with 56 percent of voters saying the former president would do a good job on the economy versus just 40 percent for Biden. 

The Reality of the Trump Economy

These voters are sadly mistaken. Trump’s first term and current policy proposals are dire warnings that a second round of Trumponomics would be devastating to everyday Americans. 

Trump Economy and Tax Cuts

Trump is promising to give big tax cuts to everybody, and to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But the truth is that his proposed tax cuts will benefit the wealthy at the expense of low- and middle-income Americans, and he will cut entitlements to cover any lost tax revenues. 

Historical Lessons from the Trump Economy

We’ve seen this movie before. In 2016, Trump promised his tax cuts would favor working- and middle-class Americans. The cuts he delivered, however, favored the wealthy, widened income inequality, and encouraged massive tax fraud (which Trump may view as normal practice, given his own bogus tax write-offs). 

Impact of Trump Economy on Income Distribution

By the time they expire next year, Trump’s tax cuts are projected to have boosted after-tax incomes of the top 1 percent of earners by 3 percent, to an average of $2.1 million. But they barely affect the bottom 60 percent of earners, increasing their 2025 incomes just 1 percent, to $41,800.

Long-Term Effects of Trump Economy on Tax Savings

By 2025, average tax savings will amount to just $70 for the bottom 20 percent of earners, $61,090 for the top 1 percent, and $252,300 for the top 0.1 percent. If extended to 2027, the tax cuts would actually make low- and middle-income earners worse off.

Trump Economy and Federal Debt

Trump promised his tax cuts would pay for themselves by generating robust economic growth. But that never happened, so they ended up adding between $1 trillion and $2 trillion to the federal debt. 

Entitlement Spending and the Trump Economy

Republican leaders blamed this on Democrats for borrowing too much, and they use this talking point to push for cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Trump himself signaled openness to cutting entitlements before walking his comments back and promising to protect them. But unlike the party elites, most rank-and-file Republican voters actually want to expand them. 

Fiscal Challenges and the Trump Economy

Rising entitlement spending isn’t our real fiscal problem. In fact, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office dramatically lowered its forecast for growth in healthcare costs. Our deficits are due primarily to Trump’s tax cuts. Extending them would add another $4.6 trillion to the federal debt, CBO found. 

Republican Proposals in the Trump Economy Era

Rather than confront that reality, the Republican Study Committee, which represents a majority of congressional Republicans, keeps proposing big cuts to Social Security. So when Trump vows to “never…hurt” entitlements, or that extending his tax cuts will benefit the majority of Americans and pay for themselves, voters would be ill-advised to believe him.  

Trump Economy and Tariff Impacts

Ditto for Trump’s claims about tariffs. He is threatening to slap new ones of at least 10 percent on the $3 trillion in goods we import annually. He insists exporting countries would pay for this, but it’s actually American consumers and businesses who would pay.

Effects of Tariffs in the Trump Economy

Universal 10 percent tariffs would cost U.S. households an average of $1,500 a year as companies raise prices to absorb them. They would trigger additional inflation, further increasing the cost of necessities like food, housing and healthcare, hitting working families hardest. And they’d endanger American jobs by hampering U.S. companies’ ability to compete. 

Trump Economy and Trade War Consequences

Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, for example, led to higher costs for U.S. manufacturers when Chinese suppliers cut their exports to the U.S. to avoid the tariffs. And when China switched to importing soybeans from the European Union, Argentina, Brazil and Russia, U.S. soybean exports plummeted by more than $10 billion. China also retaliated against Trump’s trade war by lowering tariffs on other trading partners to lure their imports away from the U.S.  

Donald Trump abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim economies including the U.S. and, importantly, excluding China. The TPP would have eliminated 18,000 tariffs on made-in-America exports including every type of U.S.-manufactured product and most agricultural products. It would also have imposed stronger labor and environmental standards on Asia’s state-owned enterprises, leveling the playing field with U.S. businesses, particularly small businesses, which make up 98 percent of U.S. exporters and employ millions of American workers. 

Walking away from the agreement made imported goods from Asia more expensive for Americans, hampered our exports to the southeast Asia, and hit Americans’ wallets, lowering average U.S. incomes by $131 billion through 2030.  

By scuttling the TPP, Trump ceded the field to China, which stepped in and replaced the U.S. with a Chinese-led trade agreement among 15 Asia‐Pacific countries, boosting trade among them and offering them greater access to China’s vast markets. That left Washington with fewer enticements to convince other countries to adopt U.S. trading rules.  

