Democrat, liberal, and progressive economic policies can be summed up in one sentence: Big government, high taxes, and massive regulations.

Here is an excellent opinion piece by Nicole Russell at USA Today via Yahoo News that sums up the huge problems with California’s economy:

Gov. Newsom and California show why liberals can't be trusted with the economy

California’s booming economy has taken a hit lately, thanks to liberal policies that have taken root. Things like tax hikes, hefty regulations and policies were progressive but failed to produce positive outcomes. According to The Economist, ‘The state faces three overlapping challenges: rising unemployment, growing fiscal strains and population outflows.’

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There are a few indicators of where the state’s economy is heading. The cost of high gas and housing prices are ushering in an affordability crisis. California now has the highest unemployment rate in the country. That’s more than a million unemployed workers.

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In California, state and local government revenues and spending were 60% higher than Texas on a per-resident basis. California has the country’s highest top marginal individual income tax rate, while Texas has no individual income tax (property taxes are higher in Texas though).

‘State and local governments in California and Texas spent $638 billion and $291 billion, respectively, in the 2019 fiscal year, which represented $16,105 and $10,024 per resident,; the report reads.

California thinks a larger taxpayer-subsidized government is the answer to their residents’ problems; Texas wouldn’t presume that.

The highest unemployment rates in the U.S. are in Nevada, California, Washington D.C., New Jersey, and Illinois. What do they have in common?  They are all almost wholly run by Democrats!

The public was constantly told how great the Obama-Biden administration was and how its policies brought the country back from the great recession. The problem with that statement is it is demonstrably not true.

The economy came out of the recession in June of 2009 before Obama’s policies could have had much effect, if any.

The economy came back from the brink substantially because of three things that happened before Obama and Biden took office: 

The first was TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which were loans to help financial institutions work through a massive liquidity crisis.

Unlike the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act that handed out massive amounts of money to green pushers, TARP were loans that were mostly paid back. The government actually made a profit on TARP; from CNN:

The U.S. government essentially closed the books on TARP with a $15.3 billion profit.

The second was when George Bush opened drilling because the spike in crude oil prices was destroying the purchasing power of everyone, especially the poor and middle classes. By January 2009, the price of crude had dipped almost 80%, to $35 per barrel. This gave Americans, and people throughout the world, a massive improvement in their financial condition. It had absolutely nothing to do with Obama and Biden.

And the third reason the economy recovered was because the Federal Reserve massively dropped interest rates.

The truth about the Obama and Biden years is that we had the slowest economic recovery in seventy years. That is pathetic after a deep recession.

Obama’s claim to fame was Obamacare, a policy which stripped people’s freedom of choice—as a result, prices have skyrocketed for 14 years. And after 14 years, only around seven percent of Americans are covered by Obamacare, despite a massive increase in subsidies and expanding eligibility. Is that really something to brag about?

Contrast the results of Obama and Biden vs. Trump’s first three years, before America and the world were decimated by a virus that originated in China.

Trump’s policies of lower tax rates, fewer regulations, and energy independence kept inflation low and yielded great results, especially for the poor and middle classes, and all minorities:

Incomes Hit a Record High and Poverty Reached a Record Low in 2019

Real median household income increased by $4,400 in 2019, reaching an all-time record high of $68,700. This represents a 6.8 percent one-year increase, which is the largest one-year increase in median income on record. Since 2016, real median household income has increased by 9.7 percent (after adjusting for a Census survey redesign in 2017).

Income gains in 2019 were largest for minority groups. Real median income grew by 7.9 percent for black Americans, 7.1 percent for Hispanic Americans, and 10.6 percent for Asian Americans (see Figure 1). These one-year increases were all record highs, and the new income levels reached in 2019 were all record highs, as well.

Biden, with the help of a compliant media, continues to lie that he inherited a disastrous economy, which is clearly false. The recession was the shortest ever. It only lasted for two months (March and April of 2020), when at the advice of Dr. Fauci, the government forcibly closed much of the economy. By the time Biden took office the economy was humming. The economy had already recovered 13.4 million of the 20.7 million jobs that were lost. They grew at a record average of 1.7 million jobs per month for the last eight months of Trump, much faster than the numbers about which Biden brags.

Inflation also stayed below 2% throughout 2020, despite all the supply problems.

Then Biden took over and he followed up on his pledge to destroy the oil industry and continued to hand out government money like candy and inflation took off, decimating the poor and middle classes.

It would be nice if the media reported facts instead of campaigning for Democrats and regurgitating talking points.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license, no attribution required.