The Economy is Strong Due to Democrats

 No one likes inflation, I certainly don’t like that my grocery bill has gone up $40 or so per week in the last 5 or 6 years. Having said that many have gotten pay increases that either cover the difference are at least significantly reduce the impact. The fact is that those on the lower end of the wage spectrum have gotten the greatest increases. The reason for that is increased demand for workers.

During the Biden administration, not only is unemployment near historically low levels but overall employment is way up because the labor force has grown to meet demand. The growth is due to people who had given up looking for a job or retired coming back into the labor market, in addition there are more immigrants with work permits employed as well.

If you still want to gripe about the price of goods consider that Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods are paid by consumers, meaning you and me. Tariffs are essentially a surcharge added to the cost of goods purchased by U.S. businesses from Chinese businesses. Unless the seller chooses to lower their price to absorb the charge in order to maintain market share the buyer has to pay more for the goods and while they too could absorb the increase rather than pass it on to you and me when we ultimately buy those goods in the stores they rarely do. You can tell that U.S. businesses haven’t absorbed the tariff costs because the prices for Chinese goods have gone up and U.S. corporate profits are at record levels. Trump’s tariffs are coming out of our pockets not China’s. Does that remind you of Trump’s border wall that “Mexico will pay for”? It should because as usual he lied.

When I was in college as a business major it was made very clear that free trade lowered costs for consumers. Apparently that lesson didn’t stick in Trump’s small brain. Trump’s latest pandering on economic issues is his supposed plan to make auto loan interest tax deductible like home mortgages. While that sound nice at first glance, the reality is that 90% of U.S. taxpayers don’t itemize their taxes so most car buyers won’t be able to take advantage of that deduction. Those earning more than $100,000 per year are much more likely to do itemize and even then only about 10% do. Like many of Trump’s tax policies the people who really get to take advantage are the ones already quite wealthy.

The Federal Reserve has done a remarkably good job of driving down inflation while maintaining a strong job market. Yes, mortgage interest rates are still higher than they were for the previous 20 odd years but that was actually a historically low period. Even a year ago when mortgage rates reached the recent high of over 7% that’s still significantly lower than the rates seen from 1973 to 2000. For the last years mortgage rates have been trending down again and now stand around 6.3%. The strong Biden economy continues on with more Americans enjoying the benefits of decent wages and the purchasing power that comes with those wages. Kamala Harris has proposed economic policies that are at least as strong as Joe Biden’s and with momentum of the economy suggests that between Americans can look forward to continued improvement in their living standards. 

Early voting starts Tuesday next week, vote Kamala Harris for president, Colin Allred for U.S. Senate and all the Democrats if you want to see a continually improving economy.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 16, 2024

Colin Allred A Better Choice

 I hear independent voters as well as those who claim to be moderate Republican voters complain about border security and blame the Biden administration and Democrats for the number of migrants crossing the Mexican border into the United States. Oddly enough they seem to already have forgotten that earlier this year there was a bi-partisan border security bill written by a hard line Republican that passed the House by a significant margin and seemed as though it would pass in the Senate until Donald Trump told Republicans to kill the bill. Ted Cruz and his Republican colleagues went along with Trump and the bill failed leaving Texas and other border states without the Border Patrol agents, immigration judges, and other staff as well as facilities needed to stem the flow of people seeking asylum.

Mr. Trump’s goal was to provide himself with an issue that he could blame on President Biden, and now VP Kamala Harris. If Trump truly wanted to secure the border all he had to do was stay out of the way. If Ted Cruz was the centrist he professes to be in his most recent advertising in which he claims to work with both sides of the aisle he could have taken a leadership role and urged his colleagues to ignore Trump and pass the border security bill. The fact that Cruz didn’t step up says he doesn’t really care about border security or Texas.

Recently the American Medical Association reported that 26,000 women became pregnant after being raped in Texas and not a single one was allowed to have an abortion. Ted Cruz shares responsibility with Gov. Abbott and the Texas legislature for the fact that those 26,000 Texas women were forced to give birth to their rapist’s child since the Supreme Court overturned the right of women to choose how to care for their own bodies less than 2 years ago. Cruz was one of the senators who voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, a man who has been accused of sexual assault, to the Supreme Court and Kavanaugh is among the right wing justices who then overturned Roe v. Wade enabling Texas to prohibit abortions in nearly all instances including rape.