Such perverse tax and trade policies are likely to lead to a recession, which in Trump’s hands could spiral into depression. Tax cuts and extensive tariffs deepened the Great Depression. But in the 1920s the U.S. was a major creditor nation, with the flexibility to borrow and provide liquidity and stimulus. Today Republican tax cuts have driven U.S. debt to 116 percent of GDP, hobbling our ability to engineer our way out of a crisis. 

Unlike Presidents Bush and Obama, who tapped highly qualified leaders to manage the recovery from the 2008 recession, Trump will avoid anybody who isn’t a sycophant or who has the backbone to disagree with him. Instead he’ll hire enablers who are likely to preside over a new crisis and find ways to profit from it while the rest of the country suffers. It will fall hardest on low- and middle-income earners who haven’t shared in the wealth Trump’s tax cuts generated for elites.  

The post Mad about the economy? Blame Donald Trump. first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

Biden’s Credibility Problem with Biden Inflation

President Biden has a credibility problem he needs to solve. Instead of admitting that his American Rescue Plan (ARP) contributed to Biden inflation, he blames inflation on the pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and, most recently, what he called the Republican “ultra-MAGA agenda.” But voters aren’t buying it.: 64 percent of them including 46 percent of Democrats blame the President for the increased costs they experience every day.

ARP’s Impact on Biden Inflation

ARP pumped $1.9 trillion into the economy that boosted consumer spending and fueled inflation. Distributions were based on 2019 tax returns, so many who were unaffected by COVID received money to spend unrelated to pandemic losses.

Comparing Past Economic Relief Bills and Biden Inflation

Only after taking responsibility for his role in inflation will voters believe Biden when he identifies the causes that aren’t his fault. And there are plenty of those.

For example, Donald Trump’s Cares Act, the largest economic relief bill in U.S. history, dumped $2.2 trillion into the economy. Distributions were based on 2018 and 2019 returns — so, like ARP, checks went to many who didn’t suffer economic losses from COVID.

Global and Domestic Factors Contributing to Biden Inflation

Export curbs imposed by five countries were another cause of inflation, driving food prices up 30 percent from 2021 to 2022. Gas prices surged over last year as oil and gas demand outpaced production and consumers emerged from the pandemic to drive and fly more.

Labor Shortage and Biden Inflation Dynamics

The U.S. labor shortage has also contributed to inflation because it forces businesses to increase wages to attract and keep employees. The shortage has been aggravated by the lowest migration levels in decades. Labor force participation rates fell precipitously in 2020 from 63.4 percent to 60.2 percent and have yet to recover fully — they’re still circling 40-year lows. Meanwhile net migration to the United States dropped significantly due to Trump administration policies. 

Historical Price Surge Before Biden’s Presidency and Inflation

Household goods and food prices surged to their highest levels in a decade before Biden even took office.

Biden’s Economic Achievements Amid Biden Inflation

Clearly, such things are not Biden’s fault. But accepting responsibility for the inflationary pressures he did cause will give him the credibility and the pulpit to explain the economic good they did. For example, although ARP contributed to inflation, it also reduced overall poverty by 45 percent and child poverty by 56 percent in the US in 2021.

Employment and Economic Growth Under Biden and Inflation

When Biden took office the unemployment rate was 6.4 percent. By early May it fell to 3.6 percent, its lowest in 52 years. Unemployment is at record lows in 17 states. In May, the economy added 390,000 jobs and state unemployment benefits fell to their lowest since 1969.

 Impact of Immigration Policy on Perception of Biden Inflation

More than 10 percent of blue-collar workers have moved up to tech jobs and higher wages as companies waive the need for a college degree and train new hires — a talent upgrade not seen since the preparation for World War II.

Immigration Facts vs. Anti-Immigration Rhetoric and Biden Inflation

Taking some responsibility for inflation would also help Biden counter partisan attacks on his immigration policies. House Republicans frightened voters with accusations that immigrants crossing our southern border are criminals, sex offenders and rapists.

 Immigration and Biden Inflation: Law-Abiding Immigrants vs. Native-Born Americans

But the fact is, immigrants are more law-abiding than native-born Americans. In Texas, which has America’s second highest immigrant population, crime by illegal immigrants is 45 percent below that of native-born Americans. Crime by legal immigrants in Texas is 62 percent below that of native-born Americans. Nationally, legal immigrants are 74 percent less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. For illegal immigrants the number is 41 percent.

Title 42 Controversy and Biden Inflation: Trump’s Claims vs. Reality

Republicans also criticize Biden’s plan to lift Title 42, which empowers federal health authorities to stop migrants from entering the country when necessary to prevent the spread of disease. Trump used it to block hundreds of thousands of migrants from entering from Mexico, claiming that “tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border.”

Biden Inflation and Misconceptions About COVID-Infected Migrants

But epidemiologists, physicians and public health experts have debunked Trump’s claim as scientifically baseless and politically motivated, intended to block asylum seekers and return them to dangerous conditions. Their concerns were justified. Over 8,700 of these migrants were kidnapped, raped, or attacked after being returned to their countries of origin.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accused Biden of letting COVID-infected migrants pour over our southern border by the hundreds of thousands — when Florida’s COVID surge was due to the state’s low vaccination rates.

Nonetheless, anti-immigration rhetoric has misled voters: 45 percent of them, including just 22 percent of Republicans, believe immigrants “help the country.” This is a misconception Democrats need to correct. In general, immigrants are a highly entrepreneurial group. They are 80 percent more likely to start businesses than native-born Americans, and they launch new companies at twice the rate. In fact, immigration boosts economic growth, increases job opportunities and wages for native-born Americans, and expands the middle class. 

Trump claimed immigrants “compete … against … American workers” and that cutting back legal immigration would “boost wages and … open jobs … to American workers.” Yet, 14 leading economists found immigration has little or no negative effects on overall wages or hiring of native-born workers. Most Americans agree: 77 percent say undocumented immigrants mostly fill jobs U.S. citizens don’t want. There were 11.4 million job openings through May, rivaling the record job opportunity in 2000.

Biden has many economic achievements to tout. But they aren’t resonating with voters because he hasn’t owned his results. If, however, he takes a measure of responsibility for inflation instead of deflecting it, he could gain enough credibility to shift the spotlight onto the remarkable strengths he’s created for the economy.

The post If Biden owned his contribution to inflation, he’d have credibility on his achievements first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

The Urgent Need for Biden and NATO to Act in Ukraine

Putin’s expected spring offensive has begun in Ukraine. If Russia conquers, U.S. efforts will be viewed as another defeat in a string of lost wars. NATO will have allowed Russia to subjugate a European neighbor, slaughter thousands of its civilians, decimate its infrastructure, and establish a sinister presence on the continent. Europe will live in fear of further Russian incursions powered by Putin’s nuclear threats. Biden and NATO will be blamed for prolonging Ukraine’s agony by doing too little for too long. The U.S. will be blamed for failing to protect its European allies. The grudge will not easily heal.

Challenges Facing Biden and NATO in Ukraine

Views differ as to the outcome of the war, whether Russia wins, loses, compromises or persists indefinitely. But there’s plenty to worry about.

While Russia’s military hardware is aging, it’s still plentiful. While Ukraine has superior materiel and competent, motivated fighters, Russia’s expected call-up of 500,000 troops can negate those advantages. Meanwhile the pipeline of advanced weapons to Ukraine is slowing. The U.S. won’t send F-16 fighters or missiles and jets that can reach Russian territory.

 U.S. Support for Ukraine: Biden and NATO’s Uncertain Commitment

Continued U.S. support of Ukraine is not certain. Some Republican lawmakers oppose it. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) said he doesn’t much care what happens to Ukraine. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) voted against another $40 billion in aid, saying, “we have no business getting involved in another war.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) insisted, “not another penny will go to Ukraine.” Other Republicans question the amount of proposed aid.

A majority of Republican voters (53 percent) don’t see Ukraine as America’s responsibility and worry we’re doing too much. Opposition will grow as the predicted long war unfolds, spending increases, and Ukraine’s chances of victory fade.

Putin’s Popularity and Its Impact on Biden and NATO Strategy

By contrast, a credible international polling firm found 82 percent of Russians support Putin, and most support his war in Ukraine (U.S.-based FiveThirtyEight put the number at 58 percent). The poll factored in fear of reprisals and Putin’s massive disinformation campaign.

The results are consistent with prior invasions. Putin’s ratings rose to 84 percent during the second war in Chechnya and to 88 percent after he annexed Crimea. He has convinced his supporters that Russia is under siege, that the West is to blame for shortages, inflation, and the war’s escalation, and that he’s liberating Ukraine from “neo-Nazis.”

The Economic Strain on Russia and the Need for Biden and NATO Action

So, Russians stick with Putin despite their considerable economic pain.