Among Ted Cruz’s other questionable “achievements” was the 2013 government shutdown that lasted 16 days and put 800,000 federal employees out of work. It also cost an untold number of contract workers and those employed by businesses in national parks and other federal properties out of work and those folks never recouped their losses. Speaking of national parks tens of thousands of vacationers had their long planned trips ruined when the parks were forced to close. If Cruz had caused the shutdown over some important principle his action might be seen as honorable but it was a temper tantrum over the Affordable Care Act which he compared to the oppression of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. How he got oppression out of an effort to assure that everyone who needs it can get the healthcare they need is beyond me.

In 2018 Cruz pulled out a narrow victory over Beto O’Rourke to win his second term in the senate. This term is opponent is Colin Allred, a civil rights lawyer and 3 term member of the United States House of Representatives since defeating Republican Pete Sessions in 2018. Allred has made further expanding access to healthcare a hallmark of this time in congress and vows to continue his work on the issue.

Starting on October 21 when early voting begins you have the opportunity to forcibly retire Ted Cruz by voting for Colin Allred.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 9, 2024

Texas Abortion Law Kills Mothers

 In October 2021, shortly after Texas passed the SB 8 abortion law Kaitlyn Kash, 37, of Austin was 13 weeks into her second pregnancy when she was told by her doctor that the fetus had a rare genetic disorder affecting bone and cartilage growth. “We were told that his bones would break in utero and he would suffocate at birth,” Kash said in an interview. “We were expecting our doctor to tell us how we were going to care for our baby, how we were going to end his pain.” Instead “We were told that we should get a second opinion, but make sure that it was outside of Texas”.

In August 2022 Amanda Zurawski of Austin was carrying her first child, she and her husband were thrilled until there were complications then they learned that although there was no chance the child would survive and it was likely she would suffer an infection she would have to carry the fetus until she either expelled it on her own or she became so sick it threatened her life. Afraid to travel out of state to get an abortion since her water could break at any time and she might not be able to get to a doctor in time she stayed in Texas. When she began running a temperature of 105 and couldn't stop shivering in the summer heat her husbad took her to the hospital but they still didn't perform an abortion until much later and by that time the sepsis infection had damaged her reproductive system so badly that she may never be able to give birth.

According to a investigation by the New Yorker magazine Yeniifer Alvarez of Luling, Texas who died in 2022 would likely be alive today as all indications are that SB8 tied the hands of the doctors caring for her until it was too late to save her. Kate Cox, Kristen Anaya, and Elizabeth Weller along with many other women have also suffered and continue to suffer life threatening health emergencies under Texas’ draconian abortion ban.

Of course all those horror stories are anecdotes, they’re just here to give you a taste of what the statistics from Centers for Disease Control mean in the lives of Texas women. CDC data for 2019 to 2022 show that Texas has experienced a 56% increase in maternal mortality during that time and it’s pretty clear that the cause of that is the Republican passed SB8. Nationwide maternal mortality has only increased 11% and without states like Texas and much of the south where similar abortion bans are in place there would have been decrease nationally.

Dr. Donna Campbell, representing Senate District 25 in the Texas Senate is an emergency room physician. She is one of the Republicans who pushed SB8 through the state legislature. She had plenty of opportunity to address the problems with the bill both before it was originally passed and then in the following session 2 years later. She failed her constituents and all Texas women twice. Current law says that an abortion isn’t legal once a fetal heart beat is recognized, about 6 weeks after conception. What it fails to include is that when there is no longer a heart beat the prohibition is removed. The current language means that Texas women have to carry around a rotting carcass in their uterus until they are sick enough for a doctor to risk their license to practice medicine and prison time.

Starting October 21 you can retire Donna Campbell by electing Merrie Fox for Texas Senate.

Published in the Seguin Gazette - October 2, 2024