Russia’s deficit hit nearly $25 Billion, 14 times higher than a year ago. Russians are experiencing shortages of goods and hobbled services, from slower internet speeds to shuttered crematoriums. A thousand companies have reportedly closed or left Russia, taking with them capital, technology, and expertise, leaving office and retail vacancies behind. Price caps imposed by the West sent oil prices plummeting 40 percent below the global benchmark of $80 a barrel to around $50. Slowing imports of parts has decimated Russian rail and auto production. Auto production fell by 67 percent, the lowest on record. Car and passenger train wagon exports declined by 96.7 percent and 59.8 percent respectively.

But Russians are more able than Westerners to endure the hardships of a long war. They’ve had worse, tolerating perpetual repression and suffering going back to Stalin, and more recently the 1998 and 2008 financial crises and the COVID pandemic. None of it unraveled Russia’s political structure.

Crimean Consensus” and Biden and NATO’s Response

The “Crimean consensus” holds that Russians are willing to endure hardship to recreate a Russian-led Eurasian empire. To counter it, the West needs to be more aggressive, even if it means testing Putin’s nuclear threat.

Opinions differ as to how seriously to take that threat. Putin has made them before. Some believe he won’t push the button for fear of provoking World War III. If he used nuclear weapons, he and his oligarchs would lose their 300 billion euros in foreign accounts, access to the international banking system, and their lives of luxury. Putin’s political support would disintegrate as radioactive fallout spread across Russia.

 Biden and NATO: The Escalating Risk of Nuclear Warfare

Leon Panetta wrote last October that the risk of Russia using nuclear weapons rose from 1 or 5 percent at the start of the Ukraine invasion to 20 or 25 percent. Could it go yet higher as the war drags on? Volodymyr Zelensky’s office rates the likelihood as “very high.” Biden has worried openly that Russia using tactical nukes in Ukraine could lead to “Armageddon.” Putin has said Russia would use nuclear weapons only to respond to a first strike by another country, yet he has also warned if Russia’s “territorial integrity” is threatened, “we will certainly use all the means at our disposal” to protect Russia and referred to his vast nuclear arsenal.

Biden and NATO’s Reluctance: Understanding the Threat

This certainly explains Biden’s reluctance to provide Ukraine with weapons that could reach Russian territory. But perhaps he has taken Putin’s threat too seriously and given him the result he wanted.

Biden and NATO’s Strategy: The Crimea Dilemma

Former Military Director for European Affairs Alexander Vindman urges that Ukraine can and should recapture strategically important Crimea. But it’s doubtful that Biden or NATO would supply the hundreds of military vehicles or the troops needed, for fear of “heading down the road toward a third world war.” An analyst with the American Enterprise Institute called this fear “almost pathological.”

Biden and NATO: The Implications of a Russian Victory

If Russia prevails in Ukraine without having to confront the West’s full military might, troops included, it could embolden Putin to invade NATO members Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Like Ukraine, they were formerly part of the Soviet Union and are home to many ethnic Russians. All three fear an invasion is likely.

 The U.S. Commitment to NATO: Biden’s Crucial Decision

Biden assured them that the U.S. would “deploy additional forces to defend them.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised them “The U.S. commitment to NATO’s mutual defense pact is sacrosanct.” Not honoring that commitment would be reputationally disastrous for the U.S.

Biden and NATO’s Commitment: The Risk of Nuclear Tensions

Honoring it comes with the risks of heightening nuclear tensions and will face voter opposition: 60 percent of Americans generally support sending troops to defend NATO members, but support varies depending on which member is attacked. Only 35 percent support using military force to defend Latvia and Croatia. Less than half support a direct military confrontation in all other NATO members except the Germany, France and Great Britain.

The Importance of Biden and NATO’s Immediate Action

But as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned, “to avoid confrontation with Russia in the future is to help Ukraine push back the invader now … If this lesson is ignored and Ukraine is defeated, Russia will almost certainly … attack NATO member countries.”

And that would mean U.S. troops on the ground, fighting Russians — somewhere.

Biden and NATO’s Strategic Decision to Aid Ukraine

To prevent this, Biden should change his mind and send the necessary weapons and troops to defeat Russia in Ukraine.

The post Biden and NATO should do what it takes to stop Putin in Ukraine first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.

The Need for Pro-immigration Policy in the U.S.

Republican Attorneys General have been relentless in trying to block President Biden from allowing immigrants to remain in the U.S. — but the country needs more immigrants to ease its labor shortage, slow wage inflation, increase economic growth, and create more jobs.

How Pro-immigration Policy Can Boost Economic Growth

Even if it passed, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act currently stuck the Senate wouldn’t admit more working-age immigrants. The Biden administration should adopt new policies that do. Not only would it be good for the economy, it could also engender voter support and help preserve Democratic majorities in Congress.

The Impact of Trump’s Policies on Immigration Benefits

Biden’s current “fair and humane” approach to immigration is not resonating with voters. Democrats are being excoriated by Republicans for being too progressive and by their own party for not being progressive enough.

Voter opposition to Biden’s plan to lift Title 42, which empowers the administration to block immigrants from entering the U.S. to prevent the spread of disease, reflects strong voter resistance to admitting more immigrants. 

Hostile immigration policies and false rhetoric during the Trump administration effectively stifled immigration, which had already been falling since 1995. In 2019, even before the pandemic hit, aggressive enforcement brought immigration from Mexico to a halt. The result was zero growth in working-age immigrants, down from an average of 660,000 in the preceding years.

Why Immigration Benefits Are Crucial for Labor Shortages

The Biden administration needs to debunk baseless denigration of immigrants to get voter support for a more pro-immigration policy. In March of 2020, Trump stopped hundreds of thousands of migrants from entering from Mexico by falsely claiming that “tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border.” Trump’s allegation that immigrants are “criminals” was a lie. In fact, the incidence of crime among immigrants is substantially below that of native-born Americans.

And — contrary to another Trump claim — immigrants don’t steal American jobs. In fact, they create more jobs than they take.

The Role of Pro-immigration Policy in Supporting Healthcare

The Trump administration took over 400 executive actions to reduce immigration. Those actions, combined with his denigration of immigrants, resulted in the lowest inflow of immigrants from Mexico (around 200,000) on record since 1960. In the previous decade, about 1 million immigrants a year came to the U.S. Under Trump’s presidency, that number dropped to around 250,000. By the end of 2021, the net immigration to the U.S. hit its lowest level in decades.

Immigrants respond more aggressively to labor demand than low-skilled native-born Americans, so immigration helps ease labor shortages. Studies show that U.S. cities with higher populations of Mexican-born immigrants suffered 50 percent smaller labor shocks than other metro areas. Low immigration engineered by Trump prevented immigrants from easing the current labor shortage. 

How Immigration Benefits Contribute to Economic Stability

Labor shortages worsened when the economy began to recover from the pandemic in 2021. As the number of jobs rose, employers found it harder to fill them due to the scarcity of immigrants. Sectors that employ the most foreign workers had significantly higher rates of job vacancies in 2021.

Despite rising wages, the number of unfilled jobs in the U.S. remains high. Overall, employers advertised 11.4 million jobs at the end of April, 2022, or nearly two job openings for every unemployed person — the second highest level in 20 years.

But by the end of 2021, there were about 2 million fewer working-age immigrants in the U.S. to fill those openings. About a million of them would have been college-educated and could have taken high-skilled jobs that stimulate innovation, boost productivity and grow the economy. High-skilled jobs also have a multiplier effect, generating up to 2.5 additional jobs in their local economies for each employed high-skilled worker. Immigrants are also three times more likely than U.S-born workers to start their own businesses. Two million fewer immigrants translates into fewer new businesses and more than 200,000 fewer jobs.

Reframing the Immigration Debate: Pro-immigration Policy vs. Republican Claims

In recent decades, immigrants have been responsible for most of the U.S. population growth, which is necessary to keep Medicare and Social Security solvent. 

Cutting immigration has tangible health consequences for seniors. Immigrants supply a large share of the growing demand for healthcare workers for the elderly. One in five nurses and one in four health aides is an immigrant. Think of where we would have been without them when COVID 19 overran our hospitals. Recent research shows that a 10 percent increase in the foreign-born labor force reduces the number of falls among nursing home residents by 35 percent.

Immigrants pay their fair share of taxes, and then some. They send more money to the government than they receive in benefits and pay about 15.4 percent of total government tax revenues, while they represent only 14.8 percent of all U.S. households. 

Democrats have lost the messaging wars to Republicans on nearly every issue. But given the many benefits of accepting more immigrants, one still wonders why they’re losing the messaging war on immigration.

Framing a compelling pro-immigration policy and clear and convincing messaging about its benefits, especially immigration benefits, could enable Democrats to seize the issue from Republicans and convince voters that more immigration, not less, is in their best interest.

The post Why Biden and Democrats should double down on pro-immigration policy first appeared on Inside The Political Chaos